Seraphina sat for some while in silence.  She could bear to be 
misjudged without a pang by those whom she contemned; she had none 
of Otto's eagerness to be approved, but went her own way straight 
and head in air.  To Sir John, however, after what he had said, and 
as her husband's friend, she was prepared to stoop.

'What do you think of me?' she asked abruptly.

'I have told you already,' said Sir John: 'I think you want another 
glass of my good wine.'

'Come,' she said, 'this is unlike you.  You are not wont to be 
afraid.  You say that you admire my husband: in his name, be 
honest.'

'I admire your courage,' said the Baronet.  'Beyond that, as you 
have guessed, and indeed said, our natures are not sympathetic.'

'You spoke of scandal,' pursued Seraphina.  'Was the scandal great?'

'It was considerable,' said Sir John.

'And you believed it?' she demanded.

'O, madam,' said Sir John, 'the question!'

'Thank you for that answer!' cried Seraphina.  'And now here, I will 
tell you, upon my honour, upon my soul, in spite of all the scandal 
in this world, I am as true a wife as ever stood.'

'We should probably not agree upon a definition,' observed Sir John.

'O!' she cried, 'I have abominably used him - I know that; it is not 
that I mean.  But if you admire my husband, I insist that you shall 
understand me: I can look him in the face without a blush.'

'It may be, madam,' said Sir John; 'nor have I presumed to think the 
contrary.'

'You will not believe me?' she cried.  'You think I am a guilty 
wife?  You think he was my lover?'

'Madam,' returned the Baronet, 'when I tore up my papers, I promised 
your good husband to concern myself no more with your affairs; and I 
assure you for the last time that I have no desire to judge you.'

'But you will not acquit me!  Ah!' she cried, 'HE will - he knows me 
better!'

Sir John smiled.

'You smile at my distress?' asked Seraphina.

'At your woman's coolness,' said Sir John.  'A man would scarce have 
had the courage of that cry, which was, for all that, very natural, 
and I make no doubt quite true.  But remark, madam - since you do me 
the honour to consult me gravely - I have no pity for what you call 
your distresses.  You have been completely selfish, and now reap the 
consequence.  Had you once thought of your husband, instead of 
singly thinking of yourself, you would not now have been alone, a 
fugitive, with blood upon your hands, and hearing from a morose old 
Englishman truth more bitter than scandal.'

'I thank you,' she said, quivering.  'This is very true.  Will you 
stop the carriage?'

'No, child,' said Sir John, 'not until I see you mistress of 
yourself.'

There was a long pause, during which the carriage rolled by rock and 
woodland.

'And now,' she resumed, with perfect steadiness, 'will you consider 
me composed?  I request you, as a gentleman, to let me out.'

'I think you do unwisely,' he replied.  'Continue, if you please, to 
use my carriage.'

'Sir John,' she said, 'if death were sitting on that pile of stones, 
I would alight!  I do not blame, I thank you; I now know how I 
appear to others; but sooner than draw breath beside a man who can 
so think of me, I would - O!' she cried, and was silent.

Sir John pulled the string, alighted, and offered her his hand; but 
she refused the help.

The road had now issued from the valleys in which it had been 
winding, and come to that part of its course where it runs, like a 
cornice, along the brow of the steep northward face of Grunewald.  
The place where they had alighted was at a salient angle; a bold 
rock and some wind-tortured pine-trees overhung it from above; far 
below the blue plains lay forth and melted into heaven; and before 
them the road, by a succession of bold zigzags, was seen mounting to 
where a tower upon a tall cliff closed the view.

'There,' said the Baronet, pointing to the tower, 'you see the 
Felsenburg, your goal.  I wish you a good journey, and regret I 
cannot be of more assistance.'

He mounted to his place and gave a signal, and the carriage rolled 
away.

Seraphina stood by the wayside, gazing before her with blind eyes.  
Sir John she had dismissed already from her mind: she hated him, 
that was enough; for whatever Seraphina hated or contemned fell 
instantly to Lilliputian smallness, and was thenceforward steadily 
ignored in thought.  And now she had matter for concern indeed.  Her 
interview with Otto, which she had never yet forgiven him, began to 
appear before her in a very different light.  He had come to her, 
still thrilling under recent insult, and not yet breathed from 
fighting her own cause; and how that knowledge changed the value of 
his words!  Yes, he must have loved her! this was a brave feeling - 
it was no mere weakness of the will.  And she, was she incapable of 
love?  It would appear so; and she swallowed her tears, and yearned 
to see Otto, to explain all, to ask pity upon her knees for her 
transgressions, and, if all else were now beyond the reach of 
reparation, to restore at least the liberty of which she had 
deprived him.

Swiftly she sped along the highway, and, as the road wound out and 
in about the bluffs and gullies of the mountain, saw and lost by 
glimpses the tall tower that stood before and above her, purpled by 
the mountain air.




CHAPTER II - TREATS OF A CHRISTIAN VIRTUE


WHEN Otto mounted to his rolling prison he found another occupant in 
a corner of the front seat; but as this person hung his head and the 
brightness of the carriage lamps shone outward, the Prince could 
only see it was a man.  The Colonel followed his prisoner and 
clapped-to the door; and at that the four horses broke immediately 
into a swinging trot.

'Gentlemen,' said the Colonel, after some little while had passed, 
'if we are to travel in silence, we might as well be at home.  I 
appear, of course, in an invidious character; but I am a man of 
taste, fond of books and solidly informing talk, and unfortunately 
condemned for life to the guard-room.  Gentlemen, this is my chance: 
don't spoil it for me.  I have here the pick of the whole court, 
barring lovely woman; I have a great author in the person of the 
Doctor - '

'Gotthold!' cried Otto.

