Chapter 7 THE REVELATION.

The fatal Thursday had passed, Wednesday had come, yet Leonore had received no tidings from her father. For three days she had not seen him, had had no message from him.

But it was not this alone that disturbed and tortured Leonore. She had also had no news from Kolbielsky, though the week which he had named as the necessary duration of their parting had expired the day before. He had said:

"My week of exile will begin from this hour, and the first festival will be when I again clasp you in my arms."

This week had expired yesterday, and Kolbielsky had not come to clasp his loved one in his arms again. She had expected him all through the day, all through the night, and the cause of her present deep anxiety was not solicitude about her father, the desire to learn the result of the conspiracy discovered; no, it was only the longing for him, the terrible dread that some accident might have befallen Kolbielsky.

Why did he not come, since he had so positively promised to return at the end of a week? Was it really only a coincidence that the day which he had fixed for his return was the selfsame one on which the conspiracy formed by Napoleon's foes was to break forth?

What if he had had a share in the conspiracy? If he had deceived her, if-But no, no, that was wholly impossible-that could not be! She knew the names of the conspirators, especially those of the heads and leaders; she knew that Kolbielsky's name had not once been mentioned during the whole discussion between them. So away with anxieties, away with cowardly fears. Some accident might have detained him, might have caused a day's delay.

To-day, yes, to-day he would come at last! To-day she would see him again, would rush into his arms, rest on his heart, never, oh! never to part from him again! Hark, a carriage was stopping before the door! Steps echoed in the corridor.

They approached, stopped at her door! It is he, oh, surely it is he!

Darting to the door, she tore it open.

No! It was her father, only her father!

With a troubled cry, she sank into the chair beside the door. Her father went to her; she did not see the sorrowful, almost pitying look he fixed upon her. She had covered her face with her hands and groaned aloud. Schulmeister stood before her with a gloomy brow, silent and motionless.

At last, after a long pause, Leonore slowly removed her hands from her face and raised her head.

"Are we rich now?" she asked in a whisper, as though she feared lest even the walls should hear her question.

"Yes," he exclaimed joyfully, "yes, we are rich."

Drawing his pocketbook from his coat, he opened it and poured out its contents, shaking the various papers with their array of high numbers into Leonore's lap.

"Look, my daughter, my beloved child! Look at these wonderful papers. Ten banknotes, each one fifty thousand francs. That is half a million, my Leonore! Look at these papers. Yet no, they are no papers, each is a magic spell, with which you can make a palace rise out of nothing. See this thin scrap of paper; a spark would suffice to transform it to ashes, yet you need only carry it to the nearest banker's to see it changed into a heap of gold, or glitter as a parure of the costliest diamonds. If you desire it, these papers will transmute themselves into a magnificent castle, into liveried servants, into superb carriages. Oh, I already see you standing as the proud mistress of a stately castle, in your ancestral hall, with vassals bowing before you, and counts and princes suing for your hand. For these magic papers will give you everything, everything; not luxury alone, but honor, rank, and dignity, the love and esteem of men. Take them, for the whole ten papers shall be yours. I wish to see you rich and happy, therefore I defied disgrace and mortal peril. Come, my child, let us set out this very hour to buy with these papers, far away from here, in an Eden-like region, a castle which shall be adorned with all that luxury and art can offer. Come, my Leonore, come. We have accomplished our work of darkness, now day is dawning, now our star is rising. Come, come! Alas, the days are so short, let us hasten, hasten to enjoy them!"

Leonore slowly shook her head. "He must return," she said solemnly. "First I must see him again, have him tell me that he will go with me to that distant region. What would all the treasures of the earth avail, if I did not have him! What would I care for castles, diamonds, and carriages if he were not with me! I am expecting him-he may be here at any moment. So tell me, father-describe quickly how everything has happened. I have not seen you for three days; I do not know what has occurred, for, strangely, nothing has reached the public."

