Argosy, Vol. 1 (December 9, 1882) — page 97: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

“ Neither man nor woman at such at time can think of any but reasons of state.” “You mean that she consented to give her hand, but could not give her heart with it.” ‘TI mean more than that, sir, and I must speak frankly to you. The Countess Minna has never favored the scheme, but has strongly opposed it— and opposes it still, Women have no ambition. She has no longing for a throne, and now that her father is dead, I fear—well, I do not know what she may do. If you will urge her, she is her father’s daughter, and will, I believe, go through with it. But much will depend upon you.” “ And 1f she does not go on with it, what then?” “We are all pledged too deeply to draw back now, your highness,” he answered very earnestly. “ We must either succeed or fail—there is no middle course—and failure means a prison or a convent for the prince’s daughter; and worse than ruin for the rest of us. As for yourself, you, I warn you, will be the certain object of attack, for there is no safe obscurity here. The enemies of your highness’ house will never rest satisfied while a possible heiress to the throne remains at large, or while those who have helped to put her there are alive and at liberty. As I told you at Hamnel, we are playing for desperate stakes, and must play boldly and like men.” Before I had time to reply we heard Steinitz in conversation with some one outside the door, and a moment later he opened it and said that the Countess Minna was anxious to see me, and was coming to the library for that pur- pose. CHAPTER IV.—“‘ You ARE HEAD OF THE House Now.” My chief feeling as I rose to receive the prince’s daughter was a sort of shamefaced regret that I had allowed myself to be hurried into a position which made it necessary for me to mislead her. I meant her nothing but good. I had been brought to the castle all against my will. I had stayed there largely in order that I might be the means of saving her from danger; and everything I heard only served to increase that danger in my view. Yet the fact of the deception I was practising hampered and embarrassed me in her presence. She was garbed now in the deepest black; was pale and hollow eyed, and trembling under the stres. of her new sudden sorrow; and she seemed so frail and fragile that my heart ached for her, while my senses were thrilled by her exquisite beauty and by a strange, subtle influence which her presence exer- cised upon me. My pulses beat fast with a tumultuous desire to help her in her helplessness. Never, indeed, had woman moved me like this. She paused a moment on the threshold, her hand on the arm of an elderly lady who accompanied her; and her large blue eyes rested on my face, search- ing, reading, and appealing, as I hastened across the room toward her. Her scrutiny appeared to give her confidence, for she withdrew her hand from her companion’s arm and held it out to greet me. ecomilEclooolks COLNT