'It appears,' said the Doctor bitterly, 'that we must go together.  
Your Highness had not calculated upon that.'

'What do you infer?' cried Otto; 'that I had you arrested?'

'The inference is simple,' said the Doctor.

'Colonel Gordon,' said the Prince, 'oblige me so far, and set me 
right with Herr von Hohenstockwitz.'

'Gentlemen,' said the Colonel, 'you are both arrested on the same 
warrant in the name of the Princess Seraphina, acting regent, 
countersigned by Prime Minister Freiherr von Gondremark, and dated 
the day before yesterday, the twelfth.  I reveal to you the secrets 
of the prison-house,' he added.

'Otto,' said Gotthold, 'I ask you to pardon my suspicions.'

'Gotthold,' said the Prince, 'I am not certain I can grant you 
that.'

'Your Highness is, I am sure, far too magnanimous to hesitate,' said 
the Colonel.  'But allow me: we speak at home in my religion of the 
means of grace: and I now propose to offer them.'  So saying, the 
Colonel lighted a bright lamp which he attached to one side of the 
carriage, and from below the front seat produced a goodly basket 
adorned with the long necks of bottles.  'TU SPEM REDUCIS - how does 
it go, Doctor?' he asked gaily.  'I am, in a sense, your host; and I 
am sure you are both far too considerate of my embarrassing position 
to refuse to do me honour.  Gentlemen, I drink to the Prince!'

'Colonel,' said Otto, 'we have a jovial entertainer.  I drink to 
Colonel Gordon.'

Thereupon all three took their wine very pleasantly; and even as 
they did so, the carriage with a lurch turned into the high-road and 
began to make better speed.

All was bright within; the wine had coloured Gotthold's cheek; dim 
forms of forest trees, dwindling and spiring, scarves of the starry 
sky, now wide and now narrow, raced past the windows, through one 
that was left open the air of the woods came in with a nocturnal 
raciness; and the roll of wheels and the tune of the trotting horses 
sounded merrily on the ear.  Toast followed toast; glass after glass 
was bowed across and emptied by the trio; and presently there began 
to fall upon them a luxurious spell, under the influence of which 
little but the sound of quiet and confidential laughter interrupted 
the long intervals of meditative silence.

'Otto,' said Gotthold, after one of these seasons of quiet, 'I do 
not ask you to forgive me.  Were the parts reversed, I could not 
forgive you.'

'Well,' said Otto, 'it is a phrase we use.  I do forgive you, but 
your words and your suspicions rankle; and not yours alone.  It is 
idle, Colonel Gordon, in view of the order you are carrying out, to 
conceal from you the dissensions of my family; they have gone so far 
that they are now public property.  Well, gentlemen, can I forgive 
my wife?  I can, of course, and do; but in what sense?  I would 
certainly not stoop to any revenge; as certainly I could not think 
of her but as one changed beyond my recognition.'

'Allow me,' returned the Colonel.  'You will permit me to hope that 
I am addressing Christians?  We are all conscious, I trust, that we 
are miserable sinners.'

'I disown the consciousness,' said Gotthold.  'Warmed with this good 
fluid, I deny your thesis.'

'How, sir?  You never did anything wrong? and I heard you asking 
pardon but this moment, not of your God, sir, but of a common 
fellow-worm!' the Colonel cried.

'I own you have me; you are expert in argument, Heir Oberst,' said 
the Doctor.

'Begad, sir, I am proud to hear you say so,' said the Colonel.  'I 
was well grounded indeed at Aberdeen.  And as for this matter of 
forgiveness, it comes, sir, of loose views and (what is if anything 
more dangerous) a regular life.  A sound creed and a bad morality, 
that's the root of wisdom.  You two gentlemen are too good to be 
forgiving.'

'The paradox is somewhat forced,' said Gotthold.

'Pardon me, Colonel,' said the Prince; 'I readily acquit you of any 
design of offence, but your words bite like satire.  Is this a time, 
do you think, when I can wish to hear myself called good, now that I 
am paying the penalty (and am willing like yourself to think it 
just) of my prolonged misconduct?'

'O, pardon me!' cried the Colonel.  'You have never been expelled 
from the divinity hall; you have never been broke.  I was: broke for 
a neglect of military duty.  To tell you the open truth, your 
Highness, I was the worse of drink; it's a thing I never do now,' he 
added, taking out his glass.  'But a man, you see, who has really 
tasted the defects of his own character, as I have, and has come to 
regard himself as a kind of blind teetotum knocking about life, 
begins to learn a very different view about forgiveness.  I will 
talk of not forgiving others, sir, when I have made out to forgive 
myself, and not before; and the date is like to be a long one.  My 
father, the Reverend Alexander Gordon, was a good man, and damned 
hard upon others.  I am what they call a bad one, and that is just 
the difference.  The man who cannot forgive any mortal thing is a 
green hand in life.'

'And yet I have heard of you, Colonel, as a duellist,' said 
Gotthold.

'A different thing, sir,' replied the soldier.  'Professional 
etiquette.  And I trust without unchristian feeling.'

Presently after the Colonel fell into a deep sleep and his 
companions looked upon each other, smiling.

'An odd fish,' said Gotthold.

'And a strange guardian,' said the Prince.  'Yet what he said was 
true.'

'Rightly looked upon,' mused Gotthold, 'it is ourselves that we 
cannot forgive, when we refuse forgiveness to our friend.  Some 
strand of our own misdoing is involved in every quarrel.'

'Are there not offences that disgrace the pardoner?' asked Otto.  
'Are there not bounds of self-respect?'

'Otto,' said Gotthold, 'does any man respect himself?  To this poor 
waif of a soldier of fortune we may seem respectable gentlemen; but 
to ourselves, what are we unless a pasteboard portico and a 
deliquium of deadly weaknesses within?'

'I? yes,' said Otto; 'but you, Gotthold - you, with your 
interminable industry, your keen mind, your books - serving mankind, 
scorning pleasures and temptations!  You do not know how I envy 
you.'

'Otto,' said the Doctor, 'in one word, and a bitter one to say: I am 
a secret tippler.  Yes, I drink too much.  The habit has robbed 
these very books, to which you praise my devotion, of the merits 
that they should have had.  It has spoiled my temper.  When I spoke 
to you the other day, how much of my warmth was in the cause of 
virtue? how much was the fever of last night's wine?  Ay, as my poor 
fellow-sot there said, and as I vaingloriously denied, we are all 
miserable sinners, put here for a moment, knowing the good, choosing 
the evil, standing naked and ashamed in the eye of God.'

'Is it so?' said Otto.  'Why, then, what are we?  Are the very best 
- '

'There is no best in man,' said Gotthold.  'I am not better, it is 
likely I am not worse, than you or that poor sleeper.  I was a sham, 
and now you know me: that is all.'

'And yet it has not changed my love,' returned Otto softly.  'Our 
misdeeds do not change us.  Gotthold, fill your glass.  Let us drink 
to what is good in this bad business; let us drink to our old 
affection; and, when we have done so, forgive your too just grounds 
of offence, and drink with me to my wife, whom I have so misused, 
who has so misused me, and whom I have left, I fear, I greatly fear, 
in danger.  What matters it how bad we are, if others can still love 
us, and we can still love others?'

'Ay!' replied the Doctor.  'It is very well said.  It is the true 
answer to the pessimist, and the standing miracle of mankind.  So 
you still love me? and so you can forgive your wife?  Why, then, we 
may bid conscience "Down, dog," like an ill-trained puppy yapping at 
shadows.'

The pair fell into silence, the Doctor tapping on his empty glass.

The carriage swung forth out of the valleys on that open balcony of 
high-road that runs along the front of Grunewald, looking down on 
Gerolstein.  Far below, a white waterfall was shining to the stars 
from the falling skirts of forest, and beyond that, the night stood 
naked above the plain.  On the other hand, the lamp-light skimmed 
the face of the precipices, and the dwarf pine-trees twinkled with 
all their needles, and were gone again into the wake.  The granite 
roadway thundered under wheels and hoofs; and at times, by reason of 
its continual winding, Otto could see the escort on the other side 
of a ravine, riding well together in the night.  Presently the 
Felsenburg came plainly in view, some way above them, on a bold 
projection of the mountain, and planting its bulk against the starry 
sky.

'See, Gotthold,' said the Prince, 'our destination.'

Gotthold awoke as from a trance.

'I was thinking,' said he, 'if there is any danger, why did you not 
resist?  I was told you came of your free will; but should you not 
be there to help her?'

The colour faded from the Prince's cheeks.




CHAPTER III - PROVIDENCE VON ROSEN: ACT THE LAST
IN WHICH SHE GALLOPS OFF


WHEN the busy Countess came forth from her interview with Seraphina, 
it is not too much to say that she was beginning to be terribly 
afraid.  She paused in the corridor and reckoned up her doings with 
an eye to Gondremark.  The fan was in requisition in an instant; but 
her disquiet was beyond the reach of fanning.  'The girl has lost 
her head,' she thought; and then dismally, 'I have gone too far.'  
She instantly decided on secession.  Now the MONS SACER of the Frau 
von Rosen was a certain rustic villa in the forest, called by 
herself, in a smart attack of poesy, Tannen Zauber, and by everybody 
else plain Kleinbrunn.

Thither, upon the thought, she furiously drove, passing Gondremark 
at the entrance to the Palace avenue, but feigning not to observe 
him; and as Kleinbrunn was seven good miles away, and in the bottom 
of a narrow dell, she passed the night without any rumour of the 
outbreak reaching her; and the glow of the conflagration was 
concealed by intervening hills.  Frau von Rosen did not sleep well; 
she was seriously uneasy as to the results of her delightful 
evening, and saw herself condemned to quite a lengthy sojourn in her 
deserts and a long defensive correspondence, ere she could venture 
to return to Gondremark.  On the other hand, she examined, by way of 
pastime, the deeds she had received from Otto; and even here saw 
cause for disappointment.  In these troublous days she had no taste 
for landed property, and she was convinced, besides, that Otto had 
paid dearer than the farm was worth.  Lastly, the order for the 
Prince's release fairly burned her meddling fingers.

All things considered, the next day beheld an elegant and beautiful 
lady, in a riding-habit and a flapping hat, draw bridle at the gate 
of the Felsenburg, not perhaps with any clear idea of her purpose, 
but with her usual experimental views on life.  Governor Gordon, 
summoned to the gate, welcomed the omnipotent Countess with his most 
gallant bearing, though it was wonderful how old he looked in the 
morning.

'Ah, Governor,' she said, 'we have surprises for you, sir,' and 
nodded at him meaningly.

'Eh, madam, leave me my prisoners,' he said; 'and if you will but 
join the band, begad, I'll be happy for life.'

'You would spoil me, would you not?' she asked.

'I would try, I would try,' returned the Governor, and he offered 
her his arm.

She took it, picked up her skirt, and drew him close to her.  'I 
have come to see the Prince,' she said.  'Now, infidel! on business.  
A message from that stupid Gondremark, who keeps me running like a 
courier.  Do I look like one, Herr Gordon?' And she planted her eyes 
in him.

'You look like an angel, ma'am,' returned the Governor, with a great 
air of finished gallantry.

The Countess laughed.  'An angel on horseback!' she said.  'Quick 
work.'

'You came, you saw, you conquered,' flourished Gordon, in high good 
humour with his own wit and grace.  'We toasted you, madam, in the 
carriage, in an excellent good glass of wine; toasted you fathom 
deep; the finest woman, with, begad, the finest eyes in Grunewald.  
I never saw the like of them but once, in my own country, when I was 
a young fool at College: Thomasina Haig her name was.  I give you my 
word of honour, she was as like you as two peas.'

'And so you were merry in the carriage?' asked the Countess, 
gracefully dissembling a yawn.

'We were; we had a very pleasant conversation; but we took perhaps a 
glass more than that fine fellow of a Prince has been accustomed 
to,' said the Governor; 'and I observe this morning that he seems a 
little off his mettle.  We'll get him mellow again ere bedtime.  
This is his door.'

'Well,' she whispered, 'let me get my breath.  No, no; wait.  Have 
the door ready to open.'  And the Countess, standing like one 
inspired, shook out her fine voice in 'Lascia ch'io pianga'; and 
when she had reached the proper point, and lyrically uttered forth 
her sighings after liberty, the door, at a sign, was flung wide 
open, and she swam into the Prince's sight, bright-eyed, and with 
her colour somewhat freshened by the exercise of singing.  It was a 
great dramatic entrance, and to the somewhat doleful prisoner within 
the sight was sunshine.

'Ah, madam,' he cried, running to her - 'you here!'

She looked meaningly at Gordon; and as soon as the door was closed 
she fell on Otto's neck.  'To see you here!' she moaned and clung to 
him.

But the Prince stood somewhat stiffly in that enviable situation, 
and the Countess instantly recovered from her outburst.

'Poor child,' she said, 'poor child!  Sit down beside me here, and 
tell me all about it.  My heart really bleeds to see you.  How does 
time go?'

'Madam,' replied the Prince, sitting down beside her, his gallantry 
recovered, 'the time will now go all too quickly till you leave.  
But I must ask you for the news.  I have most bitterly condemned 
myself for my inertia of last night.  You wisely counselled me; it 
was my duty to resist.  You wisely and nobly counselled me; I have 
since thought of it with wonder.  You have a noble heart.'

'Otto,' she said, 'spare me.  Was it even right, I wonder?  I have 
duties, too, you poor child; and when I see you they all melt - all 
my good resolutions fly away.'

'And mine still come too late,' he replied, sighing.  'O, what would 
I not give to have resisted?  What would I not give for freedom?'

'Well, what would you give?' she asked; and the red fan was spread; 
only her eyes, as if from over battlements, brightly surveyed him.

'I?  What do you mean?  Madam, you have some news for me,' he cried.

'O, O!' said madam dubiously.

He was at her feet.  'Do not trifle with my hopes,' he pleaded.  
'Tell me, dearest Madame von Rosen, tell me!  You cannot be cruel: 
it is not in your nature.  Give?  I can give nothing; I have 
nothing; I can only plead in mercy.'

'Do not,' she said; 'it is not fair.  Otto, you know my weakness.  
Spare me.  Be generous.'

'O, madam,' he said, 'it is for you to be generous, to have pity.'  
He took her hand and pressed it; he plied her with caresses and 
appeals.  The Countess had a most enjoyable sham siege, and then 
relented.  She sprang to her feet, she tore her dress open, and, all 
warm from her bosom, threw the order on the floor.

'There!' she cried.  'I forced it from her.  Use it, and I am 
ruined!'  And she turned away as if to veil the force of her 
emotions.

Otto sprang upon the paper, read it, and cried out aloud.  'O, God 
bless her!' he said, 'God bless her.'  And he kissed the writing.

Von Rosen was a singularly good-natured woman, but her part was now 
beyond her.  'Ingrate!' she cried; 'I wrung it from her, I betrayed 
my trust to get it, and 'tis she you thank!'

'Can you blame me?' said the Prince.  'I love her.'

'I see that,' she said.  'And I?'

'You, Madame von Rosen?  You are my dearest, my kindest, and most 
generous of friends,' he said, approaching her.  'You would be a 
perfect friend, if you were not so lovely.  You have a great sense 
of humour, you cannot be unconscious of your charm, and you amuse 
yourself at times by playing on my weakness; and at times I can take 
pleasure in the comedy.  But not to-day: to-day you will be the 
true, the serious, the manly friend, and you will suffer me to 
forget that you are lovely and that I am weak.  Come, dear Countess, 
let me to-day repose in you entirely.'

He held out his hand, smiling, and she took it frankly.  'I vow you 
have bewitched me,' she said; and then with a laugh, 'I break my 
staff!' she added; 'and I must pay you my best compliment.  You made 
a difficult speech.  You are as adroit, dear Prince, as I am - 
charming.'  And as she said the word with a great curtsey, she 
justified it.

'You hardly keep the bargain, madam, when you make yourself so 
beautiful,' said the Prince, bowing.

'It was my last arrow,' she returned.  'I am disarmed.  Blank 
cartridge, O MON PRINCE!  And now I tell you, if you choose to leave 
this prison, you can, and I am ruined.  Choose!'

'Madame von Rosen,' replied Otto, 'I choose, and I will go.  My duty 
points me, duty still neglected by this Featherhead.  But do not 
fear to be a loser.  I propose instead that you should take me with 
you, a bear in chains, to Baron Gondremark.  I am become perfectly 
unscrupulous: to save my wife I will do all, all he can ask or 
fancy.  He shall be filled; were he huge as leviathan and greedy as 
the grave, I will content him.  And you, the fairy of our pantomime, 
shall have the credit.'

'Done!' she cried.  'Admirable!  Prince Charming no longer - Prince 
Sorcerer, Prince Solon!  Let us go this moment.  Stay,' she cried, 
pausing.  'I beg dear Prince, to give you back these deeds.  'Twas 
you who liked the farm - I have not seen it; and it was you who 
wished to benefit the peasants.  And, besides,' she added, with a 
comical change of tone, 'I should prefer the ready money.'

