At Etzel
The following morning the Countess Loschek left for a holiday. Minna, silent and wretched, had packed her things for her, moving about the room like a broken thing. And the Countess had sat in a chair by a window, and said nothing. She sent away food untasted, took no notice of the packing, and stared, hour after hour, ahead of her.
Certain things were clear enough. Karl could not now be reached by the old methods. She had, casting caution to the winds, visited the shop where Peter Niburg was employed. But he was not there, and the proprietor, bowing deeply, disclaimed all knowledge of his whereabouts. She would have to go to Karl herself, a difficult matter now. She would surely be watched. And the thousand desperate plans that she thought of for escaping from the country and hiding herself, - in America, perhaps, - those were impossible for the same reason. She was helpless.
She had the choice of but two alternatives, to do as she had been commanded, for it amounted to that, or to die. The Committee would not kill her, in case she failed them. It would be unnecessary. Enough that they place the letter and the code in the hands of the authorities, by some anonymous means. Well enough she knew the Chancellor's inflexible anger, and the Archduchess Annunciata's cold rage. They would sweep her away with a gesture, and she would die the death of all traitors.
A week! Time had been when a week of the dragging days at the Palace had seemed eternity. Now the hours flew. The gold clock on her dressing-table, a gift from the Archduchess, marked them with flying hands.
She was, for the first time, cut off from the gossip of the Palace. The Archduchess let her severely alone. She disliked having anything interfere with her own comfort, disliked having her routine disturbed. But the Countess surmised a great deal. She guessed that Hedwig would defy them, and that they would break her spirit with high words. She surmised preparations for a hasty marriage - how hasty she dared not think. And she guessed, too, the hopeless predicament of Nikky Larisch.
She sat and stared ahead.
During the afternoon came a package, rather unskillfully tied with a gilt cord. Opening it, the Countess disclosed a glove-box of wood, with a design of rather shaky violets burnt into the cover. Inside was a note:
I am very sorry you are sick. This is to put your gloves in when you travel. Please excuse the work. I have done it in a hurry. FERDINAND WILLIAM OTTO.
Suddenly the Countess laughed, choking hysterical laughter that alarmed Minna; horrible laughter, which left her paler than ever, and gasping.
The old castle of the Loscheks looked grim and inhospitable when she reached it that, night. Built during the years when the unbeliever overran southern Europe, it stood in a commanding position over a valley, and a steep, walled road led up to it. The narrow windows of its turrets were built, in defiance of the Moslem hordes, in the shape of the cross. Its walls had been hospitable enough, however, when the crusaders had thronged by to redeem the Holy Sepulcher from the grasp of the infidel. Here, in its stone hall, they had slept in weary rows on the floor. From its battlements they had stared south and east along the road their feet must follow.
But now, its ancient glory and good repute departed, its garrison gone, its drawbridge and moat things of the past, its very hangings and furnishings mouldering from long neglect, it hung over the valley, a past menace, an empty threat.
To this dreary refuge the Countess had fled. She wanted the silence of its still rooms in which to think. Wretched herself, its wretchedness called her. As the carriage which had brought her from, the railway turned into its woods; and she breathed the pungent odor of pine and balsam, she relaxed for the first time.
Why was she so hopeless? She could escape.
She knew the woods well. None who followed her could know them so well. She would get away, and somewhere, in a new world, make a fresh start. Surely, after all, peace was the greatest thing in the world.
Peace! The word attracted her. There were religious houses where one would be safe enough, refuges high-walled and secure, into which no alien foot ever penetrated. And, as if to answer the thought, she saw at that moment across the valley the lights of Etzel, the tower of the church, with its thirteen bells, the monastery buildings behind it, and set at its feet, like pilgrims come to pray, the low houses of the peasants. For the church at Etzel contained a celebrated shrine, none other than that of Our Lady of the Angels, and here came, from all over the kingdom, long lines of footsore and weary pilgrims, seeking peace and sanctity, and some a miracle.
The carriage drove on; Minna, on the box, crossed herself at sight of the church, and chatted with the driver, a great figure who crowded her to the very edge of the seat.
"I am glad to be here," she said. "I am sick of grandeur. My home is in Etzel." She turned and inspected the man beside her. "You are a newcomer, I think?"
"I have but just come to Etzel."
"Then you cannot tell me about my people." She was disappointed. "And you," inquired the driver, - "you will stay for a visit?"
"A week only. But better than nothing."
"After that, you return to the city?"
"Yes. Madame the Countess - you would know, if you were Etzel-born - Madame the Countess is lady-in-waiting to Her Royal Highness, the Archduchess Annunciata."
"So!" said the driver. But he was not curious, and the broken road demanded his attention. He was but newly come, so very newly that he did not know his way, and once made a wrong turning.
The Countess relaxed. She had not been follow