"The emperor enjoined the most inviolable silence upon us all," said Schulmeister gloomily. "The whole affair has been treated and concealed as the most profound secret. The emperor does not wish to have anything known about it; no one must deem it possible that people have dared to seek to take his life, to attempt to capture him. I never saw him in such a fury as when I first told him the plan of the conspirators. His eyes flashed lightnings, he stamped his feet, clenched his little hands into fists, and stretched them threateningly toward the invisible conspirators. He vowed to kill them all, to take vengeance on them all for the unprecedented crime."

"And has he fulfilled the vow?"

"He has. He has punished the conspirators, so far as lay in his power. But some of them, for instance Baron von Moudenfels, do not belong to the number of his subjects, but are Austrians. The emperor did not have the sentence which he pronounced upon his own subjects executed upon them; he could not at this time, for you know that negotiations for peace have been opened, and the treaty will be signed immediately. So the emperor did not wish to constitute himself a judge of Austrian subjects; it is a delicate attention to the Austrian emperor, and the latter will know how to thank him for it and to punish the criminals with all the rigor of the law. Therefore Baron von Moudenfels and Count von Kotte have merely been held as prisoners, and were compelled to witness the execution to-day."

"What execution?" asked Leonore in horror.

"Colonel Lejeune, Captain de Guesniard, and two sous-lieutenants were shot this morning on the meadow at Sch?nbrunn,"[E] said Schulmeister in a low tone.

Leonore shuddered, and a deathlike pallor overspread her face. "And I delivered them to death!" she moaned.

"And if you had spared them, you would have delivered the Emperor Napoleon, the greatest man of the age, to death, to the most terrible torture of imprisonment!" cried her father, shrugging his shoulders. "These men wished to commit a crime against their sovereign, their commander. You have no reason to reproach yourself for having delivered the criminals to the law."

"And Mariage? What has become of Mariage?"

"Apparently he received a warning; he has fled. But we found all the others yesterday at their posts; for we had made all our arrangements so secretly that even the conspirators who surrounded the emperor were not aware of it. The emperor at first intended to act strictly according to the programme of the conspirators; take the ride with his suite, and not permit me to come to his assistance, with a few trustworthy assistants, until after he had entered the hut and been captured. But he rejected this plan, because he would have been compelled to arrest his most distinguished generals and subject the greater number of his staff officers to a rigid investigation. The whole army would then have heard of this bold conspiracy, and conspiracies are like contagious diseases, they always have successors. So the emperor rejected this plan, and, at the moment that his suite were mounting to attend him on his ride, he dismissed them all, saying that he wished to go into the woods alone, accompanied only by Colonel Lejeune, the Mameluke, and myself. You can imagine the mute horror, the deathlike pallor of the generals. The emperor did not vouchsafe any of them a glance, but dashed away. When we had ridden into the woods, the emperor checked his horse and turned to Colonel Lejeune, who, white as a corpse, rode beside him.

"Your sword, colonel!" he exclaimed, in tones of thunder. "You will not play the part of emperor to-day, but merely the character of an arch-traitor and assassin."

At the same instant Roustan and I rode to Lejeune's side, and each seized an arm. A moment later he was disarmed and deprived of the papers which we found in his breast pocket, and the tender farewell letters to his wife and his mother, in case that the enterprise should fail.

"I will have these sent at once to their addresses the morning after your execution," the emperor said, with a withering glance from his large flashing eyes. Then he rode on, and we followed, each holding an arm of Lejeune, who rode between us. At last we reached the hut and the emperor checked his horse again. Roustan uttered a low whistle and, at the same instant, six gray-bearded giants of the imperial guard stood beside us as if they had sprung from the earth. As soon as the conspirators entered the hut, they had cautiously approached it and, concealed behind the trees, awaited the preconcerted signal.

The emperor greeted them with the smile which bewitched his old soldiers, because it reminded them of the days of their great victory.

"I know that you are faithful," he said, "but I should also like to know whether you are silent."

"Silent as the grave, if the Little Corporal commands it," said old Conradin, the emperor's favorite.

"Well, I believe you, and you shall give me a proof of it to-day. Clear out the nest you see there, and catch the birds for me!"

"He pointed with uplifted arm and menacing gesture to the hut; the soldiers rushed to it and broke in the door. Shouts of rage were heard, several shots rang out, then all was still, and the old grenadiers dragged out five men. Three were wounded, but they had avenged themselves, for three of the soldiers were also injured."

