Chapter Eleven. Doom or Destiny.

With quickened footsteps she clasped the child to her, and hurrying on in the falling gloom, skirted the long, high walls of the royal park, where at equal distances stood the sentries.

More than one, believing her to be Mademoiselle, saluted her.

She was free, it is true; but she had yet to face many perils, the greatest of them all being that of recognition by the police at the station, or by any of the people, to whom her countenance was so well-known.

Presently she gained the broad Klosterstrasse, where the big electric lamps were already shining; and finding a fiacre at the stand, entered it and drove to a small outfitter’s shop, where she purchased two travelling-rugs and a shawl for little Ignatia. Thence she went to a pastrycook’s and bought some cakes, and then drove up the wide Wolbeckerstrasse to the central railway station.

The streets were alive with life, for most of the shops were closed, the main thoroughfares were illuminated, and all Treysa was out at the cafés or restaurants, or promenading the streets, for the day was a national festival. The national colours were displayed everywhere, and the band of the 116th Regiment was playing a selection from “La Bohème” as she crossed the great Domplatz.

Hers was indeed a strange position.

Unknown and unrecognised, she drove in the open cab, with the tiny, wondering Princess at her side, through the great crowds of holiday-makers—those people who had they known of her unhappiness would in all probability have risen in a body and revolted.

She remembered that she had been “their Claire,” yet after that night she would be theirs no longer. It was a sad and silent leave-taking. She had renounced her crown and imperial privileges for ever.

Many men and women stared at her as she passed under the bright electric street lamps, and once or twice she half feared that they might have penetrated her disguise. Yet no cheer was raised; none rushed forward to kiss her hand.

She gave the cabman orders to drive up and down several of the principal thoroughfares, for there was still plenty of time for the train; and, reluctant to take leave of the people of Treysa whom she loved so well, and who were her only friends, she gazed upon them from behind her veil and sighed.

At the busy, echoing station she arrived ten minutes before the express was due, and took her tickets; but when she went to the wagon-lit office, the official, not recognising her, sharply replied that the places had all been taken by an American tourist party. Therefore she was compelled to enter an ordinary first-class compartment. The train was crowded, and all the corner seats were taken. Fearing to call a porter to her assistance lest she should be recognised—when the royal saloon would at once be attached to the train for her—she was compelled to elbow her way through the crowd and take an uncomfortable seat in the centre of a compartment, where all through the night she tried to sleep, but in vain.

Little Ignatia soon closed her eyes and was asleep, but Claire, full of regrets at being compelled to renounce husband, crown, everything, as she had done, and in wonder of what the future had in store for her, sat silent, nursing her child through the long night hours. Her fellow-travellers, two fat Germans of Jewish cast, and three women, slept heavily, the men snoring.

The grey dawn showed at last over the low green hills. Had her absence been discovered? Most certainly it had, but they had now passed the confines of the kingdom, and she was certain that the people at the palace would not telegraph news of her disappearance for fear of creating undue scandal.

At last she had frustrated their dastardly plot to incarcerate her in an asylum. She sat there, a figure of sweet loveliness combined with exceeding delicacy and even fragility—one of the most refined elegance and the most exquisite modesty.

At a small wayside station where they stopped about seven o’clock she bought a glass of coffee, and then they continued until the Austrian frontier at Voitersreuth was reached; and at Eger, a few miles farther on, she was compelled to descend and change carriages, for only the wagon-lit went through to the capital.

It was then eleven o’clock in the morning, and feeling hungry, she took little Ignatia into the buffet and had some luncheon, the child delighted at the novel experience of travelling.

“We are going to see grandfather,” her mother told her. “You went to see him when you were such a wee, wee thing, so you don’t remember him.”

“No,” declared the child with wide-open, wondering eyes; “I don’t remember. Will Allen be there?”

“No, darling, I don’t think so,” was the evasive reply to a question which struck deep into the heart of the woman fleeing from her persecutors.

While Ignatia had her milk, her mother ate her cutlet at the long table among the other hasty travellers, gobbling up their meal and shouting orders to waiters with their mouths full.

Hitherto, when she passed there in the royal saloon, the railway officials had come forward, cap in hand, to salute her as an Imperial Archduchess of Austria; but now, unknown and unrecognised, she passed as an ordinary traveller. Presently, when the Vienna express drew up to the platform, she fortunately found an empty first-class compartment, and continued her journey alone, taking off her hat and settling herself for the remaining nine hours between there and the capital. Little Ignatia was still very sleepy, therefore she made a cushion for her with her cape and laid her full length, while she herself sat in a corner watching the picturesque landscape, and thinking—thinking deeply over all the grim tragedy of the past.

After travelling for three hours, the train stopped at a small station called Protovin, the junction of the line from Prague, whence a train had arrived in connection with the express. Here there seemed quite a number of people waiting upon the platform.

She was looking out carelessly upon them when from among the crowd a man’s eyes met hers. He stared open-mouthed, turned pale, and next instant was at the door. She drew back, but, alas! it was too late. She was without hat or veil, and he had recognised her.

She gave vent to a low cry, half of surprise, half of despair.

Next second the door opened, and the man stood before her, hat in hand.

“Princess!” he gasped in a low, excited voice. “What does this mean? You—alone—going to Vienna?”

“Carl!” she cried, “why are you here? Where have you come from?”

“I have been to my estate up at Rakonitz, before going to Rome,” was his answer. “Is it Destiny that again brings us together like this?”

