De Casimir therefore quitted the Rathhaus among the first to go, and walked through the busy streets to his rooms in the Langenmarkt, where he not only lived but had a small office to which orderlies and aides-de-camp came by day or night. Two sentries kept guard on the pavement. Since the spring, this office had been one of the busiest military posts in Danzig. Its doors were open at all hours, and in truth many of de Casimir’s assistants preferred to transact their business in the dark.
There might be some recalcitrant debtor driven by stress of circumstance to clear his conscience tonight. It would be as well, de Casimir thought, to be at one’s post. Nor was he mistaken. Though it was only ten o’clock, two men were awaiting his return, and, their business despatched, de Casimir deemed it wise to send away his assistants. Immediately after they had gone a woman came. She was half distracted with fear, and the tears ran down her pallid cheeks. But she dried them at the mention of de Casimir’s price, and fell to abusing him.
“If your husband is innocent, there is all the more reason why he should be grateful to me for warning him,” he said, with a smile. And at last the lady paid and went away.
The town clocks had struck eleven before another footstep on the pavement made de Casimir raise his head. He did not actually expect anyone, but a certain surreptitiousness in the approach of this visitor, and the low knock on the door, made him suspect that this was grist for his mill.
He opened the door and, seeing that it was a woman, stepped back. When she had entered, he closed the door while she stood watching him in the dark passage, beneath the shadow of her hood. Knowing the value of such small details, he locked the door rather ostentatiously and dropped the key into his pocket.
“And now, madame,” he said reassuringly, as he followed his visitor into the room where a shaded lamp lighted his writing-table. She threw back her hood, and it was Mathilde! The surprise on de Casimir’s face was genuine enough. Romance could not have brought about this visit, nor love be its motive.
“Something has happened,” he said, looking at her doubtfully.
“Where is my father?” was the reply.
“Unless there has been some mistake,” he answered glibly, “he is at home in bed.”
She smiled contemptuously into his innocent face.
“There has been a mistake,” she said; “they came to arrest him tonight.”
De Casimir made a gesture of anger and seemed to be mentally assigning a punishment to some blunderer.
“And?” he asked, without looking at her.
“And he escaped.”
“For the moment?”
“No; he has left Danzig.”
Something in her voice—the cold note of warning—made him glance uneasily at her. This was not a woman to be deceived, and yet she was womanly enough to fear deception and to resent her own fears, visiting her anger on any who aroused them. In the flash of an eye he understood her, and forestalled the words that were upon her lips.
“And I promised that he should come to no harm—I know that,” he said quickly. “At first I thought that it must have been a blunder, but on reflection I am sure that it is not. It is the Emperor. He must have given the order for the arrest himself, behind my back. That is his way. He trusts no one. He deceives those nearest to him. I made out the list of those to be arrested tonight, and your father’s name was not on it. Do you believe me? Mademoiselle, do you believe me?”
It was only natural in such a man to look for disbelief. The air he breathed was infected by suspicion. No deception was too small for the great man whom he served. Mathilde made no answer.
“You came here to accuse me of having deceived you,” he said rather anxiously. “Is that it?”
She nodded without meeting his eyes. It was not the truth. She had come to hear his defence, hoping against hope that she might be able to believe him.
“Mathilde,” he asked slowly, “do you believe me?”
He came a step nearer, looking down at her averted face, which was oddly white. Then suddenly she turned, without a sound, without lifting her eyes—and was in his arms. It seemed that she had done it against her will, and it took him by surprise. He had thought that she was trying to attract his love because she believed in his capability to make his fortune like so many soldiers of France; that she was only playing a woman’s subtle game. And, after all, she was like the rest—a little cleverer, a little colder—but, like the rest.
While his arms were still round her, his quick mind leapt forward to the future, wondering already to what end this would lead them. For a moment he was taken aback. He was over the last of those barriers which are so easy from the outside and unclimbable from within. She had thrust into his hands a power greater than, for the moment, he knew how to wield. It was characteristic of him to think first whither it would lead him, and next how he could turn it to good account.
Some instinct told him that this was a different love from any that he had met before. The same instinct made him understand that it was crying aloud to be convinced; and, oddly enough, he had told her the truth.
“See,” he said, “here is a copy of the list, and your father’s name is not on it. See, here is Napoleon’s letter, expressing satisfaction with my work here and in
