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Dash for a Throne

<h2>CHAPTER XIV</h2> <h3>THE ABDUCTION</h3> For another week at least I dared not make an enemy of my altogether unexpected and vastly unwelcome visitor, so I answered her with a smile, and went to greet her with outstretched hand, as though glad enough to renew our old acquaintance. "I know you now," I said cordially. "Of course it is my old friend and comrade Clara Weylin. This is an unexpected pleasure," said I warmly. But she stepped back, and did not take my hand. "Unexpected, no doubt; but pleasure, scarcely. You were not much of an actor at any time; but that would not take in a fool. You are very much astonished to see me, and equally angry; so you may as well acknowledge it." She tapped her foot again angrily. Next she removed an outer veil, which she had of course put on to mystify me on her entrance; and she stood staring me in the face with a look of defiant hostility. I shrugged my shoulders, and said: "You are always more beautiful in a passion, Clara; but I'm sorry to find you in one now with me. Won't you sit down and tell me all about yourself?" And I recalled regretfully our last interview, and bitterly deplored my stupidity in not having answered her letter. An angry woman, knowing what she knew, could do no end of mischief at this juncture. "The chief thing about myself, as you say," she exclaimed spitefully, "is that my feelings toward you have changed. I was your friend then, now I will be your enemy." "Then I am very sorry to hear it"—and the tone was genuine enough. "But, under the circumstances, why take the trouble to come and tell me so?" "Because I wished to see your Highness, to observe how your Highness bore your great honors, and to bask in the radiant light of your Highness's eyes—ugh! Your Highness, indeed!" I began to hope. Her bitterness was so very bitter that I thought some of it at least might be assumed. "How do you play at that game, Clara?" I laughed. "While you are 'basking,' what should I do?" "Not flatter me with lies about being glad to see me," she burst out angrily, "when you would rather have seen the devil." "I won't go so far as that," said I lightly. "I don't admire the devil, and I always did admire you, though, if you wish me to be candid, I would much rather have seen you at another time." "Perhaps after you are married," she cried, with a vicious glance. "I did not say I wished never to see you again," I returned. "You used not to lie even by implication in the old days," she said, showing she understood me. "Nor you to insult me without implication," I retorted. "But I wish you would sit down. It is just as easy to be an enemy sitting as standing." She sat down, and I thought her expression was a little less wrathful. "Now, then, just tell me plainly why you think it worth while to come here, why you are such an enemy, and what particular injury you think and wish to do me?" "Much more than you seem to imagine," she exclaimed sharply, her eyes flashing again. The answer pleased me, for it seemed to show that I was successfully concealing the alarm which her visit had caused. Certainly I must not let her have an inkling of the fact that she could really do any harm. "You are a most incomprehensible creature, my dear Clara. During the years I knew you I paid you as high a compliment as a man can pay a woman—by holding you in the highest esteem and entertaining for you the most honorable admiration. And you repay it—by this." "You flouted and laughed at me and scorned me," she cried vehemently. "You mean I did not make love to you. Let us be frank with one another. Being what I was, I could not make love to you honorably; and because I held you in too high esteem to do so dishonorably will you say I scorned you?" "Your Highness kept the fact of your noble birth very secret," she snapped, with an accent on the "highness" I did not like. I began to fear how much she knew. "I had the strongest reasons, but it was not done to make so clever a woman as yourself my enemy." "Then you succeeded unwittingly. One of the prerogatives of your sudden and unexpected inheritance." "Well, we are fighting the air—an unprofitable waste of effort. If you won't tell me, as a friend, anything about yourself, then, as an enemy, tell me in what way I can oblige you by letting you injure me?" She laughed unpleasantly. "So you are not altogether free from alarm that I can injure you? You are right; I can." "All Munich is open to you," I answered, with a show of indifference. "Why do you want my Duke Marx lured out of the way next Wednesday?" She dealt the thrust so sharply and watched me so keenly that I marvelled at my own self-control in hiding all sign of my consternation. "Who is your Duke Marx, and what on earth do you mean?" I asked, my wits busy with the thoughts which the question started. If she was the decoy on whom Praga relied, she was in love with him, and her motive in coming to me was just sheer revenge and woman's rage. She held the very kernel of my scheme in her hands, and could blight it in a moment, revealing everything to the other side. Perhaps she had done so already. What a fool Praga had been to trust such a woman! And yet how was I to gauge the power and extent of her love for him, and say to what it might not drive her? All this rushed through my head to the accompaniment of the soft, musical, mocking laugh with which