The Goose Girl by Harold MacGrath (online e book reading txt) 📕

the heart to answer. Without waiting for the duke to bid him continue, Hans unceremoniously ripped open Gretchen's left sleeve. The ragged scar was visible to them all. And while they grouped round the astonished goose-girl they heard her highness cry out with surprise.

"What is this?" she said, pointing to the two pairs of shoes and the two cloaks. She held up the locket, the twin of which hung round her neck. "Where did these come from?"

"My child," the duke answered, unashamed of his tears, "only God knows as yet what it means; but the outward sign testifies to a strange and horrible blunder. The locket you hold in your hand was taken from you when you were an infant. The one you wear round your neck is, according to the statement of one of these men, not genuine."

"And the significance?" She grew tall, and the torn sleeve fell away from her arm.

"That what is done must be all undone. I know you to be brave. Strengthen your heart, then. I stand before you the most wretched man in all this duchy. These men affirm that I am not your father. They say that you are not my daughter."

"And that Gretchen is!" spoke Hans. His conscience was costing every one something dear.

"I?" Gretchen drew closer to Hildegarde.

The duke studied the portrait of the mother and then the faces of these two girls. Both possessed a resemblance, only it seemed now that Gretchen was nearest to the portrait and Hildegarde nearest to the doubt.

"You say she wore the costume of a Gipsy child when you lost her?" said the duke.

"Yes." Von Arnsberg took from under his coat a small bundle which he opened with shaking fingers. He had been in the Krumerweg that afternoon.

"Why, those are mine!" exclaimed Gretchen excitedly.

"You see?" said Von Arnsberg. "Would you not like to be a princess, Gretchen?"

A princess? Gretchen's heart fluttered. A princess? She saw the king shaking the bars of his cell; she heard his voice calling out his love for her. A princess? She laid her head on Hildegarde's shoulder. She was weak, and this was some dream.

"But who, then, am I?" asked Hildegarde. There was no sign of weakness here.

Again there was no answer.

"Tell what you know," said Hans to the Gipsy. "Highness, he alone knows the man who brought about all this."

"The archplotter of this damnable conspiracy?" The duke's eyes became alive, his face, his whole body. Every beat of his heart cried out for vengeance. "Who is he? Tell me! Give him to me, man, and all of you shall go free. Give him into these hands. His name!" The duke's hands worked convulsively as if they were already round the throat of this unseen, implacable enemy. He was terrible in this moment.

The Gipsy produced a letter. It had to be held carefully, as it was old and tattered. The duke read it. Beyond that it made the original offer it was worthless. The handwriting was palpably disguised. The duke flung the missive to the floor.

"Fool! Is that all you have? Tell me what you know, man, or I shall have you shot in the morning, immunity or no immunity! Quick!"

"Highness," said the Gipsy, thoroughly alarmed, "this is how it happened. My band was staying at the time in Dreiberg. We told fortunes and exhibited an Italian puppet-show. The letter came first. I was poor and sometimes desperate. I was to take her away and leave her with strange people."

"Ah!" interrupted the duke, with despairing gesture toward Grumbach, "why did you not leave us all in peace?"

"Highness, a great wrong has been done, and God brought me here to right it."

"You are a brave man," darkly.

"I am in your hands, Highness," sturdily. "In a mad moment I committed a crime. I shall abide by whatever punishment you may inflict."

"Continue," said the duke to the Gipsy.

"Well, Highness, I would not accept till I had talked personally with him. He came at last. His face was hidden and his voice muffled. But this I saw; when he gave me the first half of the money I was certain I should know him again."

"How?"

"By his little finger, Highness."

"His little finger?" Von Arnsberg repeated. The two women, large-eyed and bewildered, clung to each other's hand tensely. These were heart-breaking times. Gretchen's mind, however, absorbed nothing, neither the words nor the picture. Her thoughts revolved round one thing; if she were a princess she could be happy. But the other, from under whose feet all tangible substances seemed to be giving way, she was possessed by two thoughts which surged in her brain like combatants. If not a princess, what was she? If not a princess, she was free. She stole a swift glance at Carmichael, who seemed far removed from the heart of this black business; and had he been looking at her he would have seen the gates opening into Eden.

"What was this little finger like?" asked the duke, shuddering.

"One time it had been cut or mangled."

"The man was tall?"

"Yes, Highness."

The duke silently toyed with the little yellow shoes. Suddenly he laughed; but it was the terrible laughter of a madman. There were death and desolation in it.

"Come, all of you; you, Gretchen, and you, Hildegarde; come, Carmichael, and you, Arnsberg; all of you! Let us go and pay a visit to our good friend, Herbeck!"


