Herbeck was an excellent foil. He was as silent and secretive as sand. He moved, as it were, in circles, thus always eluding dangerous corners. He was tall, angular, with a thin, immobile countenance, well guarded by his gray eyes and straight lips. He was a born financier, with almost limitless ambition, though only he himself knew how far this ambition reached. He had not brought prosperity to Ehrenstein, but he had fortified and bastioned it against extravagance, and this was probably the larger feat of the two. He loved his country, and brooded over it as a mother broods over her child. Twice had he saved Ehrenstein from the drag-net of war, and with honor. So he was admired by fathers and revered by mothers.
The secretary came in and laid a thin packet of papers on the chancellor's desk. "It was the packet A, your Highness?"--his hand still resting upon the documents.
"Yes. You may go."
The secretary bowed and withdrew.
The duke stirred the papers angrily, took one of them and spread it out with a rasp.
"Look at that. Whose writing, I ask?"
Herbeck adjusted his glasses and scrutinized the slanting hieroglyphics. He ran over it several times. At length he opened a drawer in his desk, sorted some papers, and brought out a yellow letter. This he laid down beside the other.
"Yes, they are alike. This will be Arnsberg. But"--mildly--"who may say that it is not a cunning forgery?"
"Forgery!" roared the duke. "Read this one from the late king of Jugendheit to Arnsberg, then, if you still doubt."
Herbeck read slowly and carefully.
Then he rose and walked to the nearest window, studying the letter again in the sharper light. Presently his hands fell behind his back and met about the paper, while he himself stared over into the royal gardens. He remained in this attitude for some time.
"Well?" said the duke impatiently.
Herbeck returned to his chair. "I wish that you had shown me these long ago."
"To what end?"
"You accused the king?"
"Certainly, but he denied it."
"In a letter?"
"Yes. Here, read it."
Herbeck compared the two. "Where did you find these?"
"In Arnsberg's desk," returned the duke, the anger in his eyes giving place to gloomy retrospection. "Arnsberg, my boyhood playmate, the man I loved and trusted and advanced to the highest office in my power. Is that not the way? Do we ever trust any one fully without being in the end deceived? Well, dead or alive," the duke continued, his throat swelling, "ten thousand crowns to him who brings Arnsberg to me, dead or alive."