The broken ring; a romance

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Contents

CHAPTER

I. — The Princess Has her own Way .

II. — And Suffers the Consequences

Chapter I. The Princess Has Her Own Way

“ T T is my wish,” said the Princess Lenore. Her coachman made a very faint protest with his shoulders and, with a silent prayer to his favorite saint, turned his horses to the left and took the road through Konigreich. This was the first time he had ever driven Her Highness, but he recognized the finality of her words as thoroughly as the courier on the box beside him, or the maid who occupied the seat opposite the Princess, both of whom had been for months in Her Highness’s service.

“Ah, this is better!” exclaimed the

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Princess, as the road wound upward from the dusty valley and entered the shadow of the pine forest. “We save fully five miles by going this way, and the road through Neutralstadt is so intolerably long and uninteresting that I vowed I would never go over it again,” she went on, apparently addressing Louison, but really trying to justify her wilfulness to herself, for making a criticism on her royal mistress’s conduct was the last thing the stolid woman on the seat opposite her would have thought of doing. “ Besides,” she continued, “ I don’t believe we shall meet a single soldier in this out-of-the-way corner, and if we do, I am certain they will not molest us. We live in the nineteenth century, I am happy to say, and taking women prisoners is rather out of date. We shall be in Konigreich only about an hour at the most,” she concluded, dismissing the subject with a gesture in the royal style.

The road wound slowly upward, getting deeper and deeper into the forest, and the Princess soon forgot the fears that she knew she ought to be feeling in her enjoyment of the drive. The season was late spring, and the loveliness which had already become a little shop-worn in the valleys was here displayed fresh from the manufactory. At every bend a little stream crossed the road ; sometimes there was a bridge, but generally they drove through the shining water which often came to the hubs of the wheels. The horses splashed it around them and, with checks loosened for the upward climb, dipped their noses deep in, long after their thirst was satisfied. The Princess would not have them hurried.

“You see how deserted this road is,” she explained to her anxious coachman. “ The grass is actually growing in the wheel tracks, and once we get to the top, we can go very rapidly the rest of the way. We shall be in Neutralstadt again in a very short time. If it were not for crossing the streams, I would get out and walk,” she added. More alarmed than ever at these last words, the man whipped up his horses, and before long they were

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at the top of the pass, with a glorious prospect of hill and valley on all sides of them.

“ Look, Louison, that is the way we would have gone if we had obeyed instructions,” said the Princess, pointing out to her maid the long, flat, and uninteresting detour at their feet. “ How much better this is ! ” she exclaimed, as the horses began the descent, feeling that she would like to scream or sing or let go in someway or other, as she felt the rapid motion and the breeze in her face made by their going, for the day was breathless. “ How hot and dusty it must be down there ! ” she went on.

As she spoke, the horses swung around an abrupt bend in the road and came to a standstill as quickly as the momentum they had gained would let them ; for there in a level bit of ground was an encampment of half a dozen tents, and the road directly in front of them was occupied by a detachment of soldiers in the dull blue of the Konigreich uniform. The soldiers were less surprised, for they had evidently heard them coming. Four of them flew to the horses’ heads, and one who had been standing apart, apparently an officer and the leader of the little party, stepped forward and saluted. He was a roughlooking young man in a big felt hat, with a week’s growth of beard on his chin. The Princess lowered her veil and said, haughtily, motioning to the man on the box :

“ My courier has our passports, if that is what you wish.”

“ I am sorry to trouble you, Madam,” the young man replied, as he took the passports.

“ They appear to be quite regular,” he said, when he had examined them carefully ; and before handing them back, he took another look at the Princess, apparently to see if her description tallied with that of the Mme. Ferrand in the passport, for this was the name under which she always travelled. As he looked an expression of complete surprise crossed his face, and he uttered an exclamation under his breath. Then, holding out his hand to assist her, he said calmly :

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“ Princess, I shall have to trouble you to get out.” There was such an air of calm certainty about him that the Princess knew that no denial of her identity would be of any use, even if she could make up her mind to utter one.

“ May I ask what is the meaning of this ?” she said instead, in the most royal of manners.

“Your papers pass Mme. Ferrand, not the Princess Lenore of Herzogthum,” he explained composedly, and repeated his request that she would alight, adding : “ My name is Delorme and I am a captain in the Konigreich army.”

“ And what do you intend to do with us ? ” she demanded haughtily.

