Clementina Page 4

  CHAPTER IV

  M. Chateaudoux, the chamberlain, was a little portly person with around, red face like a cherub's. He was a creature of the house, onethat walked with delicate steps, a conductor of ceremonies, an expert inthe subtleties of etiquette; and once he held his wand of office in hishand, there was nowhere to be found a being so precise andconsequential. But out of doors he had the timidity of a cat. He lived,however, by rule and rote, and since it had always been his habit totake the air between three and four of the afternoon, he was to be seenbetween those hours at Innspruck on any fine day mincing along theavenue of trees before the villa in which his mistress was heldprisoner.

  On one afternoon during the month of October he passed a hawker, who,tired with his day's tramp, was resting on a bench in the avenue, andwho carried upon his arm a half-empty basket of cheap wares. The man wasragged; his toes were thrusting through his shoes; it was evident thathe wore no linen, and a week's growth of beard dirtily stubbled hischin,--in a word, he was a man from whom M. Chateaudoux's prim soulpositively shrank. M. Chateaudoux went quickly by, fearing to bepestered for alms. The hawker, however, remained seated upon the bench,drawing idle patterns upon the gravel with a hazel stick stolen from ahedgerow.

  The next afternoon the hawker was in the avenue again, only this time ona bench at the opposite end; and again he paid no heed to M.Chateaudoux, but sat moodily scraping the gravel with his stick.

  On the third afternoon M. Chateaudoux found the hawker seated in themiddle of the avenue and over against the door of the guarded villa. M.Chateaudoux, when his timidity slept, was capable of good nature. Therewas a soldier with a loaded musket in full view. The hawker, besides,had not pestered him. He determined to buy some small thing,--a mirror,perhaps, which was always useful,--and he approached the hawker, who forhis part wearily flicked the gravel with his stick and drew a curve hereand a line there until, as M. Chateaudoux stopped before the bench,there lay sketched at his feet the rude semblance of a crown. The stickswept over it the next instant and left the gravel smooth.

  But M. Chateaudoux had seen, and his heart fluttered and sank. For herewere plots, possibly dangers, most certainly trepidations. He turned hisback as though he had seen nothing, and constraining himself to a slowpace walked towards the door of the villa. But the hawker was now at hisside, whining in execrable German and a strong French accent theremarkable value of his wares. There were samplers most exquisitelyworked, jewels for the most noble gentleman's honoured sweetheart, andpurses which emperors would give a deal to buy. Chateaudoux was urged totake notice that emperors would give sums to lay a hand on the hawker'spurses.

  M. Chateaudoux pretended not to hear.

  "I want nothing," he said, "nothing in the world;" and he repeated thestatement in order to drown the other's voice.

  "A purse, good gentleman," persisted the hawker, and he dangled onebefore Chateaudoux's eyes. Not for anything would Chateaudoux take thatpurse.

  "Go away," he cried; "I have a sufficiency of purses, and I will not beplagued by you."

  They were now at the steps of the villa, and the sentry, lifting thebutt of his musket, roughly thrust the hawker back.

  "What have you there? Bring your basket here," said he; and toChateaudoux's consternation the hawker immediately offered the purse tothe sentinel.

  "It is only the poor who have kind hearts," he said; "here's the properpurse for a soldier. It is so hard to get the money out that a man issaved an ocean of drink."

  The hawker's readiness destroyed any suspicions the sentinel may havefelt.

  "Go away," he said, "quick!"

  "You will buy the purse?"

  The sentinel raised his musket again.

  "Then the kind gentleman will," said the hawker, and he thrust the purseinto M. Chateaudoux's reluctant hand. Chateaudoux could feel within thepurse a folded paper. He was committed now without a doubt, and in anextreme alarm he flung a coin into the roadway and got him into thehouse. The sentinel carelessly dropped the butt of his musket on thecoin.

  "Go," said he, and with a sudden kick he lifted the hawker half acrossthe road. The hawker happened to be Charles Wogan, who took a littlematter like that with the necessary philosophy. He picked himself up andlimped off.

  Now the next day a remarkable thing happened. M. Chateaudoux swervedfrom the regularity of his habits. He walked along the avenue, it istrue; but at the end of it he tripped down a street and turned out ofthat into another which brought him to the arcades. He did not appear toenjoy his walk; indeed, any hurrying footsteps behind startled himexceedingly and made his face turn white and red, and his body hot andcold. However, he proceeded along the arcades to the cathedral, which heentered; and just as the clock struck half-past three, in a dark corneropposite to the third of the great statues he drew his handkerchief fromhis pocket.