Both laughed.  'Here I am, once more a farmer,' said Otto, accepting 
the papers, 'but overwhelmed in debt.'

The Countess touched a bell, and the Governor appeared.

'Governor,' she said, 'I am going to elope with his Highness.  The 
result of our talk has been a thorough understanding, and the COUP 
D'ETAT is over.  Here is the order.'

Colonel Gordon adjusted silver spectacles upon his nose.  'Yes,' he 
said, 'the Princess: very right.  But the warrant, madam, was 
countersigned.'

'By Heinrich!' said von Rosen.  'Well, and here am I to represent 
him.'

'Well, your Highness,' resumed the soldier of fortune, 'I must 
congratulate you upon my loss.  You have been cut out by beauty, and 
I am left lamenting.  The Doctor still remains to me: PROBUS, 
DOCTUS, LEPIDUS, JUCUNDUS: a man of books.'

'Ay, there is nothing about poor Gotthold,' said the Prince.

'The Governor's consolation?  Would you leave him bare?' asked von 
Rosen.

'And, your Highness,' resumed Gordon, 'may I trust that in the 
course of this temporary obscuration, you have found me discharge my 
part with suitable respect and, I may add, tact?  I adopted 
purposely a cheerfulness of manner; mirth, it appeared to me, and a 
good glass of wine, were the fit alleviations.'

'Colonel,' said Otto, holding out his hand, 'your society was of 
itself enough.  I do not merely thank you for your pleasant spirits; 
I have to thank you, besides, for some philosophy, of which I stood 
in need.  I trust I do not see you for the last time; and in the 
meanwhile, as a memento of our strange acquaintance, let me offer 
you these verses on which I was but now engaged.  I am so little of 
a poet, and was so ill inspired by prison bars, that they have some 
claim to be at least a curiosity.'

The Colonel's countenance lighted as he took the paper; the silver 
spectacles were hurriedly replaced.  'Ha!' he said, 'Alexandrines, 
the tragic metre.  I shall cherish this, your Highness, like a 
relic; no more suitable offering, although I say it, could be made. 
"DIEUX DE L'IMMENSE PLAINE ET DES VASTES FORETS."  Very good,' he 
said, 'very good indeed!  "ET DU GEOLIER LUI-MEME APPRENDRE DES 
LECONS."  Most handsome, begad!'

'Come, Governor,' cried the Countess, 'you can read his poetry when 
we are gone.  Open your grudging portals.'

'I ask your pardon,' said the Colonel.  'To a man of my character 
and tastes, these verses, this handsome reference - most moving, I 
assure you.  Can I offer you an escort?'

'No, no,' replied the Countess.  'We go incogniti, as we arrived.  
We ride together; the Prince will take my servant's horse.  Hurry 
and privacy, Herr Oberst, that is all we seek.' And she began 
impatiently to lead the way.

But Otto had still to bid farewell to Dr. Gotthold; and the Governor 
following, with his spectacles in one hand and the paper in the 
other, had still to communicate his treasured verses, piece by 
piece, as he succeeded in deciphering the manuscript, to all he came 
across; and still his enthusiasm mounted.  'I declare,' he cried at 
last, with the air of one who has at length divined a mystery, 'they 
remind me of Robbie Burns!'

But there is an end to all things; and at length Otto was walking by 
the side of Madame von Rosen, along that mountain wall, her servant 
following with both the horses, and all about them sunlight, and 
breeze, and flying bird, and the vast regions of the air, and the 
capacious prospect: wildwood and climbing pinnacle, and the sound 
and voice of mountain torrents, at their hand: and far below them, 
green melting into sapphire on the plains.

They walked at first in silence; for Otto's mind was full of the 
delight of liberty and nature, and still, betweenwhiles, he was 
preparing his interview with Gondremark.  But when the first rough 
promontory of the rock was turned, and the Felsenburg concealed 
behind its bulk, the lady paused.

'Here,' she said, 'I will dismount poor Karl, and you and I must ply 
our spurs.  I love a wild ride with a good companion.'

As she spoke, a carriage came into sight round the corner next below 
them in the order of the road.  It came heavily creaking, and a 
little ahead of it a traveller was soberly walking, note-book in 
hand.

'It is Sir John,' cried Otto, and he hailed him.

The Baronet pocketed his note-book, stared through an eye-glass, and 
then waved his stick; and he on his side, and the Countess and the 
Prince on theirs, advanced with somewhat quicker steps.  They met at 
the re-entrant angle, where a thin stream sprayed across a boulder 
and was scattered in rain among the brush; and the Baronet saluted 
the Prince with much punctilio.  To the Countess, on the other hand, 
he bowed with a kind of sneering wonder.

'Is it possible, madam, that you have not heard the news?' he asked.

'What news?' she cried.

'News of the first order,' returned Sir John: 'a revolution in the 
State, a Republic declared, the palace burned to the ground, the 
Princess in flight, Gondremark wounded - '

'Heinrich wounded?' she screamed.

'Wounded and suffering acutely,' said Sir John.  'His groans - '

There fell from the lady's lips an oath so potent that, in smoother 
hours, it would have made her hearers jump.  She ran to her horse, 
scrambled to the saddle, and, yet half seated, dashed down the road 
at full gallop.  The groom, after a pause of wonder, followed her.  
The rush of her impetuous passage almost scared the carriage horses 
over the verge of the steep hill; and still she clattered further, 
and the crags echoed to her flight, and still the groom flogged 
vainly in pursuit of her.  At the fourth corner, a woman trailing 
slowly up leaped back with a cry and escaped death by a hand's-
breadth.  But the Countess wasted neither glance nor thought upon 
the incident.  Out and in, about the bluffs of the mountain wall, 
she fled, loose-reined, and still the groom toiled in her pursuit.