“I shall take Your Highness to the headquarters of the army,” he replied, with the utmost self-possession. One would have thought he was in the habit of daily intercourse with princesses. Lenore wanted to inquire why he made her get out of the carriage then, but her pride would not let her ask any more questions, and, taking no notice of his offer of assistance, she stepped to the ground and stood awaiting further orders.

“Will Your Highness have the goodness to come over here,” he continued,' leading the way to the last tent in the encampment. There he stood aside and motioned her to enter. “ I am sorry I have no chair to offer Your Highness,” he said.

“It makes no difference,” the Princess replied coldly.

“ I will leave Your Highness here then till we are ready to start, which will be in about half an hour. Is there anything I can do for Your Highness’s comfort?”

“ I should like my maid,” she replied.

The young man bowed, picked up some saddle-bags that lay already packed on the ground, and left the room. In a minute she was joined by Louison.

“ Well, Louison,” said the Princess, looking up from the foot of the camp-bed on which she had seated herself, “ I seem to have got us into trouble.”

“It is Your Highness that will suffer for it ; but, with Your Highness’s per-

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mission, I will pray to Our Lady that we may be quickly released.”

“ Certainly, if it will be any comfort to you,” answered the Princess. The maid retired to a corner of the tent and, sinking on her knees, began to tell her beads in an absorption that took no notice of surroundings. Her mistress, having nothing else to do, took a look around the tent in the hope of finding out something about the character of her captor ; but there was absolutely nothing to see except the bare sides and the bed on which she sat.

Captain Delorme had said half an hour, but it was fully an hour before he appeared again and requested her to accompany him. Everything was packed up ready for a start, as the noises she had been listening to had led her to expect. The young man placed her and Louison in her carriage, which now had two soldiers on the box. The Princess looked around for her own men, but did not see them. Here she sat while the tent in which she had been was pulled down and piled on the baggage wagon, the work of a few minutes ; and then they started down the road, a detachment of mounted soldiers in front and their Captain riding beside her whenever the road was wide enough to permit it.

The Princess felt decidedly uncomfortable, not because she had any particular fear of what was to happen to her, but because it had been her own wilfulness that had put them in this predicament. It was not by any means the first time that unpleasant consequences had happened from her love of having her own way, but they had never before been so serious. What a fool she had been to go into the enemy’s country, with no necessity on her stronger than a dislike of dust and monotony and an intense love of romantic scenery. Esthetic considerations had no place in war-time. She was glad that her men were out of sight, for she could fancy the indignation that her coachman, whose courage was evidently not his strong point, was feeling towards her, and was sure that no respect io The Broken Ring.

for her rank would keep them entirely out of his expression. As for Louison, so long as she was allowed to say her prayers in peace, no earthly happenings could move her even to regrets. “ It is the will of God, Your Highness,” was the unvarying formula on all occasions. Her mistress often wondered if she ever had an acute realization of what was going on in the world around, and whether her vivid interest in her spiritual life did not overshadow all bodily sensations to such an extent that she was hardly conscious of them. She was gazing now at the bottom of the carriage with a rapt, unseeing expression of countenance, and by the slight movement of her lips the Princess knew she was still praying for their deliverance out of the hands of their enemies. She herself raised her eyes and they fell on Captain Delorme, who was riding beside the carriage, a little in front of where she was sitting. She noticed a decided change for the better in his appearance. He still wore his flannel shirt and undress uniform, decidedly the worse for wear, but he had found means to shave himself and to tidy himself up generally until he looked like a different man. She now made the discovery, which she would not have suspected on his first appearance, that he was unusually good-looking, with a clear skin, regular features, and a serious, somewhat severe expression. She had just come to this conclusion, when his face changed, an expression of intense amusement came over it, his eyes sparkled with fun, the severe lines relaxed, and he looked like an entirely different person and at least half a dozen years younger. The Princess followed the direction of his eyes in time to see a mule, that one of the soldiers was riding, in the act of taking a vicious nip out of the hind-quarters of the horse in front of him. Retaliation quickly followed, and it was some seconds before peace was established.

Captain Delorme turned to the Princess with a smile still on his face.

“ It is astonishing what an intense dislike that mule has for that particular

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horse. They never can be left near each other,” he explained as her eyes met his.

