Part 17 (2/2)
”I don't believe you,” she managed to stammer out--her voice quite changed with fear.
”Your opinion does not touch me. In your heart you know I never lie, Madame--and for once you may trust your heart. If you force me, that telegram will go to-day. Nor is that all. I will go to Duke Ladislas and tell him the story of the lost jewels, and who instigated the theft and received the stolen property.”
”They have been given back; besides, will he prosecute his own son?”
”The theft shall be published in every paper, and with it the story of how Count Karl has been ruined by opium drugging. By whom, Madame--by the secret agent of the French Government, the ex-spy of the Paris police--Madame Constans? You can judge how Austrian people will read that story.”
She had no longer any fight left in her. I spoke without a note of pa.s.sion in my voice; and every word told. She sat staring at me, white and helpless and beaten.
”More than that and worse than that----”
”I can bear no more,” she cried, covering her face with trembling fingers.
I don't know what more she thought I was going to threaten to do. I knew of nothing more; so it was fortunate she stopped me. She was in truth so frightened that if I had threatened to have her hanged, I think she would have believed in my power to do it.
”Why do you seek to ruin me? What have I done to make you my enemy?”
she asked at length.
”I do not seek to ruin you, and I will be your friend and not your enemy, if you trust instead of deceiving me. I will save you from Count Gustav's threats.”
”How can you?”
”What matters to you how, so long as I do it?”
”He knows all that you know.”
”What, that you are here to betray the leaders of the Hungarian national movement to your French employers and their Russian allies?”
”_Nom de Dieu_, but how I am afraid of you?” she cried.
”If I tell him that how will it fare with you?”
”No no, you must not. I will do all you wish. I will. I will. I swear it on my soul.”
”Tell me then the details of the elopement to-morrow. I know enough to test the truth of what you say; and if you lie, I shall do all I have said--and more.”
”I will not lie, Christabel. I am going to trust you. It is arranged for to-morrow night. I leave the house here at nine o'clock in a carriage. At the end of the Radialstra.s.se Count Karl will join me. We drive first to a villa in Buda, behind the Blocksberg--a villa called 'Unter den Linden.' We are to be married there; and on the following day we cross the frontier into Germany and go to Breslau.”
She said it as if she had been repeating a lesson, and finished with a deep-drawn sigh.
”Is he coming to-day?”
”No.”
”To-morrow?”
”No.”
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