  The handkerchief flipped out a letter which fell onto the ground. In thegloom it was barely visible; and M. Chateaudoux walked on, apparentlyunconscious of his loss. But a comfortable citizen in a snuff-colouredsuit picked it up and walked straight out of the cathedral to the GoldenFleece Inn in the Hochstrasse, where he lodged. He went up into his roomand examined the letter. It was superscribed "To M. Chateaudoux," andthe seal was broken. Nevertheless, the finder did not scruple to readit. It was a love-letter to the little gentleman from one Friederika.

  "I am heart-broken," wrote Friederika, "but my fidelity to myChateaudoux has not faltered, nor will not, whatever I may be calledupon to endure. I cannot, however, be so undutiful as to accept myChateaudoux's addresses without my father's consent; and my mother, whois of the same mind with me, insists that even with that consent arunaway marriage is not to be thought of unless my Chateaudoux canprovide me with a suitable woman for an attendant."

  These conditions fulfilled, Friederika was willing to follow herChateaudoux to the world's end. The comfortable citizen in thesnuff-coloured suit sat for some while over that letter with a strangelight upon his face and a smile of great happiness. The comfortablecitizen was Charles Wogan, and he could dissociate the obstructions ofthe mother from the willingness of the girl.

  The October evening wove its veils from the mountain crests across thevalleys; the sun and the daylight had gone from the room before Wogantore that letter up and wrote another to the Chevalier at Bologna,telling him that the Princess Clementina would venture herself gladly ifhe could secure the consent of Prince Sobieski, her father. And the nextmorning he drove out in a carriage towards Ohlau in Silesia.

  It was as the Chevalier Warner that he had first journeyed thither tosolicit for his King the Princess Clementina's hand. Consequently heused the name again. Winter came upon him as he went; the snow gatheredthick upon the hills and crept down into the valleys, encumbering hispath. The cold nipped his bones; he drove beneath great clouds andthrough a stinging air, but of these discomforts he was not sensible.For the mission he was set upon filled his thoughts and ran like a feverin his blood. He lay awake at nights inventing schemes of evasion, andeach morning showed a flaw, and the schemes crumbled. Not that his faithfaltered. At some one moment he felt sure the perfect plan, swift andsecret, would be revealed to him, and he lived to seize the moment. Thepeople with whom he spoke became as shadows; the inns where he restedwere confused into a common semblance. He was like a man in a trance,seeing ever before his eyes the guarded villa at Innspruck, and behindthe walls, patient and watchful, the face of the chosen woman; so thatit was almost with surprise that he looked down one afternoon from thebrim of a pass in the hills and saw beneath him, hooded with snow, theroofs and towers of Ohlau.

  At Ohlau Wogan came to the end of his luck. From the moment when hepresented his letter he was aware of it. The Prince was broken by hishumiliation and the sufferings of his wife and daughter. He was eveninclined to resent them at the expense of the Chevalier, for in hiswelcome to Wogan there was a measure of embarrassment. His shoulders,which had before been erect, now stooped, his eyes were veiled, the firehad burnt out in him; he was an old man visibly ageing to his grave. Heread the letter and re-read it.

  "No," said he, impatiently; "I must now think of my daughter. Herdignity and her birth forbid that she should run like a criminal in fearof capture, and at the peril very likely of her life, to a king who,after all, is as yet without a crown." And then seeing Wogan flush atthe words, he softened them. "I frankly say to you, Mr. Warner, that Iknow no one to whom I would sooner entrust my daughter than yourself,were I persuaded to this project. But it is doomed to fail. It wouldmake us the laughing-stock of Europe, and I ask you to forget it. Do youfancy the Emperor guards my daughter so ill that you, single-handed, cantake her from beneath his hand?"

  "Your Highness, I shall choose some tried friends to help me."

  "There is no single chance of success. I ask you to forget it and topass your Christmas here as my very good friend. The sight is longer inage, Mr. Warner, than in youth, and I see far enough now to know thatthe days of Don Quixote are dead. Here is a matter where all Europe isranged and alert on one side or the other. You cannot practise secrecy.At Ohlau your face is known, your incognito too. Mr. Warner came toOhlau once before, and the business on which he came is commonknowledge. The motive of your visit now, which I tell you openly is verygrateful to me, will surely be suspected."

