Page:McClure's Magazine volume 10.djvu/542

150 the world, save her great dread of losing him again.

"Not again, Rudolf, my darling! Not again! Rudolf, I can't bear it again."

Then she dropped her head on his knees and sobbed.

He raised his hand and gently stroked the gleaming hair. But he did not look at her. He gazed out at the garden, which grew dark and dreary in the gathering gloom. His lips were tight set and his face pale and drawn.

I watched him for a moment, then I drew my wife away, and we sat down at a table some way off. From outside still came the cheers and tumult of the joyful, excited crowd. Within there was no sound but the queen's stifled sobbing. Rudolf caressed her shining hair and gazed into the night with sad, set eyes.

She raised her head and looked into his face.

"You'll break my heart," she said.

of Hentzau was dead! That was the thought which, among all our perplexities, came back to me, carrying with it a wonderful relief. To those who have not learnt in fighting against him the height of his audacity and the reach of his designs, it may well seem incredible that his death should breed comfort at a moment when the future was still so dark and uncertain. Yet to me it was so great a thing that I could hardly bring myself to the conviction that we had done with him. True, he was dead; but could he not strike a blow at us even from beyond the gulf?

Such were the half-superstitious thoughts that forced their way into my mind as I stood looking out on the crowd which obstinately encircled the front of the palace. I was alone; Rudolf was with the queen, my wife was resting, Bernenstein had sat down to a meal for which I could find no appetite. By an effort I freed myself from my fancies and tried to concentrate my brain on the facts of our position. We were ringed round with difficulties. To solve them was beyond my power; but I knew where my wish and longing lay. I had no desire to find means by which Rudolf Rassendyll should escape unknown from Strelsau; the king, although dead, be again in death the king, and the queen be left desolate on her mournful and solitary throne. It might be that a brain more astute than mine could bring all this to pass. My imagination would have none of it, but dwelt lovingly on the reign of him who was now king in Strelsau, declaring that to give the kingdom such a ruler would be a splendid fraud, and prove a stroke so bold as to defy detection. Against it stood only the suspicions of Mother Holf—fear or money would close her lips—and the knowledge of Bauer; Bauer's mouth also could be shut, ay, and should be before we were many days older. My reverie led me far; I saw the future years unroll before me in the fair record of a great king's sovereignty. It seemed to me that by the violence and bloodshed we had passed through, fate, for once penitent, was but righting the mistake made when Rudolf was not born a king.

For a long while I stood thus, musing and dreaming; I was roused by the sound of the door opening and closing; turning, I saw the queen. She was alone, and came towards me with timid steps. She looked out for a moment on the square and the people, but drew back suddenly in apparent fear lest they should see her. Then she sat down and turned her face towards mine. I read in her eyes something of the conflict of emotions which possessed her; she seemed at once to deprecate my disapproval and to ask my sympathy; she prayed me to be gentle to her fault and kind to her happiness; self-reproach shadowed her joy, but the golden gleam of it strayed through. I looked eagerly at her; this would not have been her bearing had she come from a last farewell; for the radiance was there, however much dimmed by sorrow and by fearfulness.

"Fritz," she began softly, "I am wicked—so wicked. Won't God punish me for my gladness?"

I fear I paid little heed to her trouble, though I can understand it well enough now,

"Gladness?" I cried in a low voice. "Then you've persuaded him?"

She smiled at me for an instant.

"I mean, you've agreed?" I stammered.

Her eyes again sought mine, and she said in a whisper:

"Some day, not now. Oh, not now. Now would be too much. But some day, Fritz, if God will not deal too hardly with me, I—I shall be his, Fritz."

I was intent on my vision, not on hers.