COUNT ZARKA had paid his accustomed visit to Gorla’s farm, and was far from pleased to find Philippa absent, and no hint left behind of her whereabouts. He chatted for a while with her father, but the talk on either side was hardly of an exhilarating nature, both men having in their hearts a cause for annoyance.
“Has your friend, the Lieutenant, been over here this morning?” Zarka asked unceremoniously.
Harlberg shook his head ill-humouredly. “No. I have seen nobody, but Philippa for a moment. This is exile, indeed.”
His guest gave a shrug. “Unhappily a necessary evil, although one which you may hope need not last much longer. But we will try and make it as pleasant as you will allow us. My cousin Royda d’Ivady is anxious to come over and see your daughter. Fräulein Philippa seems to avoid company, and we do not like to intrude.”
Perhaps it occurred to Harlberg that his guest was hardly the man to let any diffidence on that score stand in the way of his pleasure; but he merely replied by a few words of protest.
“I had, indeed, a message from my cousin,” Zarka said, rising to conclude an interview which bored him. “Have you any idea which direction Fräulein Philippa took?”
“No. She said nothing to me, except that she was going. Will you leave your message, Count?”
No; it was hardly worth while. The Count would probably meet the Fräulein, as he was going to ride home by the forest. So, with an impatience he scarcely troubled to disguise, he took his leave.
But he did not meet Philippa as he expected. She and her lover avoided the open rides on their walk homewards, for interruption was just then the last thing they courted. Within a radius of a good mile from the farm the Count cantered, up one path, down another, ever keeping his sharp eyes on the alert, but all to no purpose. Not a sign of her whom he sought was to be seen. He was, assuredly, not a man who took baffling well, and his expression as he urged his horse in and out the woodland tracks was not an amiable one.
Suddenly something happened which intensified his alertness. As he rode down a somewhat wilder and more intricate path his horse jibbed and shied slightly, showing unmistakable signs of uneasiness. Knowing that the well-trained animal would not behave thus without good cause, Zarka took notice of the side from which the disquieting influence proceeded, and then, dismounting, he pushed his way through the undergrowth to discover the reason. It lay but a few paces before him—the wild boar which D’Alquen had wounded, and which now lay dead where he had fallen. A very cursory glance enabled the Count to take in the fact that the animal had been shot. He looked round for farther evidence; he listened eagerly for voices. Nothing unusual was to be seen or heard. To his sportsman’s eye the track of the boar was plainly indicated. He followed it for a short distance and came upon a book lying on the ground. He eagerly picked it up. It was a novel, and on the fly leaf was written in pencil “Philippa Carlstein.” He shut the book with an impatient flick, and looked round with lowering face. For a while he stood in thought, as though imagining what had occurred there. The fancy was not a pleasant one, to judge by the deepening frown and the set jaw; presently he roused himself to action, thrust the book into his pocket, went with quick, purposeful step back to where he had tied his horse, mounted and rode off towards the grange. He trotted his horse up to the door at a pace which spoke of haste and importance.
“Herr Harlberg!” he shouted. “Herr Harlberg!”
Harlberg hurried out with more eagerness than he was used to show about anything. “What is the matter, Count?”
“Fräulein Philippa? Has she returned?”
“Not five minutes ago.”
“Heaven be thanked,” Zarka exclaimed with simulated relief. “I feared an accident had befallen her. General, you ought to warn her against solitary strolls in the forest.”
“Why, what made you think anything was wrong, Count?” Harlberg asked, in a tone which did not indicate that he was absolutely convinced of his visitor’s sincerity.
But Zarka knew both his man and the power of a surprise. He was not going to discount the effect of his discovery upon Philippa by allowing the knