CHAPTER XIX.

THE FAVOR OF A PRINCE.

Dick now seemed to stride towards felicity with seven-league boots. His famous long shot, decidedly the most remarkable given at that afternoon's exhibition of shooting, speedily became famous. His place of abode being learned through Lord George, he was invited to court to receive the thanks of the Landgravine in person, with a present of a jewelled watch and a diamond ring. Returning from the palace to his hotel opposite the glover's, he found awaiting him an equerry with a superb black horse, a gift from the Landgrave. He had no sooner seen this animal stabled, and gone to his room, than he was visited by Count Mesmer, accompanied by a lackey bearing a gold-hilted dress sword, another token of his highness's gratitude. Mesmer then sounded him as to his future, in such a manner as to raise suspicion of Lord George's having dropped a hint in a proper quarter. The next day Dick received an appointment to a post in the Academy of Arts, which favor was to be considered a high one, for the Landgrave was a great patron of the arts and took pride in his museum.

Lord George now departed from Cassel, but Dick did not suffer loneliness. His intimacy with the St. Valiers increased. He saw Gerard every day, and Catherine whenever she came to visit her brother. He made friends among officers and civilians, and he had the constant society of Rembrandts, Van Dycks, Raphaels, Titians, and other creations of Dutch and Italian masters. His duties brought him into frequent presence of the Landgrave, who often visited the picture gallery.

His highness soon showed a pronounced liking for Dick, conversing with him whenever occasion offered, and regarding his freedom of speech and opinion with the amused indulgence that one has for a clever child. People of the court began to see in Dick a possible favorite, and flattered him in his presence, though hating him in their hearts as a successful interloper. It annoyed Dick to know that he was liked by a prince whom every American should hold in enmity; and this annoyance became disgust when his highness, from discussing the pictures of women, would often fall to discoursing upon women themselves. But Dick concealed his feelings, listening in silence to the sovereign's coarse or jocose remarks upon the sex for which that sovereign's weakness was notorious.

Now that his future seemed assured, Dick set about carrying matters forward with Catherine. The first sight of her face, so noble and yet so girlish, so reserved and yet so sincere, so open and yet—from its dark eyes and hair—so mysterious, had reawakened in him a passionate adoration beside which the bygone manifestations of his heart towards Amabel, Collette, and "Amaryllis" were but feeble flutterings. To him all other women became insipid when Catherine reappeared on the scene. Her outward gravity betokened a nature of vast range and unfathomable depth, a book that could not be read through in a day, a book with new beauties and dazzling surprises on every page. He felt that she was the only thing in the universe worth having, and he pressed his suit accordingly. Gerard proved very amiable by finding numerous reasons for sudden absence when Catherine called. She had little coquetry, though much natural reserve; yet, having been secretly disposed in his favor from the first (heaven knows by what undetectable something in his face or manner), she dropped her reserve at last before his oft-repeated "I love you," and, dropping her glance at the same moment, yielded her hand to his. It is only in plays and novels that confessions of love are matters of impassioned declamation or witty dialogue.

Dick told the St. Valiers of his parentage and life, omitting only the episodes of Amabel, Collette, and "Amaryllis." An understanding was reached that Catherine should become his wife at some future time yet to be determined. As Dick was really in love, and so would have turned Mohammedan to possess her, he readily agreed to adopt her religion, as far as a Voltairean could adopt any,—that is to say, in outer appearance only. It was urged by both Catherine and Gerard that the engagement should be kept secret, and Dick, being in mood to grant any conditions without question, readily consented. This interview, like all others between Dick and Catherine since the night of the masquerade, occurred in the back parlor of the glover's house. As usual, Catherine insisted upon returning alone to the palace, which she always entered by a private door.

"Why," said Dick, "may not a lady-in-waiting be seen with her affianced husband and her brother, in the streets? Here are two people soon to be married to each other, yet I'll wager nobody in Cassel, except Gerard, knows they are even acquainted with each other."

"We must have patience," she said, with a smile in which there seemed to be something of sadness. Then, having gravely given him her hand to kiss, she hastened from the room.

Dick and Gerard celebrated the day with a bottle of wine, after which Gerard went on duty and Dick to the Academy of Arts, which was a few steps south of the palace. While there he was sent for by the Landgrave, who greeted him with a patronizing and approving smile, and the words:

"I wish you to call immediately on the treasurer and on the chief equerry, who have orders regarding your conveyance to Düsseldorf. I have a commission for you to execute at the picture gallery there."

Instead of the look of gratitude and pleasure that the Landgrave had expected to see on Dick's face, there was one of blank dejection. To leave Cassel, though for only a week, was not in Dick's plan of happiness at this time. But the Landgrave's order had to be obeyed, and Dick mustered up a gratified expression before it was too late.

The next morning he started on his journey, leaving with Gerard a note for Catherine. The commission was indeed one to be envied; as it was out of all proportion to Dick's infinitesimal knowledge of art, it was the greater evidence of the Landgrave's favor. So Dick cheered himself up; made the acquaintance of the famous collection of that other elderly connoisseur in art and women, Charles Theodore of Bavaria; attended to his business, surrounded himself with the vision of Catherine, and suffused his heart and mind with anticipations of his next meeting with her.

It was growing dark on a November evening, when Dick reëntered Cassel. It was past the hour when he might have met Catherine at the glover's house, but he was so hungry for the sight of her, that he decided to attend the usual evening assembly at the palace, on the bare possibility of her being present. He knew that his favor with the Landgrave would secure him admission on his merely sending in his name. He therefore drove at once to his inn, dressed and put on the sword given him by the Landgrave, which custom permitted him to wear at court, and hastened to the palace. It was a little after seven o'clock, and the reception-rooms were full.