And entering the carriage, he bent and kissed her hand.

Was it Destiny, or was it Doom?

“You with Ignatia, and no lady-in-waiting? What does this mean?” he inquired, utterly puzzled.

The porter behind him placed his bag in the carriage, while he, in his travelling-ulster and cap, begged permission to remain there.

What could she say? She was very lonely, and she wanted to tell him what had occurred since her return to Treysa and of the crisis of it all. So she nodded in the affirmative.

Then he gave the porter his tip, and the man departed. Presently, before the train moved off, the sleeping child opened her eyes, shyly at first, in the presence of a stranger; but a moment later, recognising him, she got up, and rushing gladly towards him, cried in her pretty, childish way,—

“Leitolf! Good Leitolf to come with us! We are so very tired!”

“Are you, little Highness?” exclaimed the man laughing, and taking her upon his knee. “But you will soon be at your destination.”

“Yes,” she pouted, “but I would not mind if mother did not cry so much.”

The Princess pressed her lips together. She was a little annoyed that her child should reveal the secret of her grief. If she did so to Leitolf she might do so to others.

After a little while, however, the motion of the train lulled the child off to sleep again, and the man laid her down as before. Then, turning to the sorrowing woman at his side, he asked,—

“You had my message—I mean you found it?”

She nodded, but made no reply. She recollected each of those finely-penned words, and knew that they came from the heart of as honest and upright a man as there was in the whole empire.

“And now tell me, Princess, the reason of this second journey to Vienna?” he asked, looking at her with his calm, serious face.

For a moment she held her breath. There were tears welling in her eyes, and she feared lest he might detect them—feared that she might break down in explaining to him the bitter truth.

“I have left Treysa for ever,” she said simply.

He started from his seat and stared at her.

“Left Treysa!” he gasped. “Left the Court—left your husband! Is this really true?”

“It is the truth, Carl,” was her answer in a low, tremulous tone. “I could bear it no longer.”

He was silent. He recognised the extreme gravity of the step she had taken. He recognised, too, that, more serious than all, her unscrupulous enemies who had conspired to drive her from Court had now triumphed.

His brows were knit as he realised all that she was suffering—this pure, beautiful woman, whom he had once loved so fondly, and whose champion he still remained. He knew that the Crown Prince was a man of brutal instinct, and utterly unsuited as husband of a sweet, refined, gentle woman such as Claire. It was, indeed, a tragedy—a dark tragedy.

In a low voice he inquired what had occurred, but she made no mention of the brutal, cowardly blow which had felled her insensible, cut her lip, and broken her white teeth. She only explained very briefly the incident of the three guests at dinner, and the amazing conversation she had afterwards overheard.

“It is a dastardly plot!” he cried in quick anger. “Why, you are as sane as I am, and yet the Crown Prince, in order to get rid of you, will allow these doctors to certify you as a lunatic! The conspiracy shall be exposed in the press. I will myself expose it!” he declared, clenching his fists.

“No, Carl,” she exclaimed quickly. “I have never done anything against my husband’s interest, nor have I ever made complaint against him. I shall not do so now. Remember, what I have just told you is in strict confidence. The public must not know of it.”

“Then will you actually remain a victim and keep silence, allowing these people to thus misjudge you?” he asked in a tone of reproach.

“To bring opprobrium upon my husband is to bring scandal upon the Court and nation,” was her answer. “I am still Crown Princess, and I have still my duty to perform towards the people.”

“You are a woman of such high ideals, Princess,” he said, accepting her reproof. “Most other wives who have been treated as you have would have sought to retaliate.”

“Why should I? My husband is but the weak-principled puppet of a scandalous Court. It is not his own fault. He is goaded on by those who fear that I may reign as Queen.”

“Few women would regard him in such a very generous light,” Leitolf remarked, still stunned by the latest plot which she had revealed. If there was an ingenious conspiracy to confine her in an asylum, then surely it would be an easy matter for the very fact of her flight to be misconstrued into insanity. They would tear her child from her, and imprison her, despairing and brokenhearted. The thought of it goaded him to desperation. She told him of her intention of returning to her father, the Archduke Charles, and of living in future in her old home at Wartenstein—that magnificent castle of which they both had such pleasant recollections.

“And I shall be in Rome,” he sighed. “Ah, Princess, I shall often think of you, often and often.”

“Never write to me, I beg of you, Carl,” she said apprehensively. “Your letter might fall into other hands, and certainly would be misunderstood. The world at large does not believe in platonic friendship between man and woman, remember.”

“True,” he murmured. “That is why they say that you and I are still lovers, which is a foul and abominable lie.” Their eyes met, and she saw a deep, earnest look in his face that told her that he was thinking still of those days long ago, and of that giddy intoxication of heart and sense which belongs to the novelty of passion which we feel once, and but once, in our lives.

At that moment the train came to a standstill at the little station of Gratzen, and, unnoticed by them, a man passed the carriage and peered in inquisitively. He was a thick-set, grey-bearded, hard-faced German, somewhat round-shouldered, rather badly dressed, who, leaning heavily upon his stick, walked with the air of an invalid.

He afterwards turned quickly upon his heel and again limped past, gazing in, so as to satisfy himself that he was not mistaken.

Then entering a compartment at the rear of the train the old fellow resumed his journey, smiling to himself, and stroking his beard with his thin, bony hand, as though he had made a very valuable discovery and yet was puzzled.