  Wogan had reason that night to acknowledge the justice of the Prince'sargument. He accepted his hospitality, thinking that with time he wouldpersuade him to allow the attempt; and after supper, while makingriddles in verse to amuse some of the ladies of the court, one of them,the Countess of Berg, came forward from a corner where she had been busywith pencil and paper and said, "It is our turn now. Here, Mr. Warner,is an acrostic which I ask you to solve for me." And with a smile whichheld a spice of malice she handed him the pap
er. Upon it there were tenrhymed couplets. Wogan solved the first four, and found that the initialletters of the words were C, L, E, M. The answer to the acrostic was"Clementina." Wogan gave the paper back.

  "I can make neither head nor tail of it," said he. "The attempt isbeyond my powers."

  "Ah," said she, drily, "you own as much? I would never have believed youwould have owned it."

  "But what is the answer?" asked a voice at which Wogan started.

  "The answer," replied the Countess, "is Mary, Queen of Scots, who wasmost unjustly imprisoned in Fotheringay," and she tore the paper intotiny pieces.

  Wogan turned towards the voice which had so startled him and saw thegossamer lady whom he had befriended on the road from Florence. At oncehe rose and bowed to her.

  "I should have presented you before to my friend, Lady Featherstone,"said the Countess, "but it seems you are already acquainted."

  "Indeed, Mr. Warner did me a great service at a pinch," said LadyFeatherstone. "He was my postillion, though I never paid him, as I donow in thanks."

  "Your postillion!" cried one or two of the ladies, and they gatheredabout the great stove as Lady Featherstone told the story of Wogan'scharioting.

  "I bade him hurry," said she, "and he outsped my bidding. Never wasthere a postillion so considerately inconsiderate. I was tossed like atennis ball, I was one black bruise, I bounced from cushion to cushion;and then he drew up with a jerk, sprang off his horse, vanished into ahouse and left me, panting and dishevelled, a twist of torn ribbons andlace, alone in my carriage in the streets of Bologna."

  "Bologna. Ah!" said the Countess, with a smile of significance at Wogan.

  Wogan was looking at Lady Featherstone. His curiosity, thrust into theback of his mind by the more important matter of his mission nowrevived. What had been this lady's business who travelled alone toBologna and in such desperate haste?

  "Your Ladyship, I remember," he said, "gave me to understand that youwere sorely put to it to reach Bologna."

  Her Ladyship turned her blue eyes frankly upon Wogan. Then she loweredthem.

  "My brother," she explained, "lay at death's door in Venice. I had justlanded at Leghorn, where I left my maid to recover from the sea, andhurrying across Italy as I did, I still feared that I should not see himalive."

  The explanation was made readily in a low voice natural to oneremembering a great distress, but without any affectation of gesture orso much as a glance sideways to note whether Wogan received ittrustfully or not. Wogan, indeed, was reassured in a great measure.True, the Countess of Berg was now his declared enemy, but he need notjoin all her friends in that hostility.

  "I was able, most happily," continued Lady Featherstone, "to send mybrother homewards in a ship a fortnight back, and so to stay with myfriend here on my way to Vienna, for we English are all bitten with themadness of travel. Mr. Warner will bear me out?"

  "To be sure I will," said Wogan, stoutly. "For here am I in the depthsof winter journeying to the carnival in Italy."

  The Countess smiled, all disbelief and amusement, and Lady Featherstoneturned quickly towards him.

  "For my frankness I claim a like frankness in return," said she, with apretty imperiousness.

  Wogan was a little startled. He suddenly remembered that he hadpretended to know no English on the road to Bologna, nor had he givenany reason for his haste. But it was upon neither of these matters thatshe desired to question him.

  "You spoke in parables," said she, "which are detestable things. Yousaid you would not lose your black horse for the world because the ladyyou were to marry would ride upon it into your city of dreams. There's asaying that has a provoking prettiness. I claim a frank answer."

  Wogan was silent, and his face took on the look of a dreamer.

  "Come," said one. It was the Princess Charlotte, the second daughter ofthe Prince Sobieski, who spoke. "We shall not let you off," said she.

  Wogan knew that she would not. She was a girl who was never checked byany inconvenience her speech might cause. Her tongue was a watchman'srattle, and she never spoke but she laughed to point the speech.

  "Be frank," said the Countess; "it is a matter of the heart, and soproper food for women."

  "True," answered Wogan, lightly, "it is a matter of the heart, and insuch matters can one be frank--even to oneself?"

  Wogan was immediately puzzled by the curious look Lady Featherstonegave him. The words were a mere excuse, yet she seemed to take them veryseriously. Her eyes sounded him.