To Dick's surprise, one of the first persons he saw was Gerard de St. Valier, in the uniform of a body-guard.

"Why," cried Dick, rushing up to him, and pressing his hand, "you've been transferred, I see! 'Tis the same as a promotion. We are both in good luck."

"Yes," said Gerard, in a constrained manner. He then cast a swift look around, bowed formally, and hastened to another room, making a pretext of being on duty.

Dick gazed after him in amazement. What meant this coldness, this evidence of being ill at ease? Such a reception from Gerard cut Dick to the heart, made a tear start in his eye, and gave him an undefined foreboding.

While he stood thus, there was near him a movement to either side, and a general bowing. He became aware of the Landgrave's approach, just in time to step back from his highness's way. But the Landgrave turned and greeted him with a kindly smile.

"Back from Düsseldorf so soon?" said Frederick II., in his rich and deep, but heavy and guttural, voice.

"The feet move swiftly when they return to where the heart is," said Dick.

The Landgrave, taking this as an expression of attachment to the sovereign presence, smiled paternally; then said:

"I shall send to hear your report to-morrow. The King of Bavaria has fine pictures. He used to be as famous for the fine women he kept, also."

"So I have heard, your highness," replied Dick, with a side glance towards the Landgravine at the farther end of the room, to see if Catherine might be among her highness's ladies.

The Landgrave, again misinterpreting, followed Dick's glance. "Ah," said he, in a low tone, audible to none of those who stood back from him and Dick at respectful distance, "you are thinking that the court of Cassel also is not without its fair ones. And you are right, my clear-eyed Englishman. Like the rest of your race, you will doubtless some day write your recollections of the court of Cassel. Like the rest, you will give a page to the mistresses of the sovereign. Well, tell me if you think any of the ladies that even Louis XIV. delighted to honor, was fit to buckle the shoes of her whom you see standing beneath the picture of Diana yonder."

"Whom do you mean, your highness?"

The Landgrave was too absorbed in his subject to heed the note of wild alarm in Dick's swift question.

"The lady with the black hair and eyes," said the Landgrave, gloating across the distance.

Dick turned cold. "Why," said he, in what faint voice he could command, "I thought your highness's favorite was Mademoiselle F——!"

"King David himself changed his mistress now and then," said the Landgrave.

Mad with grief and humiliation, Dick sprang forward to Catherine de St. Valier—for she it was whom the Landgrave had pointed out—and said:

"Mademoiselle, is it true,—what I am told?"

She gave a start at first seeing him, then stood for a moment in a kind of sudden dismay. This gave way to an expression of surprise, as if he who addressed her were a stranger; and then she turned to hasten from him.

"Ah!" he cried bitterly, in a voice that drew the attention of the whole assembly; for, as consternation had stopped his heart, rage now set it beating fiercely. "It is true, then! Faithless!"

She turned and faced him, with a countenance as pale as death. At that instant Gerard confronted Dick from out of the throng, with cheeks as colorless as Catherine's, and cried out:

"Monsieur, it is of my sister that you speak!"

"You know where to find me, Monsieur de St. Valier!"

At Dick's first words to Catherine, the Landgrave, with a sudden ejaculation and frown, had turned and walked precipitately from the room. The Landgravine, seeing Gerard's movement, had instantly hastened out by another door, that her eyes might not be outraged by a scene. It was the duty of all the guests to follow, and so, as if by magic, while the two young men stood gazing at each other, with Catherine looking on as if turned to marble, the three found themselves alone in the assembly rooms. Gerard was the first to perceive this fact. His face suddenly lost its look of wrathful challenge, and took on one of deep sorrow and concern. "Mon Dieu!" he moaned. "We are lost! Oh, Dick, why did you come here? Why didn't you understand?"

"What do you mean? Understand what?" asked Dick, with a sudden fear of having made a terrible false step.

"That it was for your own sake and ours we pretended not to know you," replied Gerard, despairingly. "The Landgrave attributed my sister's repulses to the fact that she loved another. We have tried to conceal who that other was, lest the Landgrave should destroy you; we thought best to keep even our acquaintance with you unknown at court, so lynx-eyed is that evil old lieutenant of police, Rothenstein. But now all is out, and your chance of making your fortune is ruined! Even your life is in peril if you stay in Cassel another hour!"

"Let me understand!" cried Dick. "Repulses, you said?" He turned to Catherine. "Then it is only in the Landgrave's evil hopes, not in fact, that you are his—that you—"

"How can you ask?" said Catherine, with a world of patient reproach in her voice and eyes.

Dick knelt at her feet. "Forgive me!" he said, in a broken voice that could utter no more.

She held out her hand. He pressed it to his lips.

"And what are we to do now?" he asked, rising.

"You must leave Cassel," said Gerard.

"We must all leave Cassel," said Dick.

"It is impossible for us to do so, at present," replied Gerard, in despair. "We have no other resource,—no way of living."

"But the bequest you came from America to receive?"

"We were disappointed of that. Our right has been disputed, and the matter is in the courts."

"Your relations in Quebec, and the estate concerning which you were in Philadelphia?"

"We quarrelled with our uncle in Quebec, and we would die before we would go back to his charity. Our share of the Philadelphia estate was a trifle, and was spent long ago."

"But you must leave Cassel! I shall find a way to provide for us all!"

"You forget," put in Catherine, "that my brother dare not leave without a discharge from the military service. He would be taken as a deserter, and shot. Trust me, Wetheral! I can hold the Landgrave aloof. His caprice will soon pass. You alone are in danger. It is best for us to stay till all can be properly arranged for our future somewhere else."