she greeted my question. "I thought you did not lie by implication," she said. "I thought so, too," I answered, speaking at random, and waiting for a cue from her. "You are a clever man, Prince—if Prince you really are, and not merely a daring adventurer—but you have left out of your calculations what a woman's revenge may do." "My dear Clara, we all expect the unexpected in a way, and never prepare for it." I rose from my chair as if to close the interview. "Whatever you wish to do, please go at once and do it." "I will," she replied, rising also and going to the door. If she left the room the plan would be at an end. I felt that, and I would have given all I had in the world to feel able to stop her. But I dared not show a sign of weakness. I should be in her power forever, and the scheme would be wrecked that way. I held the door open for her, keeping my face set and expressionless. At the door she turned and looked at me, right into my eyes, when our faces were within a few inches of one another. "You will be sorry for this!" she cried, almost between her teeth. "I never regret my decisions, except as they injure others," I replied coldly. She started, and stamped her foot, and still stood staring hard at me. I thought I knew the struggle that was shaking her. It was a fight whether her old hate for me or her new love for Praga was the stronger. Her excitement and passion increased with every second that the contest endured. "I hate you!" she cried vehemently. "I hate you, and I can ruin you!" I made no sign of having even heard the words. I thought she was going, when suddenly her love gained a sweeping victory. With impetuous force she wrenched the door from me, and slammed it to with great violence, and seemed almost as if she would strike me in the face. "You are a coward and a bully!" she exclaimed hysterically. "You only act like this because you know I dare not do what is in my power." Then she turned and rushed back to her seat, where she covered her face and burst into a storm of passionate tears. I took a curious course. I left the room. I did not wish her to think I had been gloating over her defeat. I scribbled a hasty note that I had been called away, and should be glad to see her another time, and left this to be given to her. This interview had the necessary effect of increasing my uneasiness materially. Each day seemed now to be revealing a fresh weak spot, and the chances of failure were growing fast. Now it was not only the failure of the plot that threatened us, but the disgrace of personal exposure. I had had no dishonorable motives in the personation of the Prince von Gramberg; but the consequences threatened to be entirely embarrassing, and, had there been no one else to consider but myself, I should have thrown the thing up there and then. But there was Minna, and her helpless and precarious position made retreat, on my part, quite impossible. It would be dishonorable to think of myself at such a time, while every chivalrous instinct in my nature made me keenly anxious to secure her safety. But I must see Praga, and hear from him precisely how matters stood in regard to Clara Weylin, and how far she was likely to betray us. With much difficulty, and in the face of considerable risk of my communications with the Corsican being discovered, I succeeded in getting the interview with him. He came to my hotel disguised, and after much trouble in shaking off the spies, who, he declared, were now always dogging his footsteps. Matters were as I had surmised. The actress was in love with him, and they were to be married. They had played often in Munich, and the Duke Marx von Ostenburg had become infatuated with her. He was persecuting her with proposals, and was in that calf stage in which he would do anything, and risk anything, at her mere bidding. There was not the least doubt in the world, declared Praga, that the woman could lure him anywhere she pleased with such a bait as she would pretend to offer. The two had, indeed, concocted a pretty little scheme between them, in while she and the duke were to be together, Praga, as the injured lover, was to interrupt them. Then they calculated that the duke, to save his skin—for his courage was not of very high quality—would consent to do anything that might be demanded. The actress had come to Munich to put the matter in course, and, hearing of me only incidentally as the Prince von Gramberg, she had no suspicion that I was in reality the Heinrich Fischer against whom she had always nurtured her revenge, until a chance meeting with me in the street had revealed this to her. I told him, of course, all that had passed between us, and questioned him closely as to what she was now likely to do. He declared his readiness to answer for her as for himself; and I had no alternative but to be contented with that pledge. Then we discussed many other points of the plan, and so arranged that there need not be another interview, unless unforeseen mishaps arose. Before he left my momentary hesitation had passed, and I resolved to go on, and to trust to my wits to get out of any awkward consequences that might come. But those few days in Munich were among the most trying of any in my life. I passed them in a fever of suspense, anticipating all sorts of trouble; constantly on my guard; suspecting every one with whom I came in contact; and in such a condition of strain and tension that, when I