  "Yes," she said slowly; "are you frank, even to yourself?" and she spokeas though a knowledge of the answer would make a task easier to her.

  Wogan's speculations, however, were interrupted by the entrance ofPrincess Casimira, Sobieski's eldest daughter. Wogan welcomed her comingfor the first time in all his life, for she was a kill-joy, a person ofan extraordinary decorum. According to Wogan, she was "that black careupon the horseman's back which the poets write about." Her firstquestion if she was spoken to was whether the speaker was from top totoe fitly attired; her second, whether the words spoken were well-bred.At this moment, however, her mere presence put an end to the demands foran explanation of Wogan's saying about his horse, and in a grateful moodto her he slipped from the room.

  This evening was but one of many during that Christmastide. Wogan mustwear an easy countenance, though his heart grew heavy as lead. TheCountess of Berg was the Prince Constantine's favourite; and Wogan wasnot slow to discover that her smiling face and quiet eyes hid the mostmasterful woman at that court. He made himself her assiduous servant,whether in hunting amid the snow or in the entertainments at the palace,but a quizzical deliberate word would now and again show him that shewas still his enemy. With the Princess Casimira he was a profoundcritic of observances: he invented a new cravat and was most carefulthat there should never be a wrinkle in his stockings; with the PrincessCharlotte he laughed till his head sang. He played all manner of parts;the palace might have been the stage of a pantomime and himself theharlequin. But for all his efforts it did not seem that he advanced hiscause; and if he made headway one evening with the Prince, the nextmorning he had lost it, and so Christmas came and passed.

  But two days after Christmas a courier brought a letter to the castle.He came in the evening, and the letter was carried to Wogan while he wasat table. He noticed at once that it was in his King's hand, and heslipped it quickly into his pocket. It may have been somethingprecipitate in his manner, or it may have been merely that all were onthe alert to mark his actions, but at once curiosity was aroused. Noplain words were said; but here and there heads nodded together andwhispered, and while some eyed Wogan suspiciously, a few women whosehearts were tuned to a sympathy with the Princess in her imprisonment,or touched with the notion of a romantic attachment, smiled upon himtheir encouragement. The Countess of Berg for once was unobservant,however.

  Wogan made his escape from the company as soon as he could, and going upto his apartments read the letter. The moon was at its full, and whatwith the clear, frosty air, and the snow stretched over the world likea white counterpane, he was able to read the letter by the windowwithout the light of a candle. It was written in the Chevalier's owncipher and hand; it asked anxiously for news and gave some. Wogan hadhad occasion before to learn that cipher by heart. He stood by thewindow and spelled the meaning. Then he turned to go down; but at thedoor his foot slipped upon the polished boards, and he stumbled onto hisknee. He picked himself up, and thinking no more of the matter rejoinedthe company in a room where the Countess of Berg was playing upon aharp.

  "The King," said Wogan, drawing the Prince apart, "leaves Bologna forRome."

  "So the letter came from him?" asked the Prince, with an eagerness whichcould not but seem hopeful to his companion.

  "And in his own hand," replied Wogan.

  The Prince shuffled and hesitated as though he was curious to hearparticulars. Wogan thought it wise to provoke his curiosity bydisregarding it. It seemed that there was wisdom in his reticence, for alittle later the Prince took him aside while the Countess of Berg wasstill playing upon her harp, and said,--

  "Single-handed you could do nothing. You would need friends."

  Wogan took a slip of paper from his pocket and gave it to the Prince.

  "On that slip," said he, "I wrote down the names of all the friendswhom I could trust, and by the side of the names the places where Icould lay my hands upon them. One after the other I erased the namesuntil only three remained."

  The Prince nodded and read out the names.

  "Gaydon, Misset, O'Toole. They are good men?"

  "The flower of Ireland. Those three names have been my comfort theselast three weeks."

  "And all the three at Schlestadt. How comes that about?"

  "Your Highness, they are all three officers in Dillon's Irish regiment,and so have that further advantage."

  "Advantage?"

  "Your Highness," said Wogan, "Schlestadt is near to Strasbourg, whichagain is not far from Innspruck, and being in French territory would bethe most convenient place to set off from."

  There was a sound of a door shutting; the Prince started, looked atWogan, and laughed. He had been upon the verge of yielding; but for thatdoor Wogan felt sure he would have yielded. Now, however, he merelywalked away to the Countess of Berg, and sitting beside her asked her toplay a particular tune. But he still held the slip of paper in his handand paid but a scanty heed to the music, now and then looking doubtfullytowards Wogan, now and then scanning that long list of names. His lips,too, moved as though he was framing the three selected names, Gaydon,Misset, O'Toole, and "Schlestadt" as a bracket uniting them. Then hesuddenly rose up and crossed the room to Wogan.

