Clementina

"Are there any better?"

Both had at this supreme crisis of their fortunes but the one

thought,--that the only days through which they had really lived were

those last two days of flight, of hurry, of hope alternating with

despair, of light-hearted companionship, days never to be forgotten,

when each snatched meal was a picnic seasoned with laughter, days of

unharnessed freedom lived in the open air.

Clementina was the first to perceive that her behaviour fell below the

occasion. She was safe in Italy, journeying henceforward safely to her

betrothed. She spurred herself to understand it, she forced her lips to

sing aloud the Te Deum. Wogan looked at her in surprise as the first

notes were sung, and the woful appeal in her eyes compelled him to as

brave a show as he could make of joining in the hymn. But the words

faltered, the tune wavered, joyless and hollow in that empty morning.

"Drive on," said Clementina, suddenly; and she had a sense that she was

being driven into bondage,--she who had just been freed. Wogan drove on

towards Peri.

It was the morning of Sunday, the 30th of April; and as the little cart

drew near to this hamlet of thirty cottages, the travellers could hear

the single bell in the church belfry calling the villagers to Mass.

Wogan spoke but once to Clementina, and then only to point out a wooden

hut which stood picturesquely on a wooded bluff of Monte Lessini, high

up upon the left. A narrow gorge down which a torrent foamed led upwards

to the bluff, and the hut of which the windows were shuttered, and which

seemed at that distance to have been built with an unusual elegance, was

to Wogan's thinking a hunting-box. Clementina looked up at the bluff

indifferently and made no answer. She only spoke as Wogan drove past

the church-door, and the sound of the priest's voice came droning out to

them.

"Will you wait for me?" she asked. "I will not be long."

Wogan stopped the pony.

"You would give thanks?" said he. "I understand."

"I would pray for an honest heart wherewith to give honest thanks," said

Clementina, in a low voice; and she added hastily, "There is a life of

ceremonies, there is a life of cities before me. I have lived under the

skies these last two days."

She went into the church, shrouding her face in her hood, and kneeled

down before a rush chair close to the door. A sense of gratitude,

however, was not that morning to be got by any prayers, however earnest.

It was merely a distaste for ceremonies and observances, she strenuously

assured herself, that had grown upon her during these ten days. She

sought to get rid of that distaste, as she kneeled, by picturing in her

thoughts the Prince to whom she was betrothed. She recalled the

exploits, the virtues, which Wogan had ascribed to him; she stamped them

upon the picture. "It is the King," she said to herself; and the picture

answered her, "It is the King's servant." And, lo! the face of the

picture was the face of Charles Wogan. She covered her cheeks with her

hands in a burning rush of shame; she struck in her thoughts at the face

of that image with her clenched fists, to bruise, to annihilate it. "It

is the King! It is the King! It is the King!" she cried in her remorse,

but the image persisted. It still wore the likeness of Charles Wogan; it

still repeated, "No, it is the King's servant." There was more of the

primitive woman in this girl bred in the rugged country-side of Silesia

than even Wogan was aware of, and during the halts in their journey she

had learned from Mrs. Misset details which Wogan had been at pains to

conceal. It was Wogan who had conceived the idea of her rescue--in the

King's place. In the King's place, Wogan had come to Innspruck and

effected it. In the King's place, he had taken her by the hand and cleft

a way for her through her enemies. He was the man, the rescuer; she was

the woman, the rescued.