“ Indeed,” she replied coldly, without the slightest trace of amusement in her manner. The lines of the young man’s face stiffened up again, he looked straight ahead of him and did not attempt any more conversation. At first the Princess was angry at his presumption in addressing her at all without being spoken to ; but presently she wished she had not been quite so short, for they had reached the point where their road turned back into Neutralstadt and had taken a crossroad that she had never travelled before, and there were various inquiries she would have liked to have made.

They drove deeper and deeper into the forest, which was an especial characteristic of the upper portions of Konigreich ; the day fulfilled its promise ; not a cloud toned down the intense blue of the sky ; in the open country it was probably very warm, but here in the depths of the forest it was cool and comfortable even at noon. As they drove, the Princess almost forgot her situation in her intense admiration of the beauty around her. She was longing to alight and get a little closer to it when Captain Delorme’s voice broke upon her abstraction.

“ If you would like to get out and walk a little, Princess, we will rest the horses,” he said considerately. She turned and looked at him, still full of her enjoyment, for she had forgotten his existence. Before she spoke, however, it all came back to her. The look of delight faded out of her eyes and was replaced by one of chilling indifference as she said, repressing a great desire to lay hands on a little close, delicate green vine that was carpeting the ground :

“No, I thank you, Captain Delorme. There are too many spectators.” He bowed and rode on, but the Princess did not lose herself again. She began to be conscious of feeling intensely hungry and decidedly irritable in consequence, and wished that the Captain would speak to her again, so that she could let out a little of it on him. She wondered if she was not to have anything to eat until she reached their destination, which she knew to be still a long distance off. About one o’clock, however, her anxieties were relieved by hearing Captain Delorme call a halt in an opening in the forest, by the side of one of the many little streams that always brought up Konigreich to the Princess’s mind. Refusing the Captain’s suggestion that she get out, she sat still in the carriage, from which the horses had been taken out, and watched the soldiers prepare their meal, which consisted of bacon,very solid bread, and coffee without any milk. At an order from the Captain, one of the soldiers brought to her and Louison their portions on the two brightest tin plates which their outfit contained. He was the Sergeant of the troop, and had a kindly, good-natured face. The Princess was pleased to be most gracious in her reception of him and his offerings.

“ It is very poor fare for Your Highness,” he remarked apologetically.

“ It is certainly better than nothing,” she answered, with a smile, wishing she could store up her present appetite for some occasion when there would be greater demands on it.

They rested their horses for an hour or more, and then started on their journey again. As before, Captain Delorme rode a little in advance of the carriage, but he did not give her either a word or a look. Probably on this account, his clear-cut profile began to acquire an interest for the Princess that it had not heretofore had, and she found her eyes constantly coming back to it, while she wondered what he could be thinking of so intently, and if he were never going to speak to her again. At length she grew so tired that she had no attention left either for him or for the country through which they were travelling, and she lay back in a corner of the carriage with her eyes shut, conscious of nothing but the fact that she was intensely wretched, and wishing devoutly that she had had common -sense enough to keep out of danger.

It was nearly dark before they reached their destination, the headquarters of the army of Konigreich, temporarily established in a farm-house not very far from the frontier of her father’s province, the Duchy of Herzogthum, where the seat of the war was at that time. I n spite of her fatigue, she had been conscious that Captain Delorme, some minutes before their arrival, had spurred on his tired horse and had ridden ahead of the troop, Sergeant Kriegmann taking his place at her side. When they drove up in front of the farm-house in the midst of a cloud of dust so thick that almost none of their surroundings were visible, an elderly man in uniform came out on the steps attended by several younger officers. The soldiers saluted, and by his likeness to his pictures, the Princess knew that this was the Commander-in-chief of the Konigreich army, the great General Malakoff, who stood uncovered before her. She had been wondering all day if she should see him. He came up to the side of the carriage and offered her his hand to alight.

“ I regret exceedingly that this was necessary, Princess,” he said, with an air of grave courtesy.

The Princess was so tired and so disgusted with life generally that she longed to be ungracious, but there was something in the General’s manner that forced her to be as polite as he had been.

“ What are you going to do with me, now that you have captured me?” she asked, with the ghost of a smile.

“We shall have to think about that. Nothing very dreadful, I am sure. What can I do for Your Highness now ?”

“ Only let me have something to eat and a place to go to bed in, and I shall be satisfied,” she answered as, slowly and painfully, she stepped down to the ground.

