An Imperial Marriage Part 9

"Some of your men wish to see you, Herr Dormund."

He jumped up quickly, and the next moment I breathed freely again.

Instead of fresh trouble, the visit was a rare stroke of luck. He had left word where he was to be found, and the men had come with an urgent message for him to go to the police headquarters at once.

He excused himself to me hurriedly, and a minute later he and the others had left the house. I had scared myself for nothing.

I returned to von Felsen. "Herr Dormund has been recalled to his office. Why did you bring him here?"

"I thought you would like him to be perfectly satisfied that it was your sister whom he saw at the station?" he replied, forcing a laugh.

"You think it wasn't, then?"

He was still laughing maliciously. "He described her as a dark girl."

"And you thought I had misled him, eh?"

"Fraulein Althea is dark," he replied significantly.

"It didn't occur to you, I suppose, that I might have been doing a good turn for any other dark girl. A Jewess, for instance."

"I don't know what you mean."

"A friend of Ephraim Ziegler's, for instance."

"What are you driving at?"

"It's getting near to my turn to laugh, von Felsen."

"Fraulein Althea is in this house," he rapped out sharply. "You helped her to get out of Dormund's clutches at the station, and you are sheltering her here."

"a.s.sume for a moment that she is here--mind you, I don't admit it. But a.s.sume it, what were you going to gain by putting Dormund on the track?

I want the truth, you know. Suppose you had succeeded in putting her in the hands of the police, how would that help you?"

He rose. "Mind your own business," he said angrily.

"No, it's yours I am minding just now. You are going to stop this hunting down of Fraulein Althea. If you don't I shall turn hunter myself, with you as the quarry. You are not worth quarrelling with, so you needn't trouble yourself to stand sneering there. I shan't take any notice. Just read this."

I handed him the letter which Ziegler had given me. He started nervously as he read it, changed colour, and looked at me with an expression of bitter hate.

"I asked Herr Ziegler when I might congratulate him on Hagar's marriage," I said with a smile. "And that's one reason why I want to know your reason for what you are doing against Fraulein Althea. You profess to wish to marry her, you know; and even the son of a powerful Minister can't marry them both."

His confusion and anger were so intense that he could not find any reply to make to my jibe. He dropped back into his seat and sat biting his nails and scowling. I was delighted with my success.

"Well?" I asked at length. "A bit awkward, isn't it? I told you it was getting to be my turn to laugh. But I'm ready to come to an understanding. Drop this hunting business, and I'll hold my tongue to Ziegler."

"You've cornered me," he admitted with an oath. Then he laughed and swore again. "It wasn't my doing."

"What wasn't?"

"About Althea. I had to seem to wish it. It's my father's plan."

"You did the seeming very realistically," I retorted drily. "What are you going to do?"

"Marry the Ziegler girl when the time comes. I've no choice"; and he shrugged his shoulders and sneered.

"Why did your father wish you to marry a poor girl like Fraulein Althea?"

"If I'm not going to do it, what does that matter?"

"Not much, and I'll see that you don't do it," I replied as I rose.

"We'll call a halt on both sides. I shan't talk so long as you run straight. But mind you do"; and with that I let him go.

I was well satisfied with the result of the interview. He was a man on whose fear I could play pretty safely, and his change of manner on reading the letter had convinced me that he went in deadly fear of the ruin which the wily old Jew held over his head.

I did not envy Hagar her prospective husband; but that was her affair.

She loved him--Heaven knows there is no accounting for the vagaries of a woman's heart--and if she wished to marry him, she must have her way.

But he should not marry Althea. That I was firmly resolved, whether it was his father's idea or not. Not if the Emperor himself and the whole Court were set upon it. What the real reason might be behind the scheme I had not yet fathomed; but I had done well enough, and would find out the rest.

There was no longer any urgent reason for Althea to leave the house, and elated with my success I ran up to tell the others my news.

I found Althea alone. She did not hear my knock at the door, and was sitting by the window buried in thought, her face resting on her hand, and gazing out across the city.

She started at my entrance and looked round hurriedly. "I am afraid I am disturbing you," I said.

"No, no. Please come in, Mr. Bastable. Bessie insisted on going out to look for some place to which I can go on leaving here. She declares she will go with me; but I----" She broke off with a little shrug of protest.

She was pale, and her eyes had a worried, anxious expression. I had not been alone with her since her arrival at the house. I had purposely avoided that, indeed, for fear lest some sign of my love for her should escape me. While she remained in our care I could not, of course, give even a hint of my feelings. It had not been so difficult to a.s.sume indifference in Bessie's presence; but alone with her I was afraid of myself.

"She would go, of course; but fortunately it will not be necessary for either of you to leave," I said in a level tone.

She smiled. "I read in that that you have been able to help me yet further. Tell me--unless you have no time to spare."

"I think I have been able to call a halt in all this"; and I went on to describe von Felsen's trick of bringing Dormund to the house, and how I had succeeded in checking him by means of the information about Hagar.

"You think he will marry that Jewess?"

"I think he goes in terror of her father, and that the Jew holds his fate in the hollow of his hand."

She nodded, and was silent for a s.p.a.ce, and then shook her head. "Will you tell me what you know of Ephraim Ziegler?"

"Do you know him?" I asked in surprise.

She paused again, sighed, and glanced at me. "I owe you so much that I am bound to tell you everything. I am sure you will not betray me?" She stretched out her hand and laid it on my arm with a wistful gesture.

My pulses beat fast at the contact. "I hope you feel that."

"Of course I do," she said simply, withdrawing her hand again. For a moment she turned away and gazed out of the window, the red glare of the setting sun lighting her face. "He is a Pole, like my father; and you know the dream of every Pole--national independence. We have been foully wronged, and deep down in every Polish heart burns the desire for retribution. In that I, too, am a true Pole." Her eyes were ablaze with the light of enthusiasm as she turned them suddenly upon me. "I would freely give my life for the cause if it could do good; but, alas!

I know it is but an empty dream. I am not blind."