The man at last broke the silence, saying,—
“I need not impress upon your Imperial Highness the necessity for discretion in this matter. To betray your knowledge of the affair would be to betray me.”
“Trust me,” was her answer. “I know how to keep a secret, and I am not likely to forget this important service you have rendered me.”
“My only regret is that I was unable to approach you months ago, when I first made the discovery. Your Highness would have then been able to avoid the pitfalls constantly set for you,” the man said meaningly.
The Princess Claire bit her lip. She knew to what he referred. She had been foolish, ah yes; very foolish. And he dare not be more explicit.
“Yes,” she sighed. “I know—I know to what you refer. But surely we need not discuss it. Even though I am Crown Princess, I am a woman, after all.”
“I beg your Highness’s pardon,” he exclaimed quickly, fearing that she was annoyed.
“There is nothing to pardon,” was her reply. “You are my friend, and speak to me in my own interests. For that I thank you. Only—only—” she added, “all that you’ve just told me is such a startling revelation. My eyes are opened now. I see the dastardly ingenuity of it all. I know why my husband—”
But she checked herself instantly. No. However ill-treated she had been she would preserve her secret. She would not complain to a commoner at risk of her domestic infelicity going forth to her people.
It was true that within a year of marriage he had thrown her down in her room and kicked her in one of his paroxysms of temper. He had struck her blows innumerable; but she had borne all in patience, and De Trauttenberg had discovered dark marks upon her white shoulders which she had attributed to a fall upon the ice. She saw now the reason of his estrangement; how his sycophants had poisoned his mind against her because they feared her.