Once more brother and sister stood face to face in the great shadowy
audience-room of the Reist palace. Again, too, there was the clamour
of many voices in the streets below, for a messenger had just galloped
in with news from the front, and a sad procession of ambulance wagons
had arrived for the hospital. Only it seemed to them both that that
other day, of which both for a moment thought, lay far back in some
uncertain past. Events had marched so rapidly during the last few
months that all sense of proportion and distance was lost. They looked
at one another with white, haggard faces. Marie saw that her brother
no longer wore his sword.
"What has happened?" she asked, faintly.
The fires of hell were smouldering in his dark eyes. Yet he answered
with some attempt at calmness.
"I challenged him. I had the right! He did not deny it, but he will
not fight until the war is over. I have broken my sword. I am an
outcast from my people--and he is still their king. Marie, you have
brought great trouble upon our House."
"It was not I who brought him here," she answered. "I was against it
always. The trouble is of your making--and his. He drank with me from
the King's cup."
"Ay! And to-night he refused absolutely to marry you, Marie. I
suffered the everlasting humiliation of offering your hand--to have it
refused."
She drew a short, quick breath. It was humiliation indeed. A sudden
wild anger seized her. She locked and interlocked her fingers
nervously.
"They are an accursed race, these men of Tyrnaus," she cried. "They
make vows only to break them. Their honour is a broken reed."
Then Nicholas, his face gleaming white through the darkness, leaned
over to her.
"Marie," he said, "those written words--which summoned you to
him--were his?"
She hesitated. He raised his hand.
"Marie," he said, solemnly, "answer me as though your foot were upon
the threshold of eternity. Remember that the name of Reist will become
a name of shame for ever if you speak falsely. He is young, and he
came here a stranger to us and our traditions. With our country in
peril I might forgive for the while his broken troth--if that were
all. But if he has dared to hold you lightly--that I cannot forgive.
Tell me the truth! Was that message, indeed, from him which summoned
you to a clandestine meeting?"
She met his fixed gaze with beating heart. Her bosom rose and fell
quickly. She was torn with a hundred emotions. At last she answered.
"Nicholas," she said, "I know nothing of that note. I sought the king
of my own free will."
Reist paced the room with quick, uneven footsteps. Marie sat at the
table, her head buried in her hands. He did not approach her. Through
the open window came the dull booming of guns. The sound was a
torture to him.
"What are you going to do?" she asked, at last.
"God only knows!" he answered, bitterly. "I have no King and no
country. Yet if I stay here I shall go mad."
She removed her hands from her face and looked at him stealthily.
"If there were a way," she whispered, "to save Theos, and to be
avenged on Ughtred of Tyrnaus."
He stopped short.
"What do you mean?"
"If there were still a way," she whispered, "by which our old dream
might come true. If it were still possible that you might become the
saviour of our country, might even now rescue it from the Turks----"
"Plain words," he cried. "Let there be no enigmas between you and me.
What do you mean?"
She looked at him more boldly.
"If a great Power should say 'I will not help Theos in her trouble
because I do not recognize Ughtred of Tyrnaus, but if the right man is
willing to accept the throne--so--I will stretch out my hand--the war
shall cease--Theos shall be free.' What do you think of that,
Nicholas?"
He looked at her with new eyes.
"Whose thoughts are these?" he asked, slowly.
"Domiloff's!"
"He has spoken to you?"
"Yes!"
"It is treason," he cried, hoarsely. "I will have none of it."
"Who," she asked, "is a greater traitor than Ughtred of Tyrnaus?"
He was silent.
"Who," she cried, "is better beloved in Theos?--who could rule the
people more wisely than you, Nicholas? It would save our country from
conquest and pillage. It is--the only way. Is it not what we have
spoken of before--have not you yourself pointed upwards to that motto,
whose writing is surely no less clear to-day? Oh, Nicholas, you cannot
hesitate."
He walked to the window and looked out towards the hills, where the
red lights still flared and the guns made sullen music. Her words were
like poison to him.
"Listen, Nicholas," she said. "While Ughtred of Tyrnaus is king no
help will come to us from any other nation, and without help how can
Theos hold out against a hundred thousand Turks? We have few soldiers
and fewer guns. Our population will be decimated, our country laid
waste, and the end will be slavery. It is for you to save us all. It
is you who can save Theos."
He looked at her with cold, stern eyes.
"How long have you been the confidante of Domiloff?"
"It is only lately," she answered, "that he has spoken to me of these
things. I think, Nicholas, that he is afraid of you."
"Perhaps," Reist remarked, bitterly, "he mistook me for an honest
man."
"It is freedom for Theos," she said, softly, "and revenge upon the
King. Whatever may befall him from our hands he has deserved."
"Is Domiloff still in Theos?" he asked.
She nodded.
"You will find him at the Cafe Metropolitan," she said, "only he is
now a Frenchman. You must ask for Monsieur Abouyat."
Reist moved restlessly up and down the room. Often his fingers sought
the place where his sword should have been.
"Something I must do," he muttered. "I might disguise myself as a
peasant and fight in the ranks. To be here idle is horrible; to go to
Domiloff--I cannot!"
He looked gloomily out into the darkness. The inaction was
unendurable. She crossed the room to his side and laid her hand upon
his arm.
"It is not by standing still, Nicholas, or by indecision that you can
preserve your country or avenge your honour," she said. "Go to
Domiloff. Hear what he has to say. Then ask yourself what is best for
Theos."
"Domiloff has the tongue of a fiend," he answered, "or a serpent. I do
not dare to trust myself with him. Russia would play us false in the
end. Our freedom would be undermined. I myself should be a puppet, a
doll, at the beck and call of a master. Oh, I know how these Russians
treat an independent State if once their fingers are upon her throat."
"You talk as though Theos were not already doomed," she cried. "What
hope have we as it is? Nicholas, have you ever thought what must
happen when the Turks have crossed the frontier. You know their
way--it is blood and fire and desolation. Have you considered the
women and children, Nicholas?"
He groaned. The recollection of former raids was lurid and terrible
enough. It was hard for him to see clearly. And his scabbard was
empty.
"I will go to Domiloff," he said at last, "I will hear what he has to
say."