returned to Gramberg to fetch Minna, she could not but notice with deep concern how worn and anxious I looked. "This is wearing you out, cousin Hans," she said very gently. "You look more like a student now, and one who has been burning far too much midnight oil." "There are only two or three days now, and then the worst will be over," I replied cheerfully; but I would have given the world to have been able to tell her what was my chief anxiety. "Munich does not agree with me, I think." She looked at me searchingly. "Is it that secret of yours?" she asked quietly. "When will you share it with me?" "Probably after Wednesday," I answered, smiling. "But you will believe me loyal to you whether you hear it or not?" "Loyal? A quick way to make me an enemy would be for any one to hint the contrary." "You may have your faith tested yet." "Does the secret concern me, then?" she asked quickly, adding, with a smile, "I think I am glad if it does. I thought——" And she stopped. I hoped I could guess the thought. "It touches the whole question of my loyalty to you and my presence here." "Then I do not want to hear it. I would trust you if the whole world turned against you, and sought to turn me also. I do not care now what it may be," she said earnestly, so earnestly that she brought the color in a great rush to my face, and while still flushed in this way she asked: "You do not think anything could shake me?" "No, I do not," and my love was very near declaring itself as I spoke. On the journey to Munich her manner to me was so gentle, and tender, and confiding that I scarcely ventured to look at her lest she should read in my eyes the later secret that I was now guarding even more jealously than the former; and in Munich I would not trust myself to be alone with her during the day and a half that preceded the ball. We stayed in the large mansion in the middle of the town that now belonged to her and had been the residence of the late Prince; and while there we carried out to the letter the plans I had arranged. Only a few persons came to see Minna—Baron Heckscher and one or two others. Von Nauheim called, but she refused to see him, pleading illness. During the whole of that time we kept the strictest and closest guard over her, watching vigilantly day and night. The house might have been in a state of siege, indeed. But no attempt was made to approach her, and I gathered therefore that the other side had taken my bait and had chosen the moment for their attempt which I wished. The maid who was to personate her on the return ride from the reception was coached and drilled in every particular of her part; and every detail even of dress was most carefully considered and decided. I began to feel that after all my fears had been premature, for not a hint or suggestion was dropped anywhere to show that any further discovery about myself had been made. But none the less I was in a condition of much inward concern when we started for the reception at the palace, Minna, the Baroness Gratz, and myself being in the carriage. Everything went without a hitch, however. I was in the presence chamber when Minna kissed hands, and it was with a feeling of genuine pleasure that I noticed almost immediately afterward Baron Heckscher making his way to me. He came up and engaged me in conversation, and I knew that his object was to keep me occupied so that Minna would leave the palace without my escort. I raised no difficulty; and entered into a vigorous argument with him on some point about which I knew little and cared less. When he thought he had kept me long enough to serve his purpose he left me and I strolled slowly through the magnificent rooms, taking heed of the many quick glances directed at me; and I walked out to the entrance hall. I wasted a little more time there before I told the servants to call my carriage and inquire for my cousin. More minutes passed, and presently they came and told me my carriage had already gone and the Countess Minna in it. I made a show of annoyance at this; and then some one came forward with the offer of his carriage. I declined it, of course. Now that they believed they had Minna, I might look for an attack on myself at any moment. I had told von Krugen to be ready in the lobbies to watch for Minna in her changed dress and to see that she reached home safely and secretly; for we had determined that after all it would be best for her to return in her disguise to the Gramberg house rather than go to any other place. As I could see no trace of him anywhere, I concluded Minna had already gone, and I set out on foot. I was very anxious, of course, to learn the result of the plan, and it was with infinite satisfaction that I met von Krugen and learned from him that Minna was safe in the house, and that the carriage with the Baroness Gratz and the servant had not returned. The next thing was to simulate our agitation on account of Minna's supposed absence; and my task was to find von Nauheim and keep him under such observation as would prevent his getting to see the girl who had been carried off in Minna's place, and so find out the trick we had played. After waiting half an hour I changed my Court dress, took my sword-stick, thrust my revolver into my pocket, for I did not know what I might have to face, and set out. <hr style="width: 65%;" /> <div style="break-after:column;"></div>

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