CHAPTER XVI.

WORDS FROM DYING LIPS.

Prince Soudaroff left Witska that afternoon, and the week allowed to Nadia for deliberation slipped away, but no message was sent to request him to return or to accept the offer with which he was charged. If he was mortified by this lack of success, he must have felt himself avenged a little later, when both his auguries of evil in turn proved true. The first hint of the fulfilment of his prophecy reached Nadia one morning when her mother threw a newspaper to her as she came into the sitting-room.

“Now I hope you are happy!” she said. “You have succeeded in bringing about the ruin of Thracia and your Carlino.”

Nadia took up the paper, a German one, and read the piece of news which figured most prominently in its columns. The _rapprochement_ which had taken place between the Emperors of Scythia and Pannonia was announced, and also the subsequent refusal by the Roumi Government to confirm Caerleon’s election as king--the two events which had plunged Cyril and M. Drakovics into their complicated intrigues with Mœsia. Mr Hicks had not yet given to the world the information which he was to amass with so much astuteness, and therefore nothing was at present known of these negotiations, so that the paper only reflected the general opinion when it remarked that the cause of Thracia was already lost. Cyril was still an unknown quantity in Balkan politics; and although most people were acquainted to a certain extent with the resourcefulness and strength of will of M. Drakovics, they could not conceive it possible that even he could devise any means of tiding over such a crisis as this. Nadia did not venture to dissent from the universal opinion; but there was no sign of trembling in the hand which held the paper as she read through the announcement and the editorial comments upon it, and she looked round unfalteringly at her mother.

“I had rather that he should fall honourably than reign as a pensioner of Scythia,” she said.

“You are a fool!” was Madame O’Malachy’s angry answer. “Go and look after your sick brats. It is all you are fit for.”

But three or four days later she came into Nadia’s room early in the morning wearing an expression in which rage and triumph were mingled.

“You have indeed done well for yourself, mademoiselle!” she said, putting her hand on her daughter’s shoulder as she slept and shaking her. “Your Carlino is to marry the Princess Ottilie of Mœsia. The betrothal is to take place next week.”

“It is not true!” cried Nadia, starting up in bed.

“It is most true. That touches you, does it not? This, then, is your faithful, your constant lover! He assures you of his undying affection, and six weeks after saying the words he betroths himself to another.”

“He is quite right,” said Nadia, recollecting herself. “I told him to do it.”

“I can quite believe it! But you never thought he would obey you,” said Madame O’Malachy, putting down her candle and gazing with cruel certainty into her daughter’s pale face. “Don’t tell me that you did, mademoiselle. You might try to impose upon Prince Soudaroff with your exalted generosity, but you felt confident that Carlino would remain faithful to you. However, I may tell you this for your comfort. Your father has always believed hitherto that Carlino would refuse to accept his dismissal as final, and would try his fate again before long. But now, if he meets him he will kill him.”

“Why?” asked Nadia, as calmly as she could. “He is only doing this in obedience to me.”

“Why!” cried her mother. “Because he has insulted us, played with us, made us the laughing-stock of Europe. Although you may be a fool, your father knows how to avenge the honour of his house, and he will not fail to do it. You refused to share the Thracian throne; but it is Carlino who has put it out of his own power to offer you the crown a second time, and for this he must be rewarded as he deserves. In every way we are undone. Not only have we lost the position we might have held in Thracia, but this marriage will endanger the result of all our labours in Europe.”

“Ah!” cried Nadia, assuming a sudden interest in politics in the vain hope of diverting from herself the gaze of her mother’s glittering eyes, “it was this marriage that Vladimir Alexandrovitch was anxious to prevent. He foresaw the possibility of its taking place, and he knew that it would bring Pannonia to the help of King Carlino. Thracia is saved, then!”

“Yes; and you----?” asked Madame O’Malachy, with her most merciless smile, as she retired from the room, half baffled by her daughter’s resolution, but certain that she left a sting behind her. And this was indeed the case. Although Nadia had succeeded in making herself believe that she wished Caerleon to follow the advice she had given him, she discovered now that she had never expected him to do so. She had found an unspeakable comfort in remembering the indignant rebuke with which he had answered her when she told him that although he loved her, it was his duty to marry some other woman; and even now she sorrowed less for the fact that she was herself forsaken than that her lover had proved unstable. He had failed in faith; he was fearless and stainless no more. Well, no doubt it was better so. He was no longer hers, he had not been hers since they parted at Bellaviste; and if he was proved not to be the blameless knight she had imagined him, at least he was a wise king, and was preparing to take the only step by which it seemed possible to save his kingdom in the present crisis. Undoubtedly it was better so. But Nadia’s heart and soul rose up in rebellion against this view of the case, and all day, as she followed the mountain-paths, or moved about inside the hut in which lay the sick child she was visiting, she was mourning in silence a trust betrayed, a high ideal shattered. It was her own fault, she knew; she had told him to forget her, but she had illogically expected him to disobey, and required him to be stronger morally than she was.

But after a day or two other things happened to trouble her. It was generally known throughout Europe by this time that there was a difference of opinion between Scythia and Pannonia on the subject of Thracia, and that in all probability the interposition of Pannonia and her allies at Czarigrad would obtain a settlement of affairs in Caerleon’s favour. This prospect served to stimulate the activity of the Thracian conspirators both at home and in exile, who had been lying low for a week or two, and watching the course of events, but now realised that they could not look to the Powers to do their business for them. The O’Malachy and his wife became increasingly busy, much to the alarm of Nadia, who felt certain that they contemplated delivering some blow, the nature of which she could not divine, against the Thracian kingdom. At last the O’Malachy left Witska on urgent business, and she gathered that his destination was Pavelsburg, although she could only guess at his probable errand there. Nor were her anxieties allayed one day when she found her mother reading with much irritation a newspaper which had just arrived by the post.

“There seems to be no end to the annoyance you bring upon us, Nadia,” said Madame O’Malachy. “As if your foolishness was not enough, your father must needs improve upon it for the benefit of the newspapers. It must have been after dinner, I suppose, as usual. No doubt they gathered round him and drank wine with him, and flattered and sympathised with him, until he was ready to tell them anything. I cannot trust him alone for a day, and yet I cannot leave Witska. Pig! ass! why does he not see that in recounting this pitiful story he forgets that Louis is in Bellaviste, in the Palace itself, and must stay there?”

“What has my father been saying?” asked Nadia, her colour changing.

“Merely parading you before the eyes of Europe as a forsaken heroine,” replied Madame O’Malachy, tearing the offending newspaper briskly across, and throwing the fragments into the stove; “but I will put a stop to that. Give me those telegraph-forms.”

Surprised by her mother’s unaccustomed confidence in her, Nadia obeyed, and was further astonished to find herself consulted as to the wording of the telegram which was to warn the O’Malachy not to repeat his indiscretion, but to maintain a strict silence on the subject of his daughter in future. Several forms were wasted before the message satisfied Madame O’Malachy, but she did not breathe freely until Nadia had taken it to the post-office. As soon as she had time to think, she made a mental resolution to seize any papers other than merely local ones which might enter the house, and destroy them before Nadia could see them. This measure was imperatively necessary, if there was to be any peace in the family; for even her intrepid spirit quailed when she pictured to herself the scene which would ensue if Nadia discovered the construction which the O’Malachy, or the reporters of his words, had placed upon Caerleon’s treatment of her. To Madame O’Malachy, whose common-sense was one of her strongest points, the state of mind in which her husband could choose to boast of the long-past glories of his race, while he did his best at the same moment to proclaim that his daughter had been most cruelly jilted, was incomparably absurd, and the telegram she sent him was short and sharp. The injury inflicted upon Nadia’s future by the publication of a report such as he had set on foot touched her keenly, for all her hopes for old age were based upon the possibility of her daughter’s making a brilliant marriage; and to have her name bandied about in such a connection could not but militate against her prospects. Trouble caused by an incident of this kind she could understand and sympathise with, while Nadia’s refusal of Caerleon and the reasons for it were a sealed book to her, and she was unusually kind to the girl during that day and the next. But on the second evening her sympathy seemed to have exhausted itself, for her manner once more became brusque and her tone sarcastic, and Nadia, whose spirits had risen under the influence of the change in her mother, realised that her presence was no longer desired in the sitting-room. As she opened the door a sudden impulse made her return to the table at which Madame O’Malachy was busied with her writing materials.

“If you are planning anything against _him_, spare him for my sake,” she said in a low voice, and stopped suddenly, amazed at her own temerity.

“Go to bed; you are a little fool,” returned her mother, scathingly.

Nadia’s sleep was much disturbed that night. Two or three times she thought she heard stealthy steps in the passage, and once the unmistakable sound of the shutting of a door. She could not rid herself of the idea that some deadly blow was being prepared against Caerleon; there were evil possibilities in the slightest noise that reached her ears as she lay awake trembling and listening. She cried herself to sleep at last, and was only awakened in the morning by a voice at her door.

“Fräulein! Fräulein!”--the agitated accents were those of the many-tongued waiter,--“pray come down at once. The gracious Frau Oberstin has met with an accident. Boris the cowherd found her lying on the hillside just now, and they are bringing her in.”

Startled and horrified, Nadia threw on a dressing-gown, and rushed down-stairs. The passage was filled with the hangers-on of the inn, who made way for her to pass into one of the smaller rooms on the ground-floor, into which a figure wearing the dress of the country-people had just been carried on a stretcher. Nadia looked round in amazement. This was a peasant woman, not her mother. But from the motionless form came a well-known voice.

“You need not look so terrified, my daughter. I am not injured, merely too stiff to move. Absolutely I cannot stir a foot. It is evident that I have been walking in my sleep again. You remember that it is an old trick of mine? I suppose you must send for a doctor, for form’s sake, but pray do not let any one be alarmed.”

It appeared that there was a doctor to be found at a little town some miles distant, and a messenger was despatched at once to bring him to Witska, while Nadia did her best to make her mother comfortable. Assisted by an excited maid-servant, who insisted on relating in bad German how it had happened to her, some weeks before, to meet the Frau Oberstin coming along the balcony at night with a candle in her hand and a fixed look in her eyes, she brought down a bedstead from one of the upper rooms, and succeeded in lifting Madame O’Malachy and placing her upon it, the sufferer still protesting that she felt no pain whatever, merely an inability to move. Nadia’s mind was occupied with the problem presented by the accident. If her mother had only been walking in her sleep, how had it happened that she had laid aside her own dress and put on the peasant costume? The place where she had been found was at the foot of a precipitous incline on which there abutted one of the walls of the garden belonging to the inn. Between the wall and the margin of the steep was a narrow ledge, affording just room for a sure-footed person to pass along it. It was unlikely that a sleep-walker would light upon this track without having seen it before; but any one who was bound on secret or important business would find it an excellent means of reaching the road which led down the mountain without being seen from the village. Was it possible that Madame O’Malachy had been carrying treasonable letters in disguise when a chance slip had made her lose her footing?

This was the question which, try as she would, Nadia could not succeed in banishing from her mind during the earlier part of the day, but when the doctor arrived he gave a new direction to her thoughts. He was a taciturn man, and asked so few questions that Madame O’Malachy set him down as a fool; but when his examination was over he made a sign to Nadia to accompany him out of the room.

“Where is the Herr Oberst?” he asked. “I understand from the landlord that he is away.”

“I think he must be in Scythia,” answered Nadia. “He went to Pavelsburg on important business, but I do not know whether he is there still.”

“He should be summoned at once,” said the doctor.

“But he will return in a few days,” said Nadia, astonished. “You don’t wish me to telegraph to him? That would make him think that my mother was dangerously ill----”

“Yes?” said the doctor, with an intonation that made her start and shiver.

“But she is not even severely hurt! She has absolutely no pain!” she cried, frantically.

“That is the worst symptom in the case,” he replied, in his most repressive and business-like tone. “She is suffering from paralysis, caused by----” And he entered into a learned disquisition on the exact nature of the injury sustained, culminating in the fact that the paralysis, which was now confined to the lower limbs, must necessarily creep upwards by degrees until it reached a certain point, after which---- He paused, and Nadia, who had been listening like one in a dream, forced herself to ask the question--

“And how long--how long will it be before this point is reached?”

“It may be to-night, it may be to-morrow,” he answered. “Therefore, if I may advise you, send your telegram immediately.”

In a stunned condition she returned into the room to ask her mother the O’Malachy’s address, only to be met by the question why she wanted it.

“The doctor thought he ought to know that you were ill,” she murmured.

“But why?” asked Madame O’Malachy. “He must not be sent for unless it is absolutely necessary. Did the doctor say it was necessary?” she added, quickly.

Nadia bowed her head, unable to speak. For a moment her mother’s eager eyes searched her face keenly, then closed, as though in utter weariness.

“You will find your father’s address on an envelope in my desk. Go and send your telegram, then bring the desk here to me. I will rest a little.”

But when Nadia returned to the room, her mother did not seem inclined to rest. She made her tear up a number of papers and burn them, then sent her up-stairs for others, which were treated in the same way. Nadia had no opportunity of saying a word. At last, when the papers were all disposed of, she screwed her courage to the point of asking whether she should read aloud a little.

“If you like,” returned Madame O’Malachy, indifferently. “You will find on my toilet-table the novel I was reading. I may as well finish it.”

“Oh, not that, to-day!” entreated Nadia.

“And why not?” asked her mother. “If not that, nothing, thank you.”

No more could be said, and Nadia remained silent, feeling that she had wasted an opportunity. All that could be done during the day for her mother’s comfort she did, feeling all the time humbly and unhappily conscious that she was not a good nurse. Her movements were too deliberate, no one could call her deft, and she felt sure that mistakes which passed unnoticed by her sick children and their parents were setting her mother’s teeth on edge at this moment. There was no one to give her any real help, although the people of the inn did what they could. The doctor had departed immediately after giving his verdict, and would not return until late at night, for he was an over-worked general practitioner, and was gone to visit several cases in a different direction, in which his ministrations might possibly prove effective, while for this patient nothing could be done. Even if the O’Malachy were still to be found at the address to which the telegram had been sent, he could not be expected at Witska for three days at least, and it was by no means certain that he had not left before it could reach him. Nadia felt utterly lonely. Wearied and inexpressibly miserable, she sat down by the stove in the dusk, longing to say something, she knew not what, to her mother, to break down, even at this eleventh hour, the barrier of silence which their lives had raised between them. But she was tongue-tied, and it was Madame O’Malachy who spoke first.

“Turn your face this way a little, my daughter, that I may see you. No; I cannot understand it. Tell me, what was it about you that attracted the notice of King Carlino?”

“I don’t know,” said Nadia, humbly. “I think it was only that he loved me.”

“Yes; but why did he love you?” resumed Madame O’Malachy. “You do not make the most of yourself, you have no conversation, you make no effort to be agreeable. Is it that he admired your plainness of speech, which I, for one, call brutal?”

“Perhaps, a little,” said Nadia. “Not altogether, certainly.”

“You seem very doubtful,” said her mother. “Have you never asked yourself these interesting questions? How are you to retain your influence over men if you have no idea of the means by which you first attracted their attention--their admiration?”

“I don’t want to obtain influence over men,” said Nadia, in a choking voice. “My own life has not been so successful that I need make any more efforts to direct others.”

“That exactly proves the truth of what I was saying,” said Madame O’Malachy. “Tell me,” she added suddenly--“do you still love this young man?”

Nadia dropped on her knees by the bedside, and hid her face in the coverlet. “It is cruel to ask me,” she sobbed, “when he is going to marry the Princess of Mœsia; but I do.”

“I hear that he looks most unhappy, and appears to loathe the engagement into which he has undoubtedly been forced,” said her mother. Nadia raised her clasped hands in wild appeal.

“Oh, don’t tell me that!” she cried. “Let me feel at least that he is happy, whatever becomes of me. I pray every day that they may love each other, and that their marriage may be a blessing to Thracia and to themselves.”

“You bear no malice against him, then?”

“How could I? He is doing what I felt must be right.”

“You would not wish him to be punished? If you knew of any danger----”

“Oh, mother!” she looked up with a cry. “I would walk barefoot to Bellaviste to warn him, even if he was to be married to-morrow. You have not joined in any plot to injure him?”

“Hush! I cannot tell you now. I must speak to your father, if he returns in time. Leave me alone with him when he comes, and I will tell you afterwards. If he does not return, I will tell you before the end.”

Nadia returned to her place, and they talked no more until the sounds of bustle outside announced an arrival.

“It is your father,” said Madame O’Malachy; “I hear his voice. Besides,” as Nadia’s face showed signs of incredulity, “no one else would arrive so late. His business must have taken a shorter time than we anticipated, and no doubt he started on his return journey two days ago, and so missed the telegram.”

Nadia went out, and found the O’Malachy in the passage, engaged in hearing from the waiter what had occurred. He looked anxious and worried.

“This is a bad businuss, Nadia,” he said. “Where is your mother?”

Nadia took him into the room, and, mindful of her mother’s injunction, left them alone together. From her post in the passage she could hear their voices, her mother’s anxious and pleading, the O’Malachy’s gruff and obdurate. After a time he opened the door and called to her to come in, telling her to get him something to eat, but refusing to yield to her suggestion that he should take his meal in another room. Presently he sent her away to unpack his portmanteau and get out what he needed, and then he himself saw the doctor, and received his assurance that there would be no marked change in the patient’s condition before morning. Nadia had made preparations for sitting up with her mother; but he ordered her peremptorily to bed, and declared his intention of taking the night-watch himself. It was evident that he did not mean to leave her alone with Madame O’Malachy for a moment, and her anxiety became keen. A look from her mother warned her to obey, and she left the room, but lingered in the passage. Presently she heard Madame O’Malachy urging her husband to make himself comfortable in the cushioned chair which had been brought down for him, and rest a little after his journey, and before very long there was perfect silence in the room. Nadia opened the door softly, and peeped in. A low “Hush!” from her mother brought her noiselessly to the side of the bed, where Madame O’Malachy lay wide awake, while the O’Malachy was beginning to give audible evidence of having fallen asleep in his chair.

“Kneel down here,” whispered Madame O’Malachy, “where your father cannot see you if he wakes. Nadia, I have been trying to induce him to abandon the plot we had arranged--so much of it, at least, as threatens Carlino’s life--but he will not consent. He has got hold of the idea that the King and Lord Cyril were playing with him all the time we were at Bellaviste, and he says he will not allow himself to be made a fool in the eyes of Europe. He will not consent to relinquish his revenge.”

“And you have arranged to murder the King?” gasped Nadia. “Oh, mother!”

“What did you say, Barbara?” asked the O’Malachy, sitting up and looking round sharply. “If you want anything, don’t be afraid of asking me for ut. Sure I wasn’t asleep, but I can’t get the noise of the train out of me ears.”

“Thanks, O’Malachy, I want nothing,” returned his wife, and he settled himself once more in his chair; but it was some time before the two women ventured to begin their conversation afresh.

“If you wish to save the King,” Madame O’Malachy whispered, “listen to me now. The betrothal is to take place the day after to-morrow, and two days later Carlino will return to Bellaviste. On a certain day soon after his return he is to inspect the garrison of Tatarjé--that is, if he escapes your father. There are two routes to the town, and it is at present doubtful which he will choose. Louis is to discover this, and to let your father know. When a letter comes from him, and your father leaves this place on any pretext, you will know what is intended, and it is for you to warn the King, if you are still in the same mind.”

“But why not write at once and caution Lord Cyril?” asked Nadia.

“Because we have confederates in the post-office, and your letter would be stopped. We are not alone, Nadia. The conspiracy is an extensive one, with ramifications throughout the whole of Thracia, and supporters in Scythia. It will take its course, but I will help you to save your Carlino’s life if I can.”

“But must I denounce my father to save him?” asked Nadia, horrified.

“Never! You will merely tell the King not to visit Tatarjé on that day, or if he must go, to alter his route. The change of plan will at once become known to Louis, and he will warn your father that the plot has been discovered, and that he must escape. Or if, through any mischance, he should be away, do you telegraph at once to Mr F. X. O’Reilly, at Tatarjé, ‘Go to Pavelsburg immediately, and await further orders there.’ Your father will understand. He is to pass at Tatarjé as an English newspaper correspondent, come to see the inspection, and he will leave at once.”

“But is the rest of the plot to take its course?”

“Certainly. I tell you nothing, and you know nothing. I am not betraying anything that is indispensable to it. It was Louis who suggested to your father that it would ensure the success of the revolt if Carlino were got rid of first of all, and your father caught at the idea at once. It is entirely the fulfilment of his private revenge, and all the arrangements have been our work alone, though there is no doubt that the removal would be welcomed by the other parties to the conspiracy, however eagerly they might appear to reprobate it in deference to public opinion. It is with reference to this alone that I will aid you; but once the alarm is given, the King’s friends will look after his life carefully enough. In the revolution, when it arrives, he must take his chance; but if he falls, it will be in fair fight, not by a shot fired from an ambush. Only be sure that when you warn him, you give your message either to Lord Cyril or to himself. They would believe you, but M. Drakovics would put you in prison in the hope of obtaining further information. And you must go to Bellaviste in disguise, for fear Louis should recognise you. In any case, keep out of his way; he would not allow you to spoil his plans.”

“But why do you all hate the King in this way?” asked Nadia, tearfully.

“Your father hates him because he thinks he over-reached him in the matter of his proposing to you. If it had not been for this engagement to Princess Ottilie, he would have been most anxious that his life should be spared, hoping that he might yet return and marry you. But Louis does not hate him--it is merely a matter of business. He is at Bellaviste to bring about a revolution, and he will do so more easily if Carlino is out of the way. He finds your father incensed against him, and immediately proposes to himself to take advantage of his desire for revenge to kill Carlino. No; he is not sacrificing his father----” as Nadia raised a horrified face. “Do you think that I would have permitted such a thing? The arrangements for escaping from the spot and leaving the country in safety are so complete that it would be almost impossible for your father to be captured, or even for his share in the--execution--to be known,--unless,” and Madame O’Malachy smiled with a trace of her old sarcastic spirit, “he told the story himself. But neither do I hate Carlino. I have almost a liking for him; but he is weak--he lets slip his chances. If he had married you, I would have done anything for him; but he allowed you, with your absurd scruples, to send him away. If he had been a _man_, he would have laughed at you. He should have made you marry him, and then you would have liked him all the better for his roughness.”

“I should not!” cried Nadia, with flashing eyes. “I should have hated him, despised him. How could I like him if he made me do what I felt to be wrong?”

“Gently!” said her mother, as the O’Malachy stirred and muttered in his sleep. “Now you are beyond me. I speak only from experience, you from imagination, which is naturally far more trustworthy. But your father is uneasy. If he finds you here he will be ready to kill us both. Creep out quietly.”

“Let me stay with you here,” entreated Nadia. “I will be very quiet,--I will not speak. I--I should like to know you better. You have been so good to me to-day.”

“It is too late,” returned her mother. “I also--there are many things which one could wish to change, looking at them to-night. But one cannot do it now.”

“But--let me ask you just this--are you----”

“No; I know what you would say, but I cannot listen. You are Protestant, I Catholic. But you may pray for me if you like. Now go.”

Nadia rose and kissed her silently, and went out. The longing which both she and her mother had just put into words was strong upon her. If only they could have changed so many things! But it was too late. Old counsels of her godmother’s, Caerleon’s little-heeded remonstrances, came thronging back into her mind as she gained her own room and sank down upon a chair. She bowed her head upon the table, and sobbed.

“It is all my fault!” she said. “I never know how much reason I have to love any one before it is too late. Oh, if it may not be too late for her!”