"Then if you stay, I stay!" said Dick, quietly. "I will act as if nothing had occurred, and await the consequences. After all, the Landgrave alone could have understood my meaning, when my miserable tongue so unjustly assailed you. The others would think my words merely the ravings of an unrequited lover. Yes, I will stay and see what comes of it!"

"Perhaps you are right," said Gerard.

"Thank God, then, we do not have to say farewell!" said Catherine, resting her eyes tenderly on

Dick. "I must hasten to the Landgravine. Good night! Trust me,—and be on your guard!"

"I trust you," said Dick, kissing her hand again. "But let the Landgrave take care!"

Dick then took leave of Gerard, whose presence in the palace was a matter of duty and not of privilege, and hastened to his inn.

The next day, he went at the usual hour to his room at the Academy of Arts. In the course of the forenoon he received orders to submit in writing his account of his mission to the Düsseldorf gallery. He was glad that he did not have to report to the Landgrave in person, for he had no desire either to meet that sovereign again or to enter the palace. In the afternoon Catherine came to the glover's house, this time attended by old Antoine, who had accompanied the St. Valiers from Quebec. The attendance of a man-servant was part of a lady-in-waiting's pay, and Catherine had been able to secure Antoine's appointment to her service in the palace. Hitherto, other duties had been allowed to prevent his following her to her brother's. Catherine brought the news that Dick's supposition had proven correct,—the belief in the palace was that his outburst had been merely a disappointed lover's.

In the evening, while Dick was alone in his room, there came a discreet knock at his door. Opening, he let in a man cloaked and muffled, who immediately closed the door in a mysterious and secretive manner. The visitor then turned back his cloak and disclosed the face of Count Mesmer, the callous, self-assertive chamberlain. He was unattended.

"Good evening, Count," said Dick, bracing himself for any evil this visit might portend.

The Count took a chair at one side of a small table on which stood a lighted candle. Dick sat at the opposite side.

"My friend," began the Count, in a half patronizing, half overbearing manner, "that was an unwise explosion at the palace last evening."

"What do you mean?" demanded Dick, ruffling up.

"Oh, be calm! I don't blame you, except for bad judgment. You see, I am one of the few who knew what it all meant. I am a man who keeps his eyes open. I have not been blind to what has been going on between you and the beautiful lady-in-waiting. Neither have I been blind to the intentions of the Landgrave. By knowing that two and two make four, I understood last night's little scene perfectly."

"Then perhaps you have come to explain it to me!"

"Ach, my young friend, you come too quickly to conclusions! Wait and listen, and be not sarcastic! Why do I say last night's explosion was injudicious? Because it could only make matters worse, whereas there was, unknown to you, a secret way of mending them. Why do I speak of the Landgrave's intentions? Because he is as certain to carry them out as it is that this candle burns, if the power shall remain to him. Did any one ever hear of anything ever standing in a prince's way when he wanted a particular woman?"

"It is time then for an exception to the rule."

"And if there shall be an exception in this case, what will cause it?"

"The lady herself," said Dick, half inclined to strike the Count's face across the table.

"The lady herself! Granted that she be a paragon of virtue, do you suppose that the will of an obscure lady-in-waiting will endure long as an obstacle to the desires of a Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, whose power over his subjects is absolute? What becomes of a woman who resists such power? How long does her life remain tolerable? What happens to those who support her resistance? Do princes have any pity for those who oppose their will, and will Frederick II. have any conscience where his desire to possess a woman is concerned?"

Dick shuddered. He knew what princely consciences were like, and that the sovereigns of Germany, of whatever title, had over their own people unlimited authority.

"But," he said, in a slightly husky voice, "you spoke as if there might be an exception in this case."

"And I asked you what would cause it. You could not tell me. Shall I tell you? Can I trust you?"

"Certainly."

"Do you give me your word of honor that what I am about to say to you shall be kept a secret as inviolable as you would have the honor of your beloved one?"

"Yes,—my word of honor, as a gentleman."

"Then the cause will be this. You know the Landgrave is a Catholic. You know his subjects are Protestants. You can imagine whether they have in their hearts forgiven him for forsaking the religion of his fathers. You know that the hereditary prince has no love—no words, even—for his father, the Landgrave. You know also the Landgrave's reputation in the matter of morality, and that he is nearly sixty. Now, suppose a certain number of the court officers, and of those guards who are on duty about the palace and the city, should one fine day lock his highness in a chamber, place soldiers at the door, and declare the hereditary prince to be Landgrave in his stead."

"Dethrone the Landgrave!"

"It would be merely bringing the Landgrave's son to the throne a few years sooner than he would reach it in the order of nature. Do you fancy he would protest long, when despatches arrived at Hanau, inviting him to Cassel? Remember his feelings towards his father, and that he is already thirty-five years old. Do you think the people would object to a young and virtuous sovereign, who is not an apostate? Do you think the army would hold out in behalf of a Landgrave that hires it out, regiment by regiment, to another nation? What though the hereditary prince does likewise with his troops? Would the soldiers not relish a revenge upon the father, nevertheless? And, if the Landgrave's army should really stand in the way of all this, has not the hereditary prince the troops of Hanau, as well as the Hanoverian regiments there? Perhaps you think other powers would step in to prevent this forced abdication? Then bear in mind that the hereditary prince is the son of the daughter of an English king, and that that princess of England was ill-treated by the Landgrave. It is true, the present Landgravine is a collateral descendant of the house of Prussia, but, when we consider on what terms she lives with her husband, do we not find all the more reason why the King of Prussia should take no hand in the Landgrave's behalf? In fine, my young friend, when the Landgrave is shorn of his power, we shall have nothing to fear from him on the score of our sweethearts!"