'A most impulsive lady!' said Sir John.  'Who would have thought she 
cared for him?'  And before the words were uttered, he was 
struggling in the Prince's grasp.

'My wife! the Princess?  What of her?'

'She is down the road,' he gasped.  'I left her twenty minutes 
back.'

And next moment, the choked author stood alone, and the Prince on 
foot was racing down the hill behind the Countess.




CHAPTER IV - BABES IN THE WOOD


WHILE the feet of the Prince continued to run swiftly, his heart, 
which had at first by far outstripped his running, soon began to 
linger and hang back.  Not that he ceased to pity the misfortune or 
to yearn for the sight of Seraphina; but the memory of her obdurate 
coldness awoke within him, and woke in turn his own habitual 
diffidence of self.  Had Sir John been given time to tell him all, 
had he even known that she was speeding to the Felsenburg, he would 
have gone to her with ardour.  As it was, he began to see himself 
once more intruding, profiting, perhaps, by her misfortune, and now 
that she was fallen, proffering unloved caresses to the wife who had 
spurned him in prosperity.  The sore spots upon his vanity began to 
burn; once more, his anger assumed the carriage of a hostile 
generosity; he would utterly forgive indeed; he would help, save, 
and comfort his unloving wife; but all with distant self-denial, 
imposing silence on his heart, respecting Seraphina's disaffection 
as he would the innocence of a child.  So, when at length he turned 
a corner and beheld the Princess, it was his first thought to 
reassure her of the purity of his respect, and he at once ceased 
running and stood still.  She, upon her part, began to run to him 
with a little cry; then, seeing him pause, she paused also, smitten 
with remorse; and at length, with the most guilty timidity, walked 
nearly up to where he stood.

'Otto,' she said, 'I have ruined all!'

'Seraphina!' he cried with a sob, but did not move, partly withheld 
by his resolutions, partly struck stupid at the sight of her 
weariness and disorder.  Had she stood silent, they had soon been 
locked in an embrace.  But she too had prepared herself against the 
interview, and must spoil the golden hour with protestations.

'All!' she went on, 'I have ruined all!  But, Otto, in kindness you 
must hear me - not justify, but own, my faults.  I have been taught 
so cruelly; I have had such time for thought, and see the world so 
changed.  I have been blind, stone-blind; I have let all true good 
go by me, and lived on shadows.  But when this dream fell, and I had 
betrayed you, and thought I had killed - '  She paused.  'I thought 
I had killed Gondremark,' she said with a deep flush, 'and I found 
myself alone, as you said.'

The mention of the name of Gondremark pricked the Princes generosity 
like a spur.  'Well,' he cried, 'and whose fault was it but mine?  
It was my duty to be beside you, loved or not.  But I was a skulker 
in the grain, and found it easier to desert than to oppose you.  I 
could never learn that better part of love, to fight love's battles.  
But yet the love was there.  And now when this toy kingdom of ours 
has fallen, first of all by my demerits, and next by your 
inexperience, and we are here alone together, as poor as Job and 
merely a man and a woman - let me conjure you to forgive the 
weakness and to repose in the love.  Do not mistake me!' he cried, 
seeing her about to speak, and imposing silence with uplifted hand.  
'My love is changed; it is purged of any conjugal pretension; it 
does not ask, does not hope, does not wish for a return in kind.  
You may forget for ever that part in which you found me so 
distasteful, and accept without embarrassment the affection of a 
brother.'

'You are too generous, Otto,' she said.  'I know that I have 
forfeited your love.  I cannot take this sacrifice.  You had far 
better leave me.  O, go away, and leave me to my fate!'

'O no!' said Otto; 'we must first of all escape out of this hornet's 
nest, to which I led you.  My honour is engaged.  I said but now we 
were as poor as Job; and behold! not many miles from here I have a 
house of my own to which I will conduct you.  Otto the Prince being 
down, we must try what luck remains to Otto the Hunter.  Come, 
Seraphina; show that you forgive me, and let us set about this 
business of escape in the best spirits possible.  You used to say, 
my dear, that, except as a husband and a prince, I was a pleasant 
fellow.  I am neither now, and you may like my company without 
remorse.  Come, then; it were idle to be captured.  Can you still 
walk?  Forth, then,' said he, and he began to lead the way.

A little below where they stood, a good-sized brook passed below the 
road, which overleapt it in a single arch.  On one bank of that 
loquacious water a foot-path descended a green dell.  Here it was 
rocky and stony, and lay on the steep scarps of the ravine; here it 
was choked with brambles; and there, in fairy haughs, it lay for a 
few paces evenly on the green turf.  Like a sponge, the hillside 
oozed with well-water.  The burn kept growing both in force and 
volume; at every leap it fell with heavier plunges and span more 
widely in the pool.  Great had been the labours of that stream, and 
great and agreeable the changes it had wrought.  It had cut through 
dykes of stubborn rock, and now, like a blowing dolphin, spouted 
through the orifice; along all its humble coasts, it had undermined 
and rafted-down the goodlier timber of the forest; and on these 
rough clearings it now set and tended primrose gardens, and planted 
woods of willow, and made a favourite of the silver birch.  Through 
all these friendly features the path, its human acolyte, conducted 
our two wanderers downward, - Otto before, still pausing at the more 
difficult passages to lend assistance; the Princess following.  From 
time to time, when he turned to help her, her face would lighten 
upon his - her eyes, half desperately, woo him.  He saw, but dared 
not understand.  'She does not love me,' he told himself, with 
magnanimity.  'This is remorse or gratitude; I were no gentleman, 
no, nor yet a man, if I presumed upon these pitiful concessions.'

