By Wit of Woman Part 44

"I hope so--but it will depend upon you."

"Then it is settled--there is nothing I will not do for that;" and he sighed deeply. "Tell me what you wish."

"You find me in a different mood from that of last night. Then I was thinking mainly of Gareth and a little only for myself. Now I am thinking only of myself."

"You saved me from a terrible mistake last night."

"To which you had been tempted by the man who has wronged your child.

I sent Count Karl away with you that you might see how deeply you had wronged him in your suspicions."

"I saw that--afterwards; and saw, too, why you knew he was innocent.

He speaks of little else but you."

"Count Karl knows the road which duty compels him to take, and he will follow it to the end. He is a changed man."

The Colonel looked at me earnestly for a moment, his expression inscrutable. Then he nodded.

"Yes, he is a changed man; thanks to your influence--only that."

"The cause is of no consequence; it is only the fact that matters."

"You are very strong--for such a child."

"I have a strong purpose, Colonel Katona. I am going to be true to that purpose now with you."

"I am afraid I know what you are going to say."

"To ask plainly whether you will do justice to my father and tell me the whole story of that cruel wrong."

"The whole story?" he asked, anxiety in both look and tone.

"The whole story--nothing less will satisfy me."

He paused in evident distress, and pressed his hand tightly on his forehead. "It cannot be. It is impossible. Count Karl urged me--he of all men--but I told him what I tell you--it is impossible."

"Then you will never see Gareth again." I made my voice as hard and cold as I could.

"I have feared this," he murmured.

"And I, Colonel Katona, have worked for it."

"I cannot, I cannot," he murmured again, love and fear doing desperate battle in his mind. "You are not so cruel."

"I can be as hard as steel in this cause. Hear what I have done. I know, of course, where she is. I know the man who has done her this wrong. I have to-day so planned matters that to-morrow he shall know where to find her. If you do not speak now to help me, I declare to you that to-morrow Gareth shall be again in his arms."

A groan escaped his lips at this, and he bowed his white head as if in an agony of shame.

"Have you no mercy?" he whispered, at length.

"I am thinking of my father and his shame and ruin. You helped to kill his honour and blight his life. You were his friend. Had you mercy then, that you would ask it now of his child?"

"They told me he was dead. I swear that. I did not know the truth until years afterwards--when he had escaped. It was then too late, too late. My G.o.d, you know not what this is that you ask me to do."

"I ask for the truth. He trusted you. He has left it on record. You betrayed that trust--for your employers. You set their favour then before your friend's honour, just as now you set it before even the honour of your child."

Every one of my biting violent words went right home. He winced under the pain of them; and when I paused and he glanced up, his face could not have been more stricken had I been his judge sentencing him to death. Nay, I think he would have faced death with far less agitation.

"From you, his child, this is terrible," he murmured. "I have been very guilty; but not as you think. I was not false to your father like that. I will tell you all so far as it touches me. I know now that it was resolved that the young Count Stephen should die; and a quarrel was purposefully caused between him and your father. I was used at first only as a tool in the work. I had reason to know that the Duke Alexinatz was so incensed against your father, that it would go hard with him if he remained in Pesth."

"I know that it was at your persuasion that he made ready to fly from the city."

"It was true what I told him--Duke Ladislas wished him to leave, as otherwise the Duke himself might have been involved in the quarrel. He sent me direct to your father. Up to that point I was true to my friend. I would have given my life for him cheerfully--then."

"And after?"

"Count Stephen did go to your father's rooms in search of him, his blood heated with wine and the lies told by others; and it was there he was shot."

"You knew of this?"

"Nothing, until the next day; and then the story was told me that the two had met and quarrelled fiercely; that my friend had been killed; that the matter must be hushed up in the interests of Duke Ladislas; that he had in reality instigated it, and that loyalty to him made it impossible to speak the truth. Your father had been secretly buried, I was a.s.sured."

"I am waiting, Colonel Katona," I said, presently.

"From that point on I was guilty. My silence then was the first act of treachery; and others soon followed. I could not bring the dead to life, I was told, but I could help the living; and in helping them could save from ruin the cause to which I was pledged. The confession by your father was found and used--and I stood by and suffered his name to be dishonoured. For that I can plead no excuse."

"And when you knew that my father had not died but had been imprisoned all those years, and had escaped--what did you do then?"

"I know. I know," he exclaimed, wretchedly. "I did nothing. They came to me----"

"Who came to you?"

"Those who had done it all; and with them Count Gustav to whom all had then been told. They appealed to my loyalty to the cause, to Duke Ladislas, and to my country--and I yielded."

"Count Karl, too?"

"No. He knows nothing of it. Nothing."

"If he had known of all this and you had found the news which you thought had come from me to be true--that the man for whose family you had sinned in this way was the same who had wronged Gareth, what then?"

There was such a glitter in his eyes as they met mine that I almost feared he had read the thought and intent behind my words.

"I would have had his life first and"--he checked himself with sudden effort.

"And what?" I asked.

"I would have killed him," he murmured, doggedly.

"The rest is your secret?" I hazarded. He made no other answer than to glance at me quickly.