And Mesmer leaned back in his chair, with a self-laudatory smile, like an orator who has made his point.

"But," asked Dick, eagerly, leaning forward on the table, to be nearer the Count, "when is all this to be brought about?"

"First tell me, are you willing to do what you can to help bring it about?"

"Willing? I am eager! Tell me what I am to do!"

"You are to broach the matter to your friends whom you can trust, as I have broached it to mine. There is the lady's brother, St. Valier, of the body-guards. As he is often on duty in the palace, he will be of the greatest value to us. He can sound his comrades, and win them over. Then there is Von Romberg, with whom I have often seen you. He can gain us men from his battalion. If things are managed rightly, and the blow is struck at the opportune moment, so that his highness can be held till word gets to Hanau and back, a few details of the body-guards, and three or four companies of the foot-guards, can carry the business through. I will answer for a sufficient number of palace officers."

"But why do you come to me, a foreigner, a man without family or influence?"

"For many reasons. Because you have much at stake, and will contribute zeal, which is a most important factor in a conspiracy. Because you have an ingratiating manner, and can get the ears and confidence of men. Because your post is one on which no eyes are turned, and you can go about unobserved, talking to whom you please, without exciting curiosity."

"I see," said Dick. "Depend upon me, Count. As for what favors this Landgrave has done me—"

"My dear friend, you earned far greater favors when you saved her highness's life! And this I tell you,—if you do not strike the Landgrave, he will strike you! Who knows whether he has not already taken the initiative against you? Many a first blow is really given in self-defence. That is your case, I assure you. And now let us talk of details."

For the next hour this strangely ill-matched pair were deep in the plans of conspiracy. Then Mesmer hastened back to the palace, so as to be seen at the card party, from which he feared he might already have been missed.

Three weeks afterwards,—that is to say, near the end of November,—the Landgrave and his court went hunting in the great forest a few miles southeast of Cassel, between that city and Spangenberg.

Now and then, during the chase, some gentleman or other would drop out, unnoticed, turning his horse into the thick woods. Thus, one by one, a number of gentlemen finally arrived at a ruined Gothic tower, in the midst of a thick copse near the road that ran south from Cassel to Melsungen,—that Melsungen which was thirteen miles south of Cassel.

At intervals, too, horsemen coming from the direction of Cassel, each one stopping and looking carelessly around to see if he were observed, would turn leftward from the road, penetrate the copse, and so arrive at the tower, which was a mere shell of weather-beaten stone, seamed with irregular crevices, and mantled here and there with wild foliage.

Each newcomer, from either direction, tied his horse to a tree, and entered the tower, by its high Gothic doorway. The second man who arrived was challenged by the first, who stood in shadow within the doorway, with the words, "Who comes?" He replied, "Hesse-Hanau," and, thus eliciting the word "Welcome" from the first, went into the shadow. He found that the first man was the chamberlain, Count Mesmer.

"By Heaven," said the second man, gaily, observing the other in a ray of light that entered through a lofty crack in the tower, "you are conspiring in character! A scarlet cloak certainly fits the rôle." The speaker was a young Frenchman, the Viscount de Rougepont, who jested at all times and places.

"You make a light matter of high treason, Viscount," replied Mesmer, in a somewhat husky voice.

Before the Frenchman could answer, another man was heard advancing over the fallen brown leaves outside the tower. The manner of his admission was the same as that of the Frenchman's. Within a short time, more than a score of men had thus assembled. Two remained on guard immediately inside the doorway. The others, soon accustomed to the half darkness of their meeting-place, proceeded with their business. The secretary, who was none other than Richard Wetheral, called a roll. There was a response to every name but that of Von Romberg.

"He has been detained by the sudden illness of a dear friend, but hopes to join us later in the afternoon. He has authorized me to represent him," said a young gentleman,—Gerard de St. Valier.

"You did not succeed in winning the Baron von Sungen," said Mesmer, addressing Wetheral, in a slightly petulant way.

"He repulsed my very first overtures," said Dick, in explanation, "and bade me, for my own sake, go no farther into the subject with him. I saw that nothing could move his loyalty. It was prudent to stop where I did."

"What a pity!" said Mesmer, with some vexation.

"I thought there was no love between you and Von Sungen," put in De Rougepont.

"What of that?" said Mesmer, quickly. "He could have brought over the entire horse-guards to us. That is why I say, what a pity he is not with us!"

"He is playing hard for the Landgrave's favor," said the Frenchman. "He is dying of love for the Baroness von Lüderwaldt, and wants to marry her. So does old Rothenstein, the sweet and chaste minister of police. The Landgrave has the disposal of her hand, and is still undecided whether to make Von Sungen happy or cause old Rothenstein to snivel with ecstasy. Hence Von Sungen's unexampled devotion to his sovereign."

"Gentlemen, we can make better use of the little time we have than by talking court gossip," said Gerard de St. Valier. "As the one who has been chosen by lot to be your presiding officer, I remind you that our meeting is for the purpose of making the final assignments for the action we are to take next Wednesday—"

"Pardon me a moment, monsieur," interrupted one of the conspirators. "You will remember there are three gentlemen here who have not signed the compact. They ought to have opportunity to do so, before our plans are unfolded any farther."

"That is unfortunate," put in the secretary, Wetheral. "It ought to have been thought of when we accepted Count Mesmer's suggestion to leave our compact concealed in my room. The roll I called a few minutes ago was from memory. The three new members may call at my hotel this evening to sign."

"That appears to be the most practicable plan," said Gerard. "The new members, nevertheless, ought to take the oath before we proceed any farther. Let them advance and repeat it after the secretary."