Some way down the glen, the stream, already grown to a good bulk of 
water, was rudely dammed across, and about a third of it abducted in 
a wooden trough.  Gaily the pure water, air's first cousin, fleeted 
along the rude aqueduct, whose sides and floor it had made green 
with grasses.  The path, bearing it close company, threaded a 
wilderness of briar and wild-rose.  And presently, a little in 
front, the brown top of a mill and the tall mill-wheel, spraying 
diamonds, arose in the narrows of the glen; at the same time the 
snoring music of the saws broke the silence.

The miller, hearing steps, came forth to his door, and both he and 
Otto started.

'Good-morning, miller,' said the Prince.  'You were right, it seems, 
and I was wrong.  I give you the news, and bid you to Mittwalden.  
My throne has fallen - great was the fall of it! - and your good 
friends of the Phoenix bear the rule.'

The red-faced miller looked supreme astonishment.  'And your 
Highness?' he gasped.

'My Highness is running away,' replied Otto, 'straight for the 
frontier.'

'Leaving Grunewald?' cried the man.  'Your father's son?  It's not 
to be permitted!'

'Do you arrest us, friend?' asked Otto, smiling.

'Arrest you?  I?' exclaimed the man.  'For what does your Highness 
take me?  Why, sir, I make sure there is not a man in Grunewald 
would lay hands upon you.'

'O, many, many,' said the Prince; 'but from you, who were bold with 
me in my greatness, I should even look for aid in my distress.'

The miller became the colour of beetroot.  'You may say so indeed,' 
said he.  'And meanwhile, will you and your lady step into my 
house.'

'We have not time for that,' replied the Prince; 'but if you would 
oblige us with a cup of wine without here, you will give a pleasure 
and a service, both in one.'

The miller once more coloured to the nape.  He hastened to bring 
forth wine in a pitcher and three bright crystal tumblers.  'Your 
Highness must not suppose,' he said, as he filled them, 'that I am 
an habitual drinker.  The time when I had the misfortune to 
encounter you, I was a trifle overtaken, I allow; but a more sober 
man than I am in my ordinary, I do not know where you are to look 
for; and even this glass that I drink to you (and to the lady) is 
quite an unusual recreation.'

The wine was drunk with due rustic courtesies; and then, refusing 
further hospitality, Otto and Seraphina once more proceeded to 
descend the glen, which now began to open and to be invaded by the 
taller trees.

'I owed that man a reparation,' said the Prince; 'for when we met I 
was in the wrong and put a sore affront upon him.  I judge by 
myself, perhaps; but I begin to think that no one is the better for 
a humiliation.'

'But some have to be taught so,' she replied.

'Well, well,' he said, with a painful embarrassment.  'Well, well.  
But let us think of safety.  My miller is all very good, but I do 
not pin my faith to him.  To follow down this stream will bring us, 
but after innumerable windings, to my house.  Here, up this glade, 
there lies a cross-cut - the world's end for solitude - the very 
deer scarce visit it.  Are you too tired, or could you pass that 
way?'

'Choose the path, Otto.  I will follow you,' she said.

'No,' he replied, with a singular imbecility of manner and 
appearance, 'but I meant the path was rough.  It lies, all the way, 
by glade and dingle, and the dingles are both deep and thorny.'

'Lead on,' she said.  'Are you not Otto the Hunter?'

They had now burst across a veil of underwood, and were come into a 
lawn among the forest, very green and innocent, and solemnly 
surrounded by trees.  Otto paused on the margin, looking about him 
with delight; then his glance returned to Seraphina, as she stood 
framed in that silvan pleasantness and looking at her husband with 
undecipherable eyes.  A weakness both of the body and mind fell on 
him like the beginnings of sleep; the cords of his activity were 
relaxed, his eyes clung to her.  'Let us rest,' he said; and he made 
her sit down, and himself sat down beside her on the slope of an 
inconsiderable mound.

She sat with her eyes downcast, her slim hand dabbling in grass, 
like a maid waiting for love's summons.  The sound of the wind in 
the forest swelled and sank, and drew near them with a running rush, 
and died away and away in the distance into fainting whispers.  
Nearer hand, a bird out of the deep covert uttered broken and 
anxious notes.  All this seemed but a halting prelude to speech.  To 
Otto it seemed as if the whole frame of nature were waiting for his 
words; and yet his pride kept him silent.  The longer he watched 
that slender and pale hand plucking at the grasses, the harder and 
rougher grew the fight between pride and its kindly adversary.

'Seraphina,' he said at last, 'it is right you should know one 
thing: I never . . .'  He was about to say 'doubted you,' but was 
that true?  And, if true, was it generous to speak of it?  Silence 
succeeded.

'I pray you, tell it me,' she said; 'tell it me, in pity.'

'I mean only this,' he resumed, 'that I understand all, and do not 
blame you.  I understand how the brave woman must look down on the 
weak man.  I think you were wrong in some things; but I have tried 
to understand it, and I do.  I do not need to forget or to forgive, 
Seraphina, for I have understood.'

'I know what I have done,' she said.  'I am not so weak that I can 
be deceived with kind speeches.  I know what I have been - I see 
myself.  I am not worth your anger, how much less to be forgiven!  
In all this downfall and misery, I see only me and you: you, as you 
have been always; me, as I was - me, above all!  O yes, I see 
myself: and what can I think?'

'Ah, then, let us reverse the parts!' said Otto.  'It is ourselves 
we cannot forgive, when we deny forgiveness to another - so a friend 
told me last night.  On these terms, Seraphina, you see how 
generously I have forgiven myself.  But am not I to be forgiven?  
Come, then, forgive yourself - and me.'

She did not answer in words, but reached out her hand to him 
quickly.  He took it; and as the smooth fingers settled and nestled 
in his, love ran to and fro between them in tender and transforming 
currents.