  "My daughter wrote that a woman must attend her. It is a necessaryprovision
."

  "Your Highness, Misset has a wife, and the wife matches him."

  "They are warned to be ready?"

  "At your Highness's first word that slip of paper travels to Schlestadt.It is unsigned, it imperils no one, it betrays nothing. But it will tellits story none the less surely to those three men, for Gaydon knows myhand."

  The Prince smiled in approval.

  "You have prudence, Mr. Warner, as well as audacity," said he. He gavethe paper back, listened for a little to the Countess, who was bendingover her harp-strings, and then remarked, "The Prince's letter was inhis own hand too?"

  "But in cipher."

  "Ah!"

  The Prince was silent for a while. He balanced himself first on onefoot, then on the other.

  "Ciphers," said he, "are curious things, compelling to the imaginationand a provocation to the intellect."

  Mr. Wogan kept a grave face and he replied with unconcern, though hisheart beat quick; for if the Prince had so much desire to see theChevalier's letter, he must be well upon his way to consenting toWogan's plan.

  "If your Highness will do me the honour to look at this cipher. It hasbaffled the most expert."

  His Highness condescended to be pleased with Wogan's suggestion. Wogancrossed the room towards the door; but before he reached it, theCountess of Berg suddenly took her fingers from her harp-strings with agesture of annoyance.

  "Mr. Warner," she said, "will you do me the favour to screw this wiretighter?" And once or twice she struck it with her fingers.

  "May I claim that privilege?" said the Prince.

  "Your Highness does me too much honour," said the Countess, but thePrince was already at her side. At once she pointed out to him theparticular string. Wogan went from the room and up the great staircase.He was lodged in a wing of the palace. From the head of the staircase heproceeded down a long passage. Towards the end of this passage anothershort passage branched off at a right angle on the left-hand side. Atthe corner of the two passages stood a table with a lamp and somecandlesticks. This time Wogan took a candle, and lighting it at the lampturned into the short passage. It was dark but for the light of Wogan'scandle, and at the end of it facing him were two doors side by side.Both doors were closed, and of these the one on the left gave onto hisroom.

  Wogan had walked perhaps halfway from the corner to his door before hestopped. He stopped suddenly and held his breath. Then he shaded hiscandle with the palm of his hand and looked forward. Immediately heturned, and walking on tiptoe came silently back into the big passage.Even this was not well lighted; it stretched away upon his right andleft, full of shadows. But it was silent. The only sounds which reachedWogan as he stood there and listened were the sounds of people movingand speaking at a great distance. He blew out his candle, cautiouslyreplaced it on the table, and crept down again towards his room. Therewas no window in this small passage, there was no light there at allexcept a gleam of silver in front of him and close to the ground. Thatgleam of silver was the moonlight shining between the bottom of one ofthe doors and the boards of the passage. And that door was not the doorof Wogan's room, but the room beside it. Where his door stood, theremight have been no door at all.

  Yet the moon which shone through the windows of one room must needs alsoshine into the other, unless, indeed, the curtains were drawn. Butearlier in the evening Wogan had read a letter by the moonlight at hiswindow; the curtains were not drawn. There was, therefore, a rug, anobstruction of some sort against the bottom of the door. But earlier inthe evening Wogan's foot had slipped upon the polished boards; there hadbeen no mat or skin at all. It had been pushed there since. Wogan couldnot doubt for what reason. It was to conceal the light of a lamp orcandle within the room. Someone, in a word, was prying in Wogan's room,and Wogan began to consider who. It was not the Countess, who wasengaged upon her harp, but the Countess had tried to detain him. Woganwas startled as he understood the reason of her harp becoming sosuddenly untuned. She had spoken to him with so natural a spontaneity,she had accepted the Prince's aid with so complete an absence ofembarrassment; but none the less Wogan was sure that she knew. Moreover,a door had shut--yes, while he was speaking to the Prince a door hadshut.