“Your Highness is very tired,” he said sympathetically, and, offering his arm, he conducted her into what had evidently been the best parlor of the farm-house.

“ Not so tired as stiff from sitting so long,” she answered.

“ It is all extremely rough and primitive, but we will do the best we can. Your Highness’s room, such as it is, will be ready in a moment,” he continued, seating her in the least uncomfortable chair the room contained.

The Princess suspected that it was General Malakoffs own room that they gave her, although there were no indications of rank in the bare room into which she was presently conducted. Here Louison brought her some supper of a decidedly better quality than the meal she had eaten that noon, and, goingstraight to bed in the hard and narrow little camp-bed that occupied one corner of the room, she soon forgot her troubles in sleep, in spite of the subdued murmur of voices that came from the next room for a long time after she had laid her head on the pillow.

If she could have looked through the thin partition, she would have discovered General Malakoff sitting in front of the open window, with a candle on a table beside him, around which moths, Maybugs, and various fowls of the air were flitting. He seemed lost in thought, but presently he roused himself and rang the bell which also stood on the table beside him, and gave an order to the soldier who answered it ;

“ See why Captain Delorme does not come to me.”

A few minutes later the young man entered.

“ Excuse me, General,” he said easily, and without any of the excessive deference which the other officers paid their great commander. “ I was so dirty that it took me a long time to get clean, and I thought I should never get epough to eat. We have been on short commons lately.” He had changed his old clothes for the uniform of a staff-officer on General Malakoffs personal staff, and this made a still greater improvement in his looks over his first appearance on the scene.

“ Well, what ’s the news ?” the General asked familiarly. “ And what are we to do with Her Highness?” he continued, when Delorme had given his report, ending up with the account of the capture of the Princess. His manner was not in the least such as one would expect from the Commander-in-chief of the army towards a simple captain,

“ What have you thought of doing?” demanded the young man in his turn.

“ I suppose the appropriate thing is to send her to the Capital ”

“ But you don’t want to do that,” interrupted Delorme. “ For one thing, if the King were to see her, he would probably send her directly home with an escort and an apology — he is perfectly capable of it, — and we would lose the advantage of having her royal person in our hands.”

“ That is very true ; still you might as well give your real reason, Raoul.” They both laughed at this, and then there was a short silence, which the younger man was the first to break.

“ General.”

“ My boy.”

'‘You know that old mill where I was last month ? It is strong enough to stand any ordinary attack, and so out of the way that nobody would find it unless they went out especially to look for it.”

“ And you think that would be a good place to take your Princess to ? Is n’t it very rough ? ”

“ It could be made habitable.”

“It is clearly my duty to send her to the Capital,” remonstrated the General.

“ General Malakoff’s wish is his duty,” remarked Delorme. Then he added in an entirely different tone : “ Besides, you know, you can think up some plausible reason why it would not have done to send her there.”

“ I don’t know about that,” the General replied. “If I did send her to the mill, I suppose Lindsay would be a good man to put in charge of her,” he continued.

“Lindsay!” exclaimed the Captain, contemptuously.

“You surely don’t suppose I ’d give it to a boy like you, Raoul?” The young man laughed.

“Do you think you can tease me?” he demanded. “No, General, this is a direct interposition of Providence, and you must n’t try to thwart it.”

“ I am an utter fool and deserve to be kicked out of the army, but I suppose you will have your own way as usual,” the General remarked affectionately. “Take

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your Princess then, and carry her off to the mill, and make love to her or do anything else you like, so that you do it discreetly and don’t let her escape or get me into any trouble.” The Captain frowned.

“ There won’t be much love-making,” he said, shaking his head. “I doubt if she favors me with a civil word. I am the dust under her feet.”

“ You think her as attractive as you did in Paris then ? ” demanded the General.

“ Well, she suits me,” the young man replied tranquilly. If only the Princess could have heard him !

“ How I do spoil you, Raoul. I certainly ought to send her to the Capital,” remarked the General.

“ You have a great deal to answer for,” Delorme replied, with mock severity. u I might have been a very decent fellow if I had been brought up better.”

“ Well, you suit me,” said General Malakoff, laying his hand on the young man’s shoulder.

