She eyed him stonily, and then sent him off about his business.

So all the day she ate her heart out in her bare room. Now and then the clear sound of bugles reached her, but she saw no hunters. Karl followed the chase late that day. It was evening before she saw the tired horses straggling through the village streets. Her courage was oozing by that time. What more could she say than what he already knew? Many agencies other than hers kept him informed of the state of affairs in Livonia. A bitter thought, this, for it showed Karl actuated by love of Hedwig, and not by greed of power. She feared that more than she feared death.

She had expected to go to the lodge, but at nine o'clock that night Karl came to her, knocking at the door of her room and entering without waiting for permission.

The room was small and cozy with firelight. Her scarlet cloak, flung over a chair, made a dash of brilliant color. Two lighted candles on a high carved chest, and between them a plaster figure of the Mother and Child, a built-in bed with white curtains--that was the room.

Before the open fire Olga Loschek sat in her low chair. She wore still her dark traveling dress; and a veil, ready to be donned at the summons of a message from Karl, trailed across her knee. In the firelight she looked very young--young and weary. Karl, who had come hardened to a scene, found her appealing, almost pathetic.

She rose at his entrance and, after a moment of surprise, smiled faintly. But she said nothing, nor did Karl, until he had lifted one of her cold hands and brushed it with his lips.

"Well!" he said. "And again, Olga!"

"Once again." She looked up at him. Yes, he was changed. The old Karl would have taken her in his arms. This new Karl was urbane, smiling, uneasy.

He said nothing. He was apparently waiting for her to make the first move. But she did not help him. She sat down and he drew a small chair to the fire.

"There is nothing wrong, is there?" he said. "Your note alarmed me. Not the note, but your coming here."

"Nothing--and everything." She felt suddenly very tired. Her very voice was weary. "I sent you a letter asking you to come to the castle. There were things to discuss, and I did not care to take this risk of coming here."

"I received no letter."

"No!" She knew it, of course, but she pretended surprise, a carefully suppressed alarm.

"I have what I am afraid is bad news, Olga. The letter was taken. I received only a sheet of blank paper."

"Karl!" She leaped to her feet.

She was no mean actress. And behind it all was her real terror, greater, much greater, than he could know. Whatever design she had on Karl's pity, she was only acting at the beginning. Deadly peril was clutching her, a double peril, of the body and of the soul.

"Taken! By whom?"

"By some one you know--young Larisch."

"Larisch!" No acting there. In sheer amazement she dropped back from him, staring with wide eyes. Nikky Larisch! Then how had the Terrorists got it? Was all the world in their employ?

"But--it is impossible!"

"I'm sorry, Olga. But even then there is something to be explained. We imprisoned him--we got him in a trap, rather by accident. He maintained that he had not made away with the papers. A mystery, all of it. Only your man, Niburg, could explain, and he--"

"Yes?"

"I am afraid he will never explain, Olga."

Then indeed horror had its way with her. Niburg executed as a spy, after making who knew what confession! What then awaited her at the old castle above the church at Etzel? Karl, seeing her whitening lips, felt a stirring of pity. His passion for her was dead, but for a long time he had loved her, and now, in sheer regret, he drew her to him.

"Poor girl," he said softly. "Poor girl!" And drew his hand gently over her hair.

She shivered at his touch. "I can never go back," she said brokenly.

But at that he freed her. "That would be to confess before you are accused," he reminded her. "We do not know that Niburg told. He was doomed anyhow. To tell would help nothing. The letter, of course, was in code?"

"Yes."

She sat down again, fighting for composure.

"I am not very brave," she said. "It was unexpected. In a moment I shall be calmer. You must not think that I regret the risk. I have always been proud to do my best for you."

That touched him. In the firelight, smiling wanly at him, she was very like the girl who had attracted him years before. Her usual smiling assurance was gone. She looked sad, appealing. And she was right. She had always done her best for him. But he was cautious, too.

"I owe you more than I can tell you," he said. "It is the sort of debt that can never be paid. Your coming here was a terrible risk. Something urgent must have brought you."

She pushed back her heavy hair restlessly.

"I was anxious. And there were things I felt you should know."

"What things?"

"The truth about the King's condition, for one. He is dying. The bulletins lie. He is no better."

"Why should the bulletins lie?"

"Because there is a crisis. You know it. But you cannot know what we know--the living in fear, the precautions, everything."

"So!" said Karl uneasily. "But the Chancellor assured me--" He stopped.

It was not yet time to speak of the Chancellor's visit.

"The Chancellor! He lies, of course. How bad things are you may judge when I tell you that a hidden passage from the Palace has been opened and cleared, ready for instant flight."

It was Karl's turn to be startled. He rose, and stood staring down at her. "Are you certain of that?"

"Certain!" She laughed bitterly. "The Terrorists Revolutionists, they call themselves--are everywhere. They know everything, see everything.

Mettlich's agents are disappearing one by one. No one knows where, but all suspect. Student meetings are prohibited. The yearly procession of veterans is forbidden, for they trust none, even their old soldiers. The Council meets day after day in secret session."

"But the army--"

"They do not trust the army."

Karl's face was grave. Something of the trouble in Livonia he had known.

But this argued an immediate crisis.

"On the King's death," the Countess said, "a republic will be declared.

The Republic of Livonia! The Crown Prince will never reign."

She shivered, but Karl was absorbed in the situation.

"Incredible!" he commented. "These fears are sometimes hysterias, but what you say of the preparations for flight--I thought the boy was very popular."