CHAPTER XXII

A LITTLE FINGER


The king of Jugendheit, Prince Ludwig, and the chancellor sat in the form of a triangle. Herbeck was making a pyramid of his finger-tips, sometimes touching his chin with his thumbs. His face was cheerful. His royal highness, still in the guise of a mountaineer, sat stiffly in his chair, the expression on his face hardly translatable; that on the king's not at all. He was dressed in the brilliant uniform of a colonel in the Prussian Uhlans, an honor conferred upon him recently by King William. Prior to his advent into the Grand Duchy of Ehrenstein he had been to Berlin. A whim, for which he was now grateful, had cozened him into carrying this uniform along with him on his adventures. It was only after he met Gretchen that there came moments when he forgot he was a king. He was pale. From hour to hour his heart seemed to grow colder and smaller and harder, till it now rested in his breast with the heaviness of a stone, out of which life and the care of living had been squeezed. He rarely spoke, leaving the burden of the conversation to rest upon his uncle's tongue.

"So your royal highness will understand," said Herbeck, "that it was the simplest move I could make, and the safest. Were it known, or had it been known this morning, that the king of Jugendheit and the prince regent had entered Dreiberg in disguise and had been lodged in the Stein-schloss, there would have been a serious riot in the city. So I had you arrested as spies. Presently a closed carriage will convey you to the frontier, and the unfortunate incident will be ended."

"Thanks!" said Prince Ludwig.

"And when you cross the frontier, it would be wise to disperse the troops waiting there for you."

Prince Ludwig smiled. "It was only an army of defense. The duke had nearly twenty thousand men at the maneuvers. I have no desire for war; but, on the other hand, I am always ready for it."

"There will never be any war between us," prophetically. "The duke grows impatient at times, but I can always rouse his sense of justice. You will, of course, pardon the move I made. There will be no publicity. There will be no newspaper notoriety, for the journalists will know nothing of what has really happened."

"For that consideration your excellency has my deepest thanks," replied Prince Ludwig.

"I thought it best to let you go without seeing the duke. The meeting between you two might be painful."

"That also is thoughtful of your excellency," said the king. "I have no desire to see or speak to his highness."

"There is, however, one favor I should like to ask," said the prince.

"Can I grant it?"

"Easily. I wish to leave a sum of money in trust, to be paid to one Gretchen Schwarz, who lives in the Krumerweg. She is ambitious to become a singer. Let nothing stand between her and her desires."

"Granted."

The heart of the king, at the sound of that dear name, suddenly expanded and stifled him. The stiffness went out of his shoulders.

"Ah, this little world of ours, the mistakes and futile schemes we make upon it!" The chancellor dallied with his quill pen. "It was a cynical move of fate that your majesty should see the goose-girl first."

"Enough!" cried the king vehemently. "Let us have no more retrospection, if you please. Moreover, I shall be obliged to you if you will summon at once the carriage which is to take us to the frontier. The situation has been amicably and satisfactorily explained. I see no reason why we should be detained any longer."

"Nor I," added Prince Ludwig. "I am rather weary of these tatters. I should even like a bath."

The three of them were immediately attracted by a singular noise outside in the corridor. The door swung in violently, crashing against the wall and shivering into atoms the Venetian mirror. The king, the prince, and the chancellor were instantly upon their feet. The king clutched the back of his chair with a grip of iron: Gretchen? Her highness? What was Gretchen doing here? Ah, could he have flown! He muttered a curse at the chancellor for the delay. But happily Gretchen did not see him.

The duke came in first, and he waited till the others were inside; then he shut the door with lesser violence and rushed over to the chancellor.

"Herbeck, you villain!"

The chancellor stared at the Gipsy, at Von Arnsberg, at Grumbach.

"Herbeck, you black scoundrel!" cried the duke. "Can you realize how difficult it is not to take you by the throat and strangle you here and now?"

"He is mad!" said Herbeck, bracing himself against the desk.

"Yes. I am mad, but it is the sane madness of a terribly wronged man. Come here, you Gipsy!" The duke seized Herbeck's hand and pressed it down fiercely on the desk. "Look at that and tell me if it is not the hand of a Judas!"

"That is the hand, Highness," said the Gipsy, without hesitation.

The duke flung the hand aside. As he did so something snapped in Herbeck's brain, though at that instant he was not conscious of it.

"It was you, you! It was your hand that wrecked my life, yours! Ah, is there such villainy? Are such men born and do they live? My wife dead, my own heart broken, Arnsberg ruined and disgraced! And these two children: which is mine?"

To the king of Jugendheit the ceiling reeled and the floor revolved under his feet.

"Villain, what have you to say? What was your purpose?"

How many years, thought Herbeck, had he been preparing for this moment? How long had he been steeling his heart against this very scene? Futile dream! He drew himself together with a supreme effort. He would face this hour as he had always planned