"Was Baron von Moudenfels among the prisoners?" asked Leonore quickly.

"Yes," replied Schulmeister, "yes, he was among them."

"Then you saw him?"

"Yes, I saw him."

The slow, solemn tone with which her father answered made Leonore tremble. She looked up questioningly into his face, their eyes met, and were fixed steadily on each other.

"Why do you gaze at me so sadly and compassionately?" asked Leonore suddenly, cowering as though in fright.

"I did not know that I was doing so," he answered gently.

"You were, you are still," she cried anxiously. "Father, I read misfortune in your face. You are concealing something from me! You-oh, heaven, you have news of Kolbielsky."

She started up, letting the bank-notes fall unheeded to the floor, seized her father's arm with both hands, and gazed silently at him with panting breath.

He avoided her eyes, released himself almost violently from her grasp, stooped, picked up the bills and divided them into halves, putting five into his breast pocket, and giving his daughter the other five.

"Take it, my Leonore; take the magic key which will open Paradise to you!"

She took the bank-notes and, with a contemptuous gesture, flung them on the floor.

"You know something of Kolbielsky," she repeated. "Where is he? Answer me, father, if you don't wish me to fall dead at your feet."

"Yet if I do answer, poor child, what will it avail you? He is lost, you cannot save him."

She neither shrieked nor wept, she only grasped her father's arm more firmly and looked him steadily in the face.

"Where is Kolbielsky?" she asked. "Answer, or I will kill myself."

"Well, Leonore, I will give you a proof of my infinite love. I will tell you the truth, the whole truth. When the prisoners were dragged out of the hut, one of them suddenly made an attempt to escape. The soldier tried to hold him, they struggled-in the scuffle the conspirator's wig fell off. Hitherto he had had white hair-"

"It was Baron von Moudenfels?" asked Leonore breathlessly.

"Yes, Leonore, it was Baron von Moudenfels. But when the wig was torn from his head, we saw no old man, no Baron von Moudenfels, but-"

"Kolbielsky!" she shrieked with a loud cry of anguish.

Her father nodded, and let his head sink upon his breast.

"And he, too, was shot this morning?" she asked in a low, strange whisper.

"No, Leonore. I told you that the emperor, out of regard for his future ally, the Emperor Francis, did not have him executed. He simply imprisoned him and punished him only by compelling him to witness the execution. He will leave it to the Emperor Francis to pronounce sentence of death upon the assassin."

"He lives? You will swear that he lives?" she asked breathlessly.

"I will swear that he lives, and that he will live until the return of the courier whom Count Bubna, who is in Sch?nbrunn attending to the peace negotiations-has sent to Totis to the Emperor Francis."

The Baroness de Simonie bounded like a tigress through the room, tearing at the bell till it sounded like a tocsin and the servants came rushing in terror from the anteroom.

"My carriage-it must be ready in five minutes!" she cried. The servants ran out and Leonore darted across the room, tore open the door of the adjoining chamber, opened a wardrobe in frantic haste, and dragged out a cloak, which she flung over her shoulders.

"In heaven's name, Leonore, are you out of your senses?" asked her father, who had hurried after her and now seized her arm. "What do you mean to do? Where are you going?"

"To the Emperor Napoleon!" she cried loudly. "To the Emperor Napoleon, to save the life of the man I love. Give me the money, father!"

"What money, Leonore?"

"The bank-notes! The blood-money which I have earned!"

Her father had carefully gathered up the bank-bills which she had thrown about the room, and gave them to her. Leonore shuddered as she clenched them in her trembling hands. "I have sold him," she shrieked, raising the hand that held the papers toward heaven. "His blood clings to this money. But I will hurl it at the emperor's feet. I want no pay; I will beg his life for my recompense. Pray father, pray that he may hear me, may grant me mercy, for I swear by all that is sacred, if Kolbielsky must die, I will kill his murderers. And his murderers are-you and I!"

"The carriage is at the door," said a servant, entering.

She sprang forward. "I am coming. Pray, father, pray for mercy upon my loved one's murderers!"

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