  So far Wogan's speculations had travelled when the moonlight streamedout beneath his door too. It made now a silver line across the passagebroken at the middle by the wall between the rooms. The mat had beenremoved, the candle put out, the prying was at an end; in another momentthe door would surely open. Now Wogan, however anxious to discover whoit was that spied, was yet more anxious that the spy should not discoverthat the spying was detected. He himself knew, and so was armed; he didnot wish to arm his enemies with a like knowledge. There was no cornerin the passage to conceal him; there was no other door behind which hecould slip. When the spy came out, Wogan would inevitably be discovered.He made up his mind on the instant. He crept back quickly and silentlyout of the mouth of the passage, then he made a noise with his feet,turned again into the passage, and walked loudly towards his door. Evenso he was only just in time. Had he waited a moment longer, he wouldhave been detected. For even as he turned the corner there was already avertical line of silver on the passage wall; the door had been alreadyopened. But as his footsteps sounded on the boards, that linedisappeared.

  He walked slowly, giving his spy time to replace the letter, time tohide. He purposely carried no candle, he reached his door and opened it.The room to all seeming was empty. Wogan crossed to a table, lookingneither to the right nor the left, above all not looking towards the bedhangings. He found the letter upon the table just as he had left it. Itcould convey no knowledge of his mission, he was sure. It had not eventhe appearance of a letter in cipher; it might have been a mereexpression of Christmas good wishes from one friend to another. But tomake his certainty more sure, and at the same time to show that he hadno suspicion anyone was hiding in the room, he carried the letter overto the window, and at once he was aware of the spy's hiding-place. Itwas not the bed hangings, but close at his side the heavy window curtainbulged. The spy was at his very elbow; he had but to lift his arm--andof a sudden the letter slipped from his hand to the floor. He did notdrop it on purpose, he was fairly surprised; for looking down to readthe letter he had seen protruding from the curtain a jewelled shoebuckle, and the foot which the buckle adorned seemed too small andslender for a man's.

  Wogan had an opportunity to make certain. He knelt down and picked upthe letter; the foot was a woman's. As he rose up again, the curtainever so slightly stirred. Wogan pretended to have remarked nothing; hestood easily by the window with his eyes upon his letter and his mindbusy with guessing what woman his spy might be. And he remained onpurpose for some while in this attitude, designing it as a punishment.So long as he stood by the window that unknown woman cheek by jowl withhim must hold her breath, must never stir, must silently endure an agonyof fear at each movement that he made.

  At last he moved, and as he turned away he saw something so unexpectedthat it startled him. Indeed, for the moment it did more than startlehim, it chilled him. He understood that slight stirring of the curtain.The woman now held a dagger in her hand, and the point of the bladestuck out and shone in the moonlight like a flame.

  Wogan became angry. It was all very well for the woman to come spyinginto his room; but to take a dagger to him, to think a dagger in awoman's hand could cope with him,--that was too preposterous. Wogan feltvery much inclined to sweep that curtain aside and tell his visitor howhe had escaped from Newgate and played hide-and-seek amongst thechimney-pots. And although he restrained himself from that, he allowedhis anger to get the better of his prudence. Under the impulse of hisanger he acted. It was a whimsical thing that he did, and though hesuffered for it he could never afterwards bring himself to regret it. Hedeliberately knelt down and kissed the instep of the foot whichprotruded from the curtain. He felt the muscles of the foot tighten, butthe foot was not withdrawn. The curtain shivered and shook, but no crycame from behind it, and again the curtain hung motionless. Wogan wentout of the room and carried the letter to the Prince. The Countess ofBerg was still playing upon her harp, and she gave no sign that sheremarked his entrance. She did not so much as shoot one glance ofcuriosity towards him. The Prince carried the letter off to his cabinet,while Wogan sat down beside the Countess and looked about the room.

  "I have not seen Lady Featherstone this evening," said he.

  "Have you not?" asked the Countess, easily.

  "Not so much as her foot," replied Wogan.

  The conviction came upon him suddenly. Her hurried journey to Bolognaand her presence at Ohlau were explained to him now by her absence fromthe room. His own arrival at Bologna had not remained so secret as hehad imagined. The fragile and gossamer lady, too flowerlike for theworld's rough usage, was the woman who had spied in his room and who hadpossessed the courage to stand silent and motionless behind the curtainafter her presence there had been discovered. Wogan had a picture beforehis eyes of the dagger she had held. It was plain that she would stop atnothing to hinder this marriage, to prevent the success of his design;and somehow the contrast between her appearance and her actions hadsomething uncanny about it. Wogan was inclined to shiver as he satchatting with the Countess. He was not reassured when Lady Featherstoneboldly entered the room; she meant to face him out. He remarked,however, with a trifle of satisfaction that for the first time she worerouge upon her cheeks.