“Yes, to deliver into his hands the casket containing your belongings. After that I—I don’t know what will become of me.”
“Katharina! Don’t frighten me so! Do you imagine that Ludwig will cease to love you when he learns you are a widow, and that you had a daughter?”
“Oh, no; he will not hate me because I had a daughter,” returned Katharina, shaking her head sadly, “but because my wickedness destroyed her.”
“Don’t talk so, Katharina,” again expostulated Marie.
“Why, don’t you see that she is dead? Look at these closed eyes, the white face! Ask these closed lips to open and tell you that I did not murder her!”
“Katharina, this is not true! Your enemies have told you this to grieve you. Look at these two pictures! There is not the least resemblance between them. This pale one is not your daughter. He who told you so lied cruelly.”
Katharina sighed mournfully.
“He who told me so does not lie. It was your old friend Cambray.”
“Cambray?” echoed Marie, with mingled delight and astonishment. “Cambray is here? My deliverer, my second father! Where is he?”
“He is gone. He accomplished that for which he came,—to crush me to the earth, and to serve you,—and has gone away again.”
“Gone away?” repeated Marie, incredulously. “Gone away? Impossible! Cambray would not go away without seeing me! Which way did he go? I will run after him and overtake him.”
“No; stay where you are!” commanded Katharina, seizing her arm. “You must not follow him.”
“Why not?”
“Listen, and I will tell you. Cambray brought these pictures and this letter from Paris. The letter was written by my daughter in the hospital, where she caught the dreadful disease which caused her death. She had been nursing the sick, like a heroine, and died like a saint. It is well with her now, for she is in heaven. If I weep, it is not for her, but for myself. The deadly disease Amélie died of has seized upon your friend Cambray; and the noble old man is unselfish even in dying. He does not want you to come near him, lest you, too, become affected by the pestilence. He is gone to the Nameless Castle, where Lisette will take care of him—”
“Lisette?” interrupted Marie, excitedly. “Lisette, who was afraid to go near her own husband when he lay dying!”
“Well, what would you? Shall I send some one to nurse him?”
“No—no. I am the one to take care of him! He was a father to me. For my sake he was imprisoned, persecuted, buried alive all these years! And I am to let him die over yonder—alone, without a friend near him! No; I am going to him. That which your other daughter had the courage to do, this one also will do!”
“Marie! Think of Ludwig! Do you wish to drive him to despair?”
“God watches over us. He will do what is well for all of us!”
“Marie”—Katharina made a last effort to detain the young girl—“Marie, do you wish to go to Cambray to learn from him that I am the curse-laden creature who was sent after you to capture you and deliver you into the hands of your enemies?”
Marie turned at these desperate words, held out her hand, and said gently:
“And if he were to tell me that, Katharina, I should say to him that, instead of destroying me you liberated me, and instead of hating me you love me as I love you.”
She made as if she would kiss Katharina; but the excited woman turned away her face, and held toward Marie the letter Cambray had given her.
“Read this, and learn to know me as I am,” she said in a choking voice.
While Marie was reading the letter, Katharina covered her burning face with both hands; but they were gently drawn away and held in the young girl’s warm clasp, while she spoke:
“A reply must be sent to this letter, little mother. I shall say to her, through the soul now on the eve of departure to the better land where she dwells: ‘Little sister, your mother will wear the pure white garment, as you desired, in mourning for you. Instead of you, she will have me, and will love me, as I shall love her, in your stead. Bless us both, and be happy.’ Shall I not send this message to your Amélie with my good friend Cambray?”
“Go, then; go—go,” convulsively sobbed Katharina, and fell upon her face on the floor as Marie hastened from the pavilion.
CHAPTER III
When her grief had exhausted itself, Katharina stole back to the manor, where she removed the steel casket from its hiding-place, wrapped it in her shawl, and, passing noiselessly and unseen down a staircase that was rarely used, crossed the park to the farmer’s cottage.
Here she told the farmer’s wife that she was going to play a trick on her betrothed, that she wanted to borrow a gown and a kerchief. She bade the farmer saddle the mule which his wife rode when she went to the village, and to hang the hampers, as usual, from the pommel. In one of these she placed the steel casket, in the other a pistol, and filled them both with all sorts of provisions. Thus disguised, she mounted the quadruped, and set out alone on her way toward the camp.
Almost at the same moment that Ludwig Vavel had learned of the deceit of the woman he loved, he became convinced that his ambitious designs had come to naught. The rising of the German patriots against Napoleon had ended in their defeat, and not a trace was left of the uprising among the French people themselves.
It was the third day after the battle of Aspern when Master Matyas entered Count Vavel’s tent.
The jack of all trades had proved himself a useful member of the army—not, indeed, where there was any fighting, for he much preferred looking on, when a battle was in progress, to taking an active part in the fray. But as a spy he was invaluable.
“I have seen everything,” he announced. “I saw the balloon in which a French engineer made an ascent to the clouds, to reconnoiter the Austrian camp. He went up as high as a kite, and they held on to the rope below, down which he sent his messages—observations of the Austrians’ movements. I saw the bridge, which is two hundred and forty fathoms long, which can be transported from place to place, and reaches from one bank of the Danube to the other. And I saw that demi-god flying on his white horse. He was pale, and trembled.”
“And how came you to see all these sights, Master Matyas?” interrupted Vavel.
“I allowed the Frenchmen to capture me; then I was set to work in the intrenchments with the other prisoners.”
“And did you manage to deliver my letter?”
“Oh, yes. The Philadelphians are easily recognized from the silver arrow they wear in their ears. When I whispered the password to one of them, he gave it back to me, whereupon I handed him your letter. I came away as soon as he brought me the answer. Here it is.”
This letter by no means lightened Vavel’s gloomy mood. Colonel Oudet, the secret chief of the Philadelphians in the French army, heartily thanked Count Vavel for his offer of assistance to overthrow Napoleon; but he also gave the count to understand that, were Bonaparte defeated, the republic would be restored to France. In this case, what would become of Vavel’s cherished plans?
It was after midnight. The pole of “Charles’s Wain” in the heavens stood upward. Ludwig approached the watch-fire, and told the lieutenant on guard that he might go to his tent, that he, Vavel, would take his place for the remainder of the night. Then he let the reins drop on the neck of his horse, and while the beast grazed on the luxuriant grass, his rider, with his carbine resting in the hollow of his arm, continued the night watch. The night was very still; the air was filled with odorous exhalations, which rose from the earth after the shower in the early part of the evening. From time to time a shooting star sped on its course across the sky.