The conspirators were grouped semicircularly at one side of the tower's paved interior. Gerard and Dick stood out a little from the rest, their sides towards the doorway, so as to face the others. Three young officers stepped out from the crowd and stood before Dick, who began to dictate an oath, which they repeated in portions after him. Every gentleman present had brought with him a sword, those not in officer's uniform having small ones, which could be concealed beneath their cloaks. The three new comrades held their right hands upon the hilts of their swords in taking the oath. The ceremony required, at its conclusion, that the whole assembly should raise swords and utter a final pledge in chorus. The two guards at the door, their attention drawn despite themselves to the impressive scene within, grasped their swords as the others did, and moved imperceptibly in from the doorway as the conclusion was neared.

The three recruits echoed Dick's low-spoken phrases in subdued tones. He raised the point of his sword aloft in token that they should do likewise. Up went every sword in the company, flashing back what beams of light strayed through the openings overhead. Eyes, too, flashed with feeling, as all lips united in the closing words:

"And to this end we pledge life and honor!"

The light from the doorway was suddenly cut off, and a voice cried:

"Surrender!"

The conspirators turned towards the doorway in amazement. Three soldiers stood upon the threshold. Behind them was the officer who had called out. In a moment, a score of bayonets appeared beyond him, from one side, and troops were seen massing in among the trees. It was plain that a large force had stolen up with the greatest possible silence. The conspirators were, in fact, confronted by some dismounted horse-guards and a company from the battalion of foot then quartered at Melsungen. He who had demanded their surrender was an officer of the horse-guards.

No one thought of making any pretence of injured innocence. Some looked around to see if there was any hole by which to crawl from the tower. Others stood still, and waited for the arresting party to come in and take them. Mesmer ran farther back into the shadow. Dick saw this movement, and misinterpreted it.

"He sees a way out of the tower," said Dick to his comrades, and ran after Mesmer. The Count stumbled in the darkness, and Dick fell over him. The soldiers at the door, surprised at this movement within, now entered at a run. The conspirators on whom violent hands were first laid resisted on impulse. Thus was brought about a brief scrimmage, whose confusion was increased by the twilight of the place. Two or three men tumbled over Dick. As soon as he could do so, he rose to his feet, clutching mechanically the cloak he thought to be his. Being for a moment out of the hurly-burly, he as mechanically threw this cloak around him. He then ran to the doorway, which the entrance of the horse-guards had left unobstructed, although soldiers were drawn up outside at a short distance from it. As Dick stepped out to the open air, with some wild notion of making a rush, he saw muskets levelled at him.

"Not this one!" cried the commander, sharply, raising his cane with a swift movement to prevent any one's firing. To Dick's further amazement, the troops, a moment later, made an opening in their lines, for him to pass through. He did so with alacrity, traversed the rest of the copse, and ran towards the road from Cassel to Melsungen. He found his horse—the one given to him by the Landgrave—in the wooded gully where he had tied it. Mounting, he was soon in the road.

He now heard a shout at the edge of the copse and saw the same officer who had enabled him to pass. This officer was now violently motioning him to come back, and shouting orders to the same effect.

But Dick waved an "au revoir," and started his horse towards Melsungen. A few seconds later several musket-shots rang out from the copse, and he heard the sing of bullets about his head. Looking back, he saw that a number of foot-soldiers were with the officer, who was vehemently ordering a pursuit.

"If I were doing that shooting, the man here in my place would be full of lead by this time," said Dick to himself, as he set his horse galloping towards Melsungen. "There seems to have been some mistake about my departure from the tower. Well, it isn't for me to rectify the errors of the Landgrave's officers!"

And, glancing down at himself, he noticed for the first time that he wore a cloak of bright scarlet, instead of his own, which was of dark blue.

CHAPTER XX.

THE HONOR OF A LADY-IN-WAITING.

He foresaw that he would be speedily pursued towards Melsungen. He had not lived in the wilderness of Pennsylvania to be at a disadvantage in the neighborhood of a German forest, nor had he learned the ways of the American Indians for nothing. So he very soon rode into the woods at the left, and, having penetrated to some distance from the road, deliberately turned northward towards the ruined tower, deeming that to be the safest place for him to hide while considering the situation. The captured conspirators once removed from it, the tower would have been left unguarded, and yet no one would suppose that he would return at once to a place where he had recently stood in such great danger.

Riding on through the forest, he reached an eminence, from which the descent on the northeastern side was abrupt and steep. Here, over the tops of trees that were rooted where the precipice began to be less steep, he got a view of the country lying east and north, small parts of which country were clear of woods. Through one of these open spaces, directly east, a procession of troops, some mounted, some on foot, was moving towards the southeast. Dick's heart fell at the sight, although he could have expected nothing better. It was the march of his captured comrades, under an escort of remounted horse-guards and of a company of foot, to the prison-fortress of Spangenberg. He counted the prisoners, whom he could easily distinguish from their guards. All who had met in the tower that afternoon were there but himself. So Gerard must be among them. How, Dick asked himself, could their plot have been discovered?

And now he looked northward, towards the tower, which the prisoners must have left about two hours before. He could make out its dark, round, stone top in the midst of the thick copse. While he was gazing at it, he saw two figures on horseback emerge from the copse and proceed across a clear space towards that part of the forest where the hunt had been in progress. One figure, stout and erect, Dick instantly knew to be the Landgrave's; the other, so completely cloaked as to be unrecognizable by any lines of shape, was that of a woman. The two soon entered the farther woods by a narrow bridle-path, and were lost to view.

