CHAPTER V

ALTHEA'S STORY

I opened the door and found three men there, two of them in police uniform.

"Herr Dormund is here?" asked one of them.

"Yes," I said, and they entered.

"We must see him at once."

"Certainly." I went to the room where Dormund sat with von Felsen. "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?"

"Fraeulein 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."

"Fraeulein 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."

"Assume for a moment that she is here--mind you, I don't admit it. But assume 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 Fraeulein 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 Fraeulein 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 Fraeulein 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 assume 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 space, 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."

"You have not taken any active part in any movement, surely?" I asked in some dismay.

"It is that which is probably behind the attempt to arrest me. The Government holds us all for enemies of the state. Any step is held to be fair against my countrymen. They are so conscious of the wrong they have done us that that very knowledge urges them farther along the road of oppression. I am my father's daughter and so am suspect. But I have not plotted, as have so many of us, against the Government. I know the uselessness. My father has written me often of the plans, and has urged me to use my opportunities here in Berlin for the cause."

"And yet you venture to remain here?"

"Herr Ziegler is deep in the schemes," she replied, not heeding my question. "You know what the policy is now. To ally ourselves with every disaffected element in the Empire, to stir discontent, to band together every section of malcontents, to lose no chance of throwing discredit on the Government, and when the time comes to raise the cry for Independence."

"And yet you venture to remain here?" I repeated.

"Do you think I am a coward?" and again she laid her hand on my arm. "No, Mr. Bastable, we Poles are dreamers and visionaries, but we are not cowards."

"I should not make that mistake, I assure you."

"I have told you because--well, because I wish you to know. I would trust my life to you. I have never in all my life had such friends as you and your sister."

"I thank you for that," I said in a low voice, averting my eyes that she might not see how deeply her words moved me.

She was silent for fully a minute, and my heart was beating so lustily that I half feared she would hear it.

"And is your father deeply concerned?" I asked, to break the trying silence.

"My dear father," she replied, with a smile and a sigh. "Ah, Mr. Bastable, if you could see him you would smile at your own question. In former years he was a power in the movement; but he is old now, and has brooded so long upon his wrongs that his mind has been affected. He was then indeed an enemy to be counted with, but he is no more his old self. Things are done in his name because of the influence he once wielded, but he himself does them no longer. They have broken him on the wheel of persecution. Pity rather than terror should be the emotion he stirs; but what do the iron rulers of this great Empire know of pity?"

"And the end?"

She tossed up her hands and let them fall on her lap. "Failure, of course, with its accompaniment of more proscriptions, more imprisonments, more tyranny."

"But yourself?"

"I have done no wrong and do not fear. Besides, have I not found a friend in you?" and she gave me a bright smile.

"I wish you would let that friend see you safe out of the country," I said very earnestly.

She shook her head slowly. "I am no coward to fly; but if ever it should come to that and I ask your help, you will not fail me I know."

"On my honour, I will not," I cried, all my heart in my voice. "I shall wait for that day."

"I am sure of you, Herr Bastable," she replied simply.

Again we were silent for a while. I could not trust myself to speak, and this time it was she who broke the silence. "I am very glad I have told you," she said. "Glad because it is good to share confidence with a friend, and glad, too, because you will see why it is not right for me to remain here, to let you and your sister run this risk on my account. She must not go with me when I leave your house. You understand that now?"

"We shall not let you go."

"Spoken like a friend, and as I should expect you to speak. But there is another reason. I scarcely know how to speak of it. And yet why should I hesitate? You will understand now. I would gladly stay, ah, so gladly! But I have had to learn to put aside my own desires. There are two deciding motives in my life--my father's welfare and that of Chalice."

"She does not consider you," I burst out bluntly.

"I won't hear that," she smiled. "I don't wish to hear any discordant note from you. You are not angry that I speak so," she cried quickly, as she put out her hand again.

"I am only sorry that I said it, since it grieves you."

"Well, then, were it not for something you have said now, those motives would drive me to leave you at once. You will think it strange when I say it has to do with Herr von Felsen. Ah, you frown."

"Surprise only. How can he have anything to do with such a decision?"

"I told you, and I think he has told you also, that he wishes to make me his--his wife." Her voice dropped as she hesitated over the word.

"Well?"

My voice must have betrayed something of the feeling with which I heard this, for she looked up and said hastily: "I am speaking to the best friend I ever had, am I not? To one who understands that I have to think of both those who love and trust to me--my father and Chalice? You will have wondered why Hugo von Felsen should entertain such a wish. I will tell you. He knows my secret--I told you that before. You remember?"

"Yes, I remember." Try as I would I could not make my tone other than hard.

"He is one of the few who know also the real facts about my father--that he is no longer a power among the Polish Irreconcilables. And by the influence of his father, the Count von Felsen, a pardon for my father can be obtained, and our family estates can be restored; not indeed to him, but to--to my husband if that husband should be Hugo von Felsen."

There was a long pause. "There is the Jewess," I said then.

"It is what you have told me about that which baffles me," she replied with a gesture of bewilderment.

"How do you know that what he has told you is true?"

"Do you think he is a man to seek as his wife a girl who has no fortune? And I have none at present. Why then does he press this? Just before this attempt to arrest me, he urged me vehemently to marry him at once and secretly. I would not; I could not, I despise him so"; and she shuddered. "I used the supposed attentions of the Prince to put him off, and now you see the screw has been turned."

"The scoundrel," I muttered.

"Hard words will not solve my dilemma, my friend. I wish they would!" and she sighed heavily. "It is my turn to-day, to-morrow it will be Chalice's, and then my father's. I see only the one way out; but then there is this Jewess."

I sat thinking hard. "If there were a way out you would take it?"

Her face lighted eagerly for a second, and then fell again. "Of course; but there is none."

"I am not so sure of that. Will you let me try to find one?"

She thrust out her hand impulsively. "With all my heart," she said fervently.

Our eyes met as our hands were clasped. "Don't give up yet," I said as I rose. "We are a long way from being beaten yet. But you must let me take my own course, and promise to do nothing without first telling me."

"Why, of course. I promise that freely. But the power behind him is very strong."

My sister came in then, with a very official-looking letter for me.

"A very fussy individual gave me this for you, Paul, as I was coming in, and said it was urgent."

I opened it, and found it was a curt summons to an interview on the following morning with von Felsen's father. As I slipped it into my pocket I saw Althea's eyes fixed on me questioningly.

I told her what it was, and added with a smile: "I think it should be the first step to the way out."

"I have found the very place for us to go to, Althea," broke in Bessie.

"You may not have to go at all, Bess, and certainly not yet," I told her.

"What do you mean?"

"Fraeulein Althea will explain everything," and with that I went off to think over the whole tangle.