Chapter II. And Suffers The Consequences

THE Princess Lenore awoke the next morning from so sound a sleep that it was fully two minutes before she could decide where she was and could realize what had happened to her. She was quite rested, being young and strong enough to sleep off almost any fatigue in a long night. Her position did not seem so utterly hopeless, either, for she felt sure that not even General Malakoff would dare to detain her long. She would soon be given her freedom, perhaps that very day, and she was not sorry for a chance to see a little something of that world-renowned soldier and diplomat. Next her thoughts wandered to the young Captain who had taken her prisoner, and she reflected that she would not mind having an opportunity to impress him a little, he had seemed so singularly unappreciative of the importance of the Princess Lenore of Herzogthum. The Princess Lenore of Herzogthum was herein slightly inconsistent ; for when in the midst of the flattery and subserviency with which she was ordinarily surrounded she was pleased to play the radical and to rail a little against the excessive homage paid to her rank. An inconvenient recollection of this little fact thrust itself into her mind as she lay there in her hard, narrow bed, her cheeks still flushed by the heavy sleep she- had enjoyed ; but she put it hastily aside for fear it might make her forego some part of the lesson that she intended for Captain Delorme. The Princess Lenore had learned by experience to be afraid of the power of her own logic in forcing her into courses of action directly contrary to what she wanted to do. At the present moment, although she told herself repeatedly that it was beneath her dignity to concern herself with what Captain Delorme did or left undone, or even to notice his lapses, she was conscious of distinctly wanting to teach him a lesson. The entrance of Louison broke up these schemes of revenge.

All that day she sat in her room, listening to the bustle that was going on outside. She could see almost nothing from her window, which was on the side of the house. Messengers on horseback seemed to be coming and going all day ; the rattling of spurs and the clanking of swords were heard continually in the passage outside her door ; the sound of orders given in peremptory tones, but whose purport she could not understand, came through the windows. What was taking place ? Were the Herzogthum and the Konigreich armies still occupied in watching one another’s movements, or had they actually come to an engagement ? Towards evening, she could not stand the suspense any longer, and sent Louison out to make inquiries. She was gone so long that the Princess grew frightened and stepped out into the passage herself. Nobody was in sight except a sentinel in the momentary

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glimpses she had of him through the open door as he passed to and fro in front of the house. She stood there for fully ten minutes, when a door at the end of the passage opened and Captain Delorme came towards her, looking in his trim uniform a different man from her companion of yesterday. The Princess was so alarmed by this time that she forgot her offended dignity.

“ Captain Delorme, will you tell me what is going on ? ” she demanded, without taking the time to respond to his salutation. The young man hesitated, then said :

“ There has been an engagement, Princess.”

“ Which side got the best of it ? ” she asked as calmly as she could. The Captain hesitated again.

“ It was not decisive,” he replied at length without looking at her.

“ I suppose you do not like to say you were beaten,” exclaimed the Princess, impulsively, for her long suspense had affected her nerves and, consequently, her temper. No sooner had she said this than it occurred to her that his consideration was probably on her account, not his own. She was ashamed of her words and would have given a great deal to recall them, which made her go on to add insult to injury by saying :

“You do not care about fighting, I see.” The young man’s eyes flashed lightning, but he only remarked calmly :

“ It was over before we knew anything about it,” and deliberately turning his back on her, he walked down the passage and out of the door, leaving her standing there, annoyed at him, but more so at herself. She had not taken the best means of teaching him respect for her rank and her person ; but he certainly was most provoking with his nonchalance and calm manner of passing over her words as of no account.

Her mind was diverted from this unpleasant subject by the appearance of Louison, full of particulars of the engagement, obtained from Sergeant Kriegmann. He had been less considerate than his

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Captain and had given her what claimed to be an accurate account of a defeat a division of the Herzogthum army had suffered at the hands of his countrymen.

The Princess passed the rest of the day in a state of intense anxiety. In the evening, word was brought her that General Malakoff desired an interview. She rose to her feet as he entered the room.

“ I regret to learn, Princess,” he began when he had made some inquiries about her health and comfort, — “ I regret to learn that you have been told about the engagement between our troops this morning.” The Princess stretched out her hands towards him. Her day of anxiety had made her so nervous that she thought she could not stand any more suspense.

“Tell me the worst,” she implored. General Malakoff looked at her kindly as he replied :

“ I am afraid that you heard the exaggerated reports that came first. It was nothing of any importance, not a dozen men killed on either side ; and although we got rather the best of it, it was not of any consequence to either side.”