LOVE'S BEGGAR.

A threat from Count Simon of Sagan was not to be lightly regarded at any time, but within the boundaries of his own estates it appreciably discounted the chances of life. Therefore Rallywood, instead of returning to the Castle, headed for the block-house by the Ford. The incident which had just taken place probably meant the closing of his career in the army of MaÄsau. Personal power survived in its full plenitude in the little state, which had never made any pretence of setting up a representative government; the MaÄsaun people were as mute as they had been in the dark ages and appeared content to remain so.

The future which lay before Rallywood on that winter evening was not enlivening. Less than three months ago he would have been half amused at such a conclusion to his military life as offering an answer to a perplexed question. But since then much had happened. That ill-luck should overtake him when hope was at its keenest, and when his relations both with the Guard and the Duke had reached a promising point, struck him hard. If he left the Guard he must also leave MaÄsau. He had told himself a hundred times that the daughter of the Chancellor was far beyond his winning, yet the certainty of losing her, which this last development of events involved, was the worst blow of all. To stare an empty future in the face is like looking into expressionless eyes where no soul can ever come.

He little guessed how close upon him were the critical moments of life, or how much of emotion and difficulty and strenuous decision were to be crowded into the next few days. A whirlpool of events was drawing him to its raging centre. The death and the burial of Colendorp, Sagan's resentment and his ruthless scheming were all eddies of circumstance circling inward and carrying him with them to a definite issue.

As he rode on the weather grew rapidly worse, and it soon became impossible to see more than a few yards ahead. The night was settling down thick with falling snow, so that Rallywood could only pull up and listen when a faint noise, that might have been a woman's scream, came to him through the storm. He shouted in return but there was no answer. Then out of the gray curtain a sleigh with two maddened horses dashed across his path and was as suddenly lost to sight. Rallywood had only time to see a woman clinging to the driver's empty seat and clutching desperately at the dangling reins.

They passed like a vision, noiseless, swift, and dim, and although Rallywood followed quickly, he could not find them. The gloom and the snow had obliterated all trace of the sleigh, and at last Rallywood himself, well as he knew the country, became bewildered; but luckily the horse he rode was a charger he had had with him on the Frontier. He left it to choose its own direction, yet it was long before a blur of light which he knew to be the open doorway of the block-house grew out on the shifting darkness.

Within, the men of the patrol were standing in a group talking eagerly. Flinging himself from his horse, Rallywood entered the house just as a young cavalry officer came out from the inner room, and, recognising Rallywood, advanced hurriedly to meet him.

'I say, who do you think we have in there?' he said excitedly.

'Tell me afterwards,' interrupted Rallywood; 'I met a runaway sleigh——'

'They were the horses from the Castle,' interrupted the young man with a nervous laugh. 'Mademoiselle Selpdorf managed to get hold of the reins after a bit, otherwise——' he snapped his fingers significantly.

'Then she—the lady is safe?'

'Two of them, my dear friend! One is the handsomest girl in MaÄsau, and the other is Madame de Sagan herself! And, by Jove! she's an infernally pretty woman too. We're in luck, Rallywood! Have you come to look for them?'

Rallywood hesitated before he replied.

'No, thanks. I must get back to RÉvonde by the first train, so I will ride on with the next patrol to the station. Are they hurt?' he nodded towards the inner room.

'No, but how they escaped the deuce only knows! Madame de Sagan was insensible when we found them.' He dropped his voice. 'By the way, she has been saying some queer things! She declares the driver lashed up the horses and purposely threw himself off the sleigh when they were on the slope of the pine wood just above the Ingern precipice. She swears he meant to kill them!'

'She was frightened. That's all.'

'It was about a certainty they'd be dashed to pieces. And look here——' the young fellow looked oddly at Rallywood, 'she hinted that the Count——'

'Nonsense!' Rallywood forced a laugh. 'She was badly frightened, I tell you.'

'I'll take my oath there's something in it though! She refuses to let us take her back to the Castle to-night.'

'What have you given them—tea or anything?'

'Faith, no! I made them each take a nip of bizutte—far better, too. But we'll have some tea made now if you think they would like it.'

'Of course. It will give them something to do. By the way, you might as well ask them if they would see me.'

On second thought and in view of the Countess's refusal to go back to Sagan, he felt he must offer his assistance.

'Yes, ask them if they will see me now,' he continued, looking at his watch; 'I have not much time to spare.'