'Seraphina,' he cried, 'O, forget the past!  Let me serve and help 
you; let me be your servant; it is enough for me to serve you and to 
be near you; let me be near you, dear - do not send me away.'  He 
hurried his pleading like the speech of a frightened child.  'It is 
not love,' he went on; 'I do not ask for love; my love is enough . . 
.'

'Otto!' she said, as if in pain.

He looked up into her face.  It was wrung with the very ecstasy of 
tenderness and anguish; on her features, and most of all in her 
changed eyes, there shone the very light of love.

'Seraphina?' he cried aloud, and with a sudden, tuneless voice, 
'Seraphina?'

'Look round you at this glade,' she cried, 'and where the leaves are 
coming on young trees, and the flowers begin to blossom.  This is 
where we meet, meet for the first time; it is so much better to 
forget and to be born again.  O what a pit there is for sins - God's 
mercy, man's oblivion!'

'Seraphina,' he said, 'let it be so, indeed; let all that was be 
merely the abuse of dreaming; let me begin again, a stranger.  I 
have dreamed, in a long dream, that I adored a girl unkind and 
beautiful; in all things my superior, but still cold, like ice.  And 
again I dreamed, and thought she changed and melted, glowed and 
turned to me.  And I - who had no merit but a love, slavish and 
unerect - lay close, and durst not move for fear of waking.'

'Lie close,' she said, with a deep thrill of speech.

So they spake in the spring woods; and meanwhile, in Mittwalden 
Rath-haus, the Republic was declared.




BIBLIOGRAPHICAL POSTSCRIPT TO COMPLETE THE STORY


THE reader well informed in modern history will not require details 
as to the fate of the Republic.  The best account is to be found in 
the memoirs of Herr Greisengesang (7 Bande: Leipzig), by our passing 
acquaintance the licentiate Roederer.  Herr Roederer, with too much 
of an author's licence, makes a great figure of his hero - poses 
him, indeed, to be the centre-piece and cloud-compeller of the 
whole.  But, with due allowance for this bias, the book is able and 
complete.

The reader is of course acquainted with the vigorous and bracing 
pages of Sir John (2 vols., London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme and 
Brown).  Sir John, who plays but a tooth-comb in the orchestra of 
this historical romance, blows in his own book the big bassoon.  His 
character is there drawn at large; and the sympathy of Landor has 
countersigned the admiration of the public.  One point, however, 
calls for explanation; the chapter on Grunewald was torn by the hand 
of the author in the palace gardens; how comes it, then, to figure 
at full length among my more modest pages, the Lion of the caravan?  
That eminent literatus was a man of method; 'Juvenal by double 
entry,' he was once profanely called; and when he tore the sheets in 
question, it was rather, as he has since explained, in the search 
for some dramatic evidence of his sincerity, than with the thought 
of practical deletion.  At that time, indeed, he was possessed of 
two blotted scrolls and a fair copy in double.  But the chapter, as 
the reader knows, was honestly omitted from the famous 'Memoirs on 
the various Courts of Europe.'  It has been mine to give it to the 
public.

Bibliography still helps us with a further glimpse of our 
characters.  I have here before me a small volume (printed for 
private circulation: no printer's name; n.d.), 'Poesies par Frederic 
et Amelie.'  Mine is a presentation copy, obtained for me by Mr. 
Bain in the Haymarket; and the name of the first owner is written on 
the fly-leaf in the hand of Prince Otto himself.  The modest 
epigraph - 'Le rime n'est pas riche' - may be attributed, with a 
good show of likelihood, to the same collaborator.  It is strikingly 
appropriate, and I have found the volume very dreary.  Those pieces 
in which I seem to trace the hand of the Princess are particularly 
dull and conscientious.  But the booklet had a fair success with 
that public for which it was designed; and I have come across some 
evidences of a second venture of the same sort, now unprocurable.  
Here, at least, we may take leave of Otto and Seraphina - what do I 
say? of Frederic and Amelie - ageing together peaceably at the court 
of the wife's father, jingling French rhymes and correcting joint 
proofs.

Still following the book-lists, I perceive that Mr. Swinburne has 
dedicated a rousing lyric and some vigorous sonnets to the memory of 
Gondremark; that name appears twice at least in Victor Hugo's 
trumpet-blasts of patriot enumeration; and I came latterly, when I 
supposed my task already ended, on a trace of the fallen politician 
and his Countess.  It is in the 'Diary of J. Hogg Cotterill, Esq.' 
(that very interesting work).  Mr. Cotterill, being at Naples, is 
introduced (May 27th) to 'a Baron and Baroness Gondremark - he a man 
who once made a noise - she still beautiful - both witty.  She 
complimented me much upon my French - should never have known me to 
be English - had known my uncle, Sir John, in Germany - recognised 
in me, as a family trait, some of his GRAND AIR and studious 
courtesy - asked me to call.'  And again (May 30th), 'visited the 
Baronne de Gondremark - much gratified - a most REFINED, INTELLIGENT 
woman, quite of the old school, now, HELAS! extinct - had read my 
REMARKS ON SICILY - it reminds her of my uncle, but with more of 
grace - I feared she thought there was less energy - assured no - a 
softer style of presentation, more of the LITERARY GRACE, but the 
same firm grasp of circumstance and force of thought - in short, 
just Buttonhole's opinion.  Much encouraged.  I have a real esteem 
for this patrician lady.'  The acquaintance lasted some time; and 
when Mr. Cotterill left in the suite of Lord Protocol, and, as he is 
careful to inform us, in Admiral Yardarm's flag-ship, one of his 
chief causes of regret is to leave 'that most SPIRITUELLE and 
sympathetic lady, who already regards me as a younger brother.'