"I fought, I climbed that wall, I crossed the lawn, I took refuge here
for love of a queen. For love of a queen all my short life I lived. For
love of a queen I died most horribly; and the queen lives, though it
would have gone better with her had she died as horribly."
Wogan had once seen the lonely castle of Ahlden where that queen was
imprisoned; he had once caught a glimpse of her driving in the dusk
across the heath surrounded by her guards with their flashing swords.
He sat chilled with apprehensions and forebodings. They crowded in upon
his mind all the more terrible because he could not translate them into
definite perils which beyond this and that corner of his life might
await him. He was the victim of illusions, he assured himself, at which
to-morrow safe in Schlestadt he would laugh. But to-night the illusions
were real. Königsmarck was with him. Königsmarck was by some mysterious
alchemy becoming incorporate with him. The voice which spoke and warned
and menaced was as much his as Königsmarck's.
The old Count opened the door and heard Wogan muttering to himself as he
crouched over the fire. The Count carried a basin of water in his hand
and a sponge and some linen. He insisted upon washing Wogan's wounds and
dressing them in a simple way.
"They are not deep," he said; "a few days' rest and a clever surgeon
will restore you." He went from the room again and brought back a tray,
on which were the remains of a pie, a loaf of bread, and some fruit.
"While you eat, Chevalier, I will mix you a cordial," said he, and he
set about his hospitable work. "You ask me why I so readily opened my
window to you. It was because I took you for Königsmarck himself come
back as mysteriously as he disappeared. I did not think that if he came
back now his hair would be as white, his shoulders as bent, as mine.
Indeed, one cannot think of Königsmarck except as a youth. You had the
very look of him as you stood in the light upon the lawn. You have, if I
may say so, something of his gallant bearing and something of his
grace."
Wogan could have heard no words more distressing to him at this moment.
"Oh, stop, sir. I pray you stop!" he cried out violently, and noting the
instant he had spoken the surprise on Count Otto's face. "There, sir, I
give you at once by my discourtesy an example of how little I merit a
comparison with that courtly nobleman. Let me repair it by telling you,
since you are willing to hear, of my night's adventure." And as he ate
he told his story, omitting the precise object of his journey, the
nature of the letter which he had burned, and any name which might give
a clue to the secret of his enterprise.