The next moment Isolde's high sweet voice could be heard distinctly through the open door.

'Captain Rallywood! Pray tell him we should like to see him.'

Madame de Sagan was lying on a narrow camp bed supported by wraps and pillows, a brilliant red spot on each cheek, and her eyes darker than ordinary under the influence of the alternate fright and stimulation of the last two hours. She waited till the door was shut, then she put out both hands to Rallywood.

'Thank Heaven, we are safe and together again, Jack! Come here! I want to know that you are alive and this is not all a dream,' she began impulsively, yet behind the impulse lay a calculated design. She owed her life to Valerie's courage, but that weighed as nothing in comparison with the knowledge that in some indefinite manner the girl stood between Rallywood and herself, that Rallywood for some reason held Valerie in special regard.

Rallywood bowed, still standing by the door.

'Thank Heaven you are safe, Madame,' he said. 'I saw you somewhere this side of the pine woods, but lost you in the mist.'

'Oh, I did not see you! I saw nothing after that murderer leaped off. I had a horrible instant during which I imagined myself swinging between the gorge and the sky—after that I knew no more!' exclaimed Isolde, a sort of complacency mixing with her agitation. 'They tell me that Valerie was very brave and that she saved our lives, but for me these heroisms are impossible!'

She glanced at Rallywood, secure in his approval, but he had turned to Valerie, who was sitting in a low wooden chair by the stove with her back to the room.

'It was magnificent, Mademoiselle!' he exclaimed.

Valerie shivered.

'There was nothing at all magnificent about it,' she said coldly. 'Self-preservation drives one to do what one can; it is only by chance that one happens to do the right thing.'

Isolde shrugged her shoulders and made a little grimace at Rallywood.

'Do not heed her, Jack. People are always very pleased with themselves for doing what other people call magnificent. Valerie is cross. Take this chair by me; I have a very serious quarrel with you.'

All the terror and peril of that dreadful drive had passed from Madame de Sagan's facile mind. The little rivalries and coquetries of everyday life occupied her as fully as if her lot contained no troublous outlook. In this conjunction vanity will often do for a woman what work does for a man. As for Isolde, the small promptings of a wounded vanity at once absorbed her.

Very unwillingly Rallywood obeyed. Between those narrow walls one was within hand-reach of everything in the room, so that although he was beside the Countess he was not a yard from Mademoiselle Selpdorf.

'So you would not come to me last night?' began Isolde abruptly. 'You cannot be made to understand that we MaÄsauns hold human life of very little account. It is stupid of you, Jack, but you will be forced to believe it now. Do you know that the driver of the sleigh——'

The attempt at assassination was horrible enough in itself, but from her lips wearing their strange innocent smile he felt he could not endure the story.

'I have heard of it,' he interposed hastily; 'the Lieutenant told me. But——'

Isolde leant upon her elbow to look into his face.

'What! You don't believe even now that Simon is trying to rid himself of me? Valerie, speak! You too refused to believe me last night. What do you say now?'

'It may have been an accident,' replied Valerie with a tired movement.

'Absurd! But whatever you choose to say, I will not go back to the Castle! RÉvonde is perhaps safe——'

'My father is there, and you will be safe,' said Valerie in a tone of quiet certainty.

Isolde laughed scornfully. 'I don't know that; for after all Sagan is the most powerful man in the state!' she cried, with that perverse pride in her husband that his daring personality seemed to develop in all his dependents.

As Valerie made no reply, she harked back to her former subject. 'I was in danger last night, Jack, yet you would not come to my help. What excuse can a man offer for such a thing?' her voice and lips had grown tender in addressing him.

'The Duke, Madame.'

'That for the old Duke!' with a charming gesture of emptying both her little hands. 'What is he in comparison with me? Jack, you are but a poor lover after all!'

Rallywood began to see that some motive underlay Isolde's wild talk. The kind eyes with which he had been watching her changed.

'It is very true,' he said.

'Jack, Jack, how am I to forgive you?' she swept on. 'Yet you remember when I was a firefly at the palace ball, I told you that like a firefly my life would be short and merry. My prophecy is coming true.'

An almost imperceptible alteration in the pose of the quiet figure by the open stove was not lost upon Madame de Sagan.

The sweet treble voice resumed:

'You took a firefly from my fan and told me that one always wanted the beautiful things to live for ever. Jack, you promised to be my friend that night. You have not forgotten?'

'I have not forgotten.'

'And the firefly? Have you kept that as carelessly as you have kept your promise? Where is your cigarette-case? Ah!' a pause, then a cry of pleasure. 'Valerie, come here! He dropped it into his cigarette-case and it is here still! If you had only reminded him of that——'

Valerie stood up cold and proud, and exceedingly pale.

'I forgot.'

'It does not matter now,' Isolde replied, taking the glittering atom from its hiding-place and holding it up on her slender finger to catch the light, 'since we have met after all. You meant to fail, Valerie! Were you not ashamed to deceive me last night—even last night when you saw I was desperate, and oh, so horribly afraid?'

Rallywood, absorbed in other thoughts, gathered very little of what was being said. After avoiding Isolde of Sagan with more or less success on the Frontier, he had, since his stay in RÉvonde, yielded in an odd reserved way to her infatuation for him, partly out of a desire to secure meetings with Mademoiselle Selpdorf, partly from a man's stupid helplessness under such circumstances. The more chivalrous the man the more helpless very often. But all this was entirely and for ever unexplainable to Mademoiselle Selpdorf. He drew a deep breath. There was nothing for it but to accept the situation.

'We both owe a debt to Mademoiselle Selpdorf for carrying the message,' he said.

'You are mistaken,' said Valerie, and he winced under the contempt of her voice. 'I should never have stooped to carry it had I not had a far different object in view.'

Isolde laughed to a shrill echo. Valerie Selpdorf's haughty spirit was about to be humbled. She dimly felt why Rallywood held the girl to be far above the level of ordinary womanhood—a cold and unattainable star. But she should be dragged down from the heights before his eyes.

'I was not so blind as you supposed,' Isolde said aloud, pointing an accusing finger at Valerie. 'I knew why you went. Shall I tell you, Jack?'

Rallywood looked up quickly. Colendorp naturally recurred to his mind.

'You could not have known,' Valerie answered.

'But I did, though!' Isolde went on. 'Listen to me, Jack. Do you know why she undertook my message, and why she forgot its most important point? My life has come to-night to a crisis; I will not spare those who have been cruel to me!' Isolde was trembling with excitement as she leant forward, one hand holding by the table that stood between her and Valerie, the other clenched in the soft fur of the rug on her knees. 'Why? Oh, men are so simple! They believe a woman to be pure and true if she but knows how to temper her coquetries with a pretence of reserve. Jack, Valerie has been false to me and to you because she is jealous of me, and—because she herself loves you!'

Rallywood rose slowly. 'Hush, Madame!'

Valerie stood for one instant scarlet from neck to brow, then the blood ebbed and left her of a curious deadly pallor like one who has a mortal wound, but she still faced them.

'Wait, Jack. You shall hear the end now that we have gone so far.' Isolde laughed again. She was so sure of her lover. 'It is well for the truth to come out sometimes, you know. Yes, Valerie Selpdorf, the proud, unapproachable Valerie, loves a captain of the Guard, who——'

Rallywood strode across in front of her. After such words of outrage, his very nearness to Mademoiselle Selpdorf seemed in itself an insult. With his back to the door he stopped and took up the last unfinished sentence.

'You have made a strange mistake, Madame,' he said in a low voice but very clearly. 'On the contrary, it is the captain of the Guard who has loved Mademoiselle Selpdorf, and even dared to tell her so, although she had shown him that she regarded him with scorn and dislike. I hope I may be forgiven for acknowledging this now, Mademoiselle. And let me say one thing more, that though I have no hope, though I am one of Love's beggars, the greatest honour of my life will be that I have loved such a woman!'

The door closed behind him. Isolde sat stupified at the result of her stratagem, the stratagem by which she had intended to humble Valerie in the most cruel way a woman can be humbled.

Valerie, sinking down into her chair, burst into an uncontrollable flood of tears. The secret of her heart, which she had denied to herself, sprang up at Isolde's words and confronted her, filling her world's horizon.

'Well,' said Isolde after a long pause, '"We love but while we may." I wish you joy of his constancy. He loved me yesterday.'

Valerie raised her head with the old haughty gesture.

'As for him, Isolde, you compelled him to say it! But he does not—love me!' Her voice gathered strength. 'As for me, you shall know the whole truth; you are right—I love him, for he is a most noble gentleman!'