“No!” answered the knight, in sadness; “for I must leave you again, and for a long time.”
Zagloba looked at him more attentively. “How is it that you are so cut down?”
“Just for this, that I am going away.”
“Whither?”
“I have received letters from Scotland, from old friends of my father and myself. My affairs demand me there absolutely; perhaps for a long time. I am grieved to part with all here—but I must.”
Zagloba, going into the middle of the room, looked at Pan Michael’s sister, then at the young ladies, and asked, “Have you heard? In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost!”
XVII
Though Zagloba received the news of Ketling’s departure with astonishment, still no suspicion came into his head; for it was easy to admit that Charles II had remembered the services which the Ketlings had rendered the throne in time of disturbance, and that he wished to show his gratitude to the last descendant of the family. It would seem even most wonderful were he to act otherwise. Besides, Ketling showed Zagloba certain letters from beyond the sea, and convinced him decisively. In its way that journey endangered all the old noble’s plans, and he was thinking with alarm of the future. Judging by his letter, Volodyovski might return any day.
“The winds have blown away in the steppes the remnant of his grief,” thought Zagloba. “He will come back more daring than when he departed; and because some devil is drawing him more powerfully to Krysia, he is ready to propose to her straightway. And then—then Krysia will say yes (for how could she say no to such a cavalier, and, besides, the brother of Pani Makovetski?), and my poor, dearest haiduk will be on the ice.”
But Zagloba, with the persistence special to old people, determined at all costs to marry Basia to the little knight. Neither the arguments of Pan Yan, nor those which at intervals he used on himself, had serious effect. At times he promised mentally, it is true, not to interfere again in anything; but he returned afterward involuntarily with greater persistence to the thought of uniting this pair. He meditated for whole days how to effect this; he formed plans, he framed stratagems. And he went so far that when it seemed to him that he had hit upon the means, he cried out straightway, as if the affair were over, “May God bless you!”
But now Zagloba saw before him almost the ruin of his wishes. There remained nothing more to him but to abandon all his efforts and leave the future to God’s will; for the shadow of hope that before his departure Ketling would take some decisive step with reference to Krysia could not remain long in Zagloba’s head. It was only from sorrow and curiosity, therefore, that he determined to inquire of the young knight touching the time of his going, as well as what he intended to do before leaving the Commonwealth.
Having invited Ketling to a conversation, Zagloba said with a greatly grieved face, “A difficult case! Each man knows best what he ought to do, and I will not ask you to stay; but I should like to know at least something about your return.”
“Can I tell what is waiting for me there, where I am going?” answered Ketling—“what questions and what adventures? I will return sometime, if I can. I will stay there for good if I must.”
“You will find that your heart will draw you back to us.”
“God grant that my grave will be nowhere else but in the land which gave me all that it could give!”
“Ah, you see in other countries a foreigner is a stepchild all his life; but our mother opens her arms to you at once, and cherishes you as her own son.”
“Truth, a great truth. Ei! if only I could—For everything in the old country may come to me, but happiness will not come.”
“Ah! I said to you, ‘Settle down; get married.’ You would not listen to me. If you were married, even if you went away, you would have to return, unless you wished to take your wife through the raging waves; and I do not suppose that. I gave you advice. Well, you wouldn’t take it; you wouldn’t take it.”
Here Zagloba looked attentively at Ketling’s face, wishing some definite explanation from him, but Ketling was silent; he merely hung his head and fixed his eyes on the floor.
“What is your answer to this?” asked Zagloba, after a while.
“I had no chance whatever of taking it,” answered the young knight, slowly.
Zagloba began to walk through the room, then he stopped in front of Ketling, joined his hands behind his back, and said, “But I tell you that you had. If you had not, may I never from this day forward bind this body of mine with this belt here! Krysia is a friend of yours.”
“God grant that she remain one, though seas be between us!”
“What does that mean?”
“Nothing more; nothing more.”
“Have you asked her?”
“Spare me. As it is, I am so sad because I am going.”
“Ketling, do you wish me to speak to her while there is time?”
Ketling considered that if Krysia wished so earnestly that their feelings should remain secret, perhaps she might be glad if an opportunity were offered of denying them openly, therefore he answered, “I assure you that that is vain, and I am so far convinced that I have done everything to drive that feeling from my head; but if you are looking for a miracle, ask.”
“Ah, if you have driven her out of your head,” said Zagloba, with a certain bitterness, “there is nothing indeed to be done. Only permit me to remark that I looked on you as a man of more constancy.”
Ketling rose, and stretching upward his two hands feverishly, said with violence unusual to him, “What will it help me to wish for