"An assignation," thought Dick. "No sooner does the Landgrave clear the tower of conspirators than he uses it for a purpose of his own. To-day's hunt is remarkable for the number of people who have slipped away from it."

He now pressed on to the tower. At some rods from it, he dismounted and tied his horse. He then advanced cautiously, to make sure that the place was deserted. Suddenly he stopped, at sound of a furious gallop on the road from Cassel to Melsungen. While he listened, the horse's footfalls came to an abrupt stop. After a few minutes of silence, there arose the sound of some one treading crisp leaves, and forcing a way through underbrush. Dick grasped his sword and waited, knowing he would have to face but one person,—for the galloping had been of a solitary horse. The newcomer soon appeared on foot, among the trees. It was Captain von Romberg, in great excitement and alarm.

"You are still here!" he gasped, seizing Dick's hand. "Thank God, I am in time!"

"In time for what?" asked Dick.

"In time to save you and our comrades. Come, the others are in the tower, are they not?"

"The others are on their way, under a guard, to Spangenberg."

"My God! Then I am too late! I thought I might give a half-hour's warning! We have been betrayed!"

"So it is evident. What do you know of it? Come, my dear Count, sit here on this log, and tell me."

The two sat down together at one side of the doorway, outside the tower.

"I got word from—a certain lady," began Von Romberg, in a half breathless, heart-broken voice, "to come to her at once, as she was suddenly at the point of death. This was a short time before I was to have started for the meeting this afternoon. When I entered her room I found her perfectly well, but in great trepidation. She said I must not leave her house till night. When I insisted on going, now that I had found she was not ill, she broke down, and told me everything. You must know she is the—she is on close terms with the secretary of Rothenstein, minister of police. Through this secretary she had learned that we have all been terribly tricked. Our conspiracy was instigated with the Landgrave's own authority! It was an idea of old Rothenstein's, and the villain who carried it out was Mesmer!"

"But,—I don't understand. Why should the Landgrave authorize a conspiracy against himself?"

"In order to have a reason, in the eyes of his subjects and of other powers, for removing certain objectionable persons from his way. You are an Englishman, St. Valier a Frenchman. Without a good pretext he would not dare have you two imprisoned, lest your governments might call him to account. Moreover, if he took any arbitrary step against yourself, the people might think he was secretly angry at you for having saved the Landgravine's life. And then, this woman told me, there is a lady whose hatred the Landgrave does not wish to incur, and he would incur it by causing your destruction; but now it will appear that you have brought destruction on yourself by plotting high treason."

"What a diabolical scheme!"

"You see, my dear Wetheral, we, who have supposed ourselves to be conspirators, are the ones who have really been conspired against. All was perfectly arranged. Even the choice of officers by lot was so managed by Mesmer, who conducted the drawing, that you and St. Valier were designated."

"The base-hearted Landgrave would remove both her protectors! But what proof will there be against us, beyond Mesmer's testimony? And will not Mesmer's testimony betray the Landgrave's whole design?"

"Mesmer will give no testimony. They have proof sufficient, of the kind they desire. This very afternoon they found the signed compact in your room; they knew from Mesmer exactly where it was hidden. Mesmer will not even appear among the accused. It was part of the plan that he should be allowed to escape, and to stay out of the country till the others were disposed of. To that escape and absence, the rest of us would attribute his not being punished with us,—and not to his having sold us to the Landgrave. Thus the world was to be kept from knowing the despicable part this wretch had played. And now mark how little these villains trust one another. Fearful, I suppose, lest the Landgrave would after all let him suffer, in order to make sure of his silence, Mesmer stipulated that he should be allowed to escape at the moment of arrest. Mesmer once inside a prison, he doubtless thought, the Landgrave might consider a dungeon—or a grave—the safest place for a man who possessed the secret of so detestable a transaction. And, to keep his treachery the more hidden, he provided that the arrest and his apparent escape should be entrusted to an officer not acquainted with him."

"But how then could the officer know which man was to escape?"

"Mesmer was to be distinguished by a cloak of a particular color," said Romberg.

"The devil!" cried Dick, smiling despite all circumstances. "And the cloak happened to be on me at the time of the escape."

"Listen!" said Romberg, abruptly. "Some one is coming."

The sounds of an approach were indeed heard from the side towards the depths of the forest. The two gentlemen rose, and grasped their swords. A moment later a man stepped into view, whom they both recognized by sight. He was a French valet of the Landgrave's.

"Pardon, messieurs!" he exclaimed, after a start of fright at so suddenly coming upon the two threatening-looking gentlemen. "I have come here merely to look for a riding-whip dropped by Mademoiselle de St. Valier a short time ago." And he stepped into the tower, where he began to search with his feet the paving, which was in comparative darkness.

For a moment Dick's heart was stilled. The blood left his cheeks; power left his voice. He followed the valet in. "Do you mean to say that Mademoiselle de St. Valier was here in this tower a short while ago?" he asked, in a forced voice, when he could speak at all. He remembered the cloaked lady riding from the copse with the Landgrave.

"Yes, monsieur," replied the lackey, adding in a significant tone, "and in very excellent company. Ah, here is the whip, and very far back in the tower, too."

"You rascal!" cried Dick, his energy returning with vehemence, and seized the valet by arm and neck. "Do you dare say that Mademoiselle de St. Valier was in this tower alone with the Landgrave? Come into the light, you miserable cur, that I may see the lie on your villainous face!" And Dick dragged the fellow from the tower.

"Let me go, monsieur!" whimpered the lackey, wriggling in terror. "Mon Dieu, is it the fault of a poor servant if a lady-in-waiting allows herself to be seduced by the Landgrave? Don't make an honest man pay for the sins of a prince's harlot!"

"My God, Romberg, do you hear that?" cried Dick, throwing the valet to the ground. "And do you see that?" he added, picking up the whip, of which he now recognized the curiously formed handle, though his last sight of it had been on that New Jersey road where, three years and a half ago, he had volunteered to recover her stolen miniature.

Von Romberg, who had begun to understand the situation in a general way, shook his head sadly, and said, with quiet tenderness, "We must not expect too much of the sex, my friend."

Dick sank down on the log, dropping the whip, and began to weep like a child. The wild suspicion had seized him that Catherine might have favored the prospective marriage to himself either as a cloak for a liaison with the Landgrave or as a refuge on the possible termination of such liaison. The valet, making no attempt to recover the whip, now used his opportunity to rise and dash off through the woods.

Suddenly Dick started up, and faced his kindly, pitying friend.

"I will find out!" he cried. "The thing is too damnable for belief. I'll not hold a woman guilty till I've seen with my own eyes, or heard from her own lips. I will go to her as fast as my horse can carry me!"

"But," said Romberg, in great alarm, grasping him with strong arms around the body, "is she in Cassel?"

"She is in the palace. Don't delay me, Romberg, for God's sake!"

"But they will arrest you. You are guilty of high treason, man. They are doubtless searching for you now. It is madness and suicide to go to the palace. My friend, would you throw yourself into the Landgrave's hands?" For Dick, exerting all his strength, was violently getting the better of Romberg's hindering embrace.

"I would learn the truth!" he cried. "If that lackey lied, I shall either escape again or be content to die. I would rather die and know her pure, than live forever and doubt her honor." And, hurling Romberg away from him, he was free.

"And what if you find the story true?" called Romberg after him, in a voice of sympathetic dismay.

"I will kill the Landgrave!" cried Dick, and bounded through the bushes, towards his horse.

Late that night Catherine de St. Valier sat in her apartment in the palace, accompanied only by one of the inferior attendants, a girl named Gretel, who was devoted to her. At one side of the chamber a pair of curtains concealed the alcove in which the bed was. At the other side was a door communicating with a corridor. The chamber window overlooked, at some height, an open space—a kind of small park—at the rear of the palace. Outside the window was a little balcony, and not far away was one of a few tall trees that grew in the small park. On a dressing-table was a candelabrum, with but one of its branches lighted, so that the interior of the room was dim to the sight. The night had recently clouded over, and only at intervals could the moon be seen through the dark window.

Catherine sat on a small couch, her face as pale as death, gazing at the opposite wall with wide-open eyes, in which grief and horror had given way to a kind of trance-like stupor. Now and then she would give a slight start, and a tremor would pass through her body, which was attired in a loose white gown lightly confined at the waist. At such moments she would turn her eyes furtively towards the door leading from the corridor. Near this door sat the maid, Gretel, silently watching with pitying eyes the half dead lady-in-waiting.

Suddenly the window, which was made of two casements running each from top to bottom, was flung rudely open, and in from the balcony stepped a man, who immediately stood still and looked around until his eyes fell on Catherine.

She rose quickly to her feet, and, with bowed head, said, in a low and lifeless voice:

"You find me waiting, your highness."

"Highness!" echoed the intruder. "Then you did expect him. It is true. My God!"

She gazed at him like a woman struck dumb with astonishment, then staggered to the dressing-table, took up the candle, and moved swiftly towards him, holding the light so as to illumine his face.

"It is his spirit," she whispered, having made sure that the features were those of Wetheral. The girl, Gretel, now gently took the light from Catherine's hand, lest Catherine might, in her half swooning condition, drop it, and replaced it on the dressing-table.

"It is no spirit, mademoiselle," said Dick, in a broken voice, "but a living man who might better be dead, for his last hope is killed, his faith crushed, his heart torn with misery! Oh, my God, my God! Oh, Catherine, Catherine!" And he fell prostrate on the couch, hiding his weeping eyes upon his arm, and yielding his body to be shaken by sobs.

Catherine stood looking at him, while her bewildered ideas approached a definite shape. But, before she could speak, he sprang to his feet, his grief having been succeeded by a wave of fierce and bitter reproach.

"So I was right when I called you faithless before the whole assembly that night!" he cried. "So you have fooled me from the first! Oh, was there ever such cunning? How I have been deceived by your guileless air, your innocent face, the truthful look of your eyes! Great God, is anything to be trusted in this world, when a woman who seems so pure and noble proves to be not only the harlot of a prince but the lying betrayer of an honest man, who loves her with all his soul? Why have you nothing to say?" he demanded, with a fresh access of rage. "Haven't you the grace to defend yourself? Oh, for God's sake, deceive me again! Lie to me, and I will believe you. Let me have any reason, even the smallest, to delude myself with the fancy that you are still mine. Deny these accusations! Deny that you expected the Landgrave here to-night."

"I cannot deny what is true," she said, quietly and sadly.

"Oh, you admit it!" he cried, wounded and enraged beyond all control. "You brazen Jezebel, I will kill you!" He grasped her by the neck, and, as she yielded instantly to his movement, forced her to her knees. As he made to clutch her throat she threw back her head, disclosing the white and delicate skin on which he formerly would not have inflicted the tiniest scratch for the world. "Oh, I cannot," he sobbed, pressing his lips against the tender throat, and breaking down completely. "Oh, Catherine, Catherine!" He raised her, and stood with his arms enfolding her. But, after a moment, he released her and stepped back, saying, plaintively, "To think that you are not mine to embrace! To think that you are the Landgrave's!"

"The Landgrave's!" she echoed. "No, not yet the Landgrave's, for you are not dead, and I am still a living woman."

"What do you mean?" asked Dick, startled into a kind of wild hope.

"He told me you were dead,—that you had been shot while trying to escape—"

"Who told you, Catherine? What do you mean? Tell me, quickly." He took her hand, and made her sit beside him on the couch.

"The Landgrave told me,—and Von Rothenstein, and others who were there. You see, I was at the hunt, with the Landgravine. We all heard of the terrible conspiracy, and of the arrests; and, while we were talking about it in the forest, the prisoners were taken by, where we could see them all,—the conspirators, arrested for high treason. And one of them was Gerard, my brother Gerard."

"And the whole court saw them led past?"

"Yes, with Gerard, my dear brother. When I was told that these men were going to prison and would surely be put to death—oh, it was terrible to think of,—my brother, little Gerard, as we used to call him, my mother and I. Mon Dieu, I would give my life to save him, and so I rode in search of the Landgrave, to beg that he would save Gerard. Some of the officers told me where to find him,—in the tower where the conspirators had been caught. I went there, and begged him on my knees for Gerard's life. He sent away the Count von Rothenstein and the others who were there, and listened to me. At last he said there was a way in which I might save Gerard, though my brother was one of the officers of the band and deserved death even more than the others did. I said I would give my life to save Gerard's,—for I knew that you, my love, would not blame me for that. But the Landgrave said it was not my life he wished, it was—"

"I understand!"

"I would not consent to that, even to save my brother. When the Landgrave became more urgent, and began to speak of my duty as a sister, I said that what he asked was not mine to give, that I was pledged to another. And then he told me you were dead, that you had been shot while trying to escape when the conspirators were captured. For a time I could not speak. He called back the minister of police and the others, and asked them to assure me that you had been killed. When I could no longer doubt, something seemed to have died within me. I felt that I was no longer a living woman, that my life had gone out at the news that you were dead."

"My poor beloved!"

"Then the Landgrave sent away the others, and spoke again of Gerard, saying that one of whose treason there was so much proof would certainly be condemned, and that only an arbitrary order of the sovereign could cause him to be released. The thought came to me that it was no longer a living woman that the Landgrave demanded for my brother's life, that I was no more Catherine de St. Valier, and that if I should consent to save Gerard it would be giving the Landgrave not myself but a soulless corpse. Oh, do you not understand?"

"Yes, yes, I understand. I can imagine all you felt!"

"It was agreed that a messenger of the Landgrave should go with Antoine to Spangenberg, with everything necessary for Gerard's release and his flight to France. The Landgrave was not to present himself before me until he could bring proofs, with Antoine as an eye-witness, of Gerard's departure from Spangenberg. I was waiting for him when you came in by the window. So distracted I was, that, for the moment, I supposed the Landgrave had taken that way of entrance for the sake of greater secrecy."

"It was I, who, for the sake of secrecy, chose that way," said Dick. "I was shot at in escaping from the tower, but they were not my countrymen behind the muskets! I went back to the tower, and saw the Landgrave riding away, alone with a lady. While I was at the tower, a lackey came to seek the lady's riding-whip. When he said the lady was you, and when I saw it was your whip he found, I was mad with jealousy and doubt, grief and fear, and I should have died had I not come to find out the truth. A friend, who had tried to hold me back, followed and overtook me outside the city, persuaded me to enter Cassel with caution, and offered me his aid. We left our horses in the woods outside the city, obtained a boat from a peasant, rowed down the Fulda after dark, and thus got into Cassel without crossing the bridge or meeting the guard. Romberg waited at the river while I hastened to the palace. I had learned from Gerard which was your window,—and, thank God, one can approach it without passing near the guards at the palace doors. I climbed yonder tree—as I have climbed many a tree in America—and swung by a branch to the balcony." He had risen to point out the tree, and she had followed him.

"Thank God you came in time,—that I knew before it was too late!" she said, turning her eyes up to his with a grave and tender gaze.

"Thank God you still are mine!" he replied, clasping her again in his arms, and pressing a kiss upon her lips.

There came a cautious knock on the door. Catherine gave a start.

"The Landgrave," she whispered, "coming to the appointment!"

She gazed up at Dick, in questioning silence. Gretel, who evidently understood the situation, cast an inquiring look at Catherine, and stood as, if awaiting orders. No one in the room moved.

The knock was repeated. Dick had now made up his mind. "He brings proof of Gerard's safety?" he whispered, interrogatively.

"Yes, or he would not be here," replied Catherine, under her breath.

Dick motioned Gretel to come close to him. "Open the door, in a moment," he said to the girl, "but do it in a fumbling way, so as to delay him as long as possible." Dick then led Catherine quickly into the alcove, the curtains closing behind them.

There was a third knock, a little louder and more insistent. But Gretel could now be heard at the door, which she first locked and then unlocked, in order to carry out Dick's instructions. When she finally opened it, the Landgrave stepped swiftly in, retaining the noiseless tread he had used in the corridor. His triumphant, expectant face, when he saw only Gretel in the room, took on a look of sharp disappointment.

"The devil!" he said, in a kind of quick growl. "No one here?"

The maid, not knowing what to say, pretended to be absorbed in fastening the door, which she had promptly closed.

Noticing the curtained alcove, the Landgrave started towards it; but he had not crossed the room when Catherine appeared, instantly letting the curtains fall to behind her.

"At last, mademoiselle," said the Landgrave, joyfully, putting forth his hand to grasp her own.

But she stood back aloof, and said, "The proofs of my brother's release, your highness?"

His highness received this temporary rebuff with resignation. "Be sure, I have brought them," he said. "Have the maid call your man-servant, who is in the corridor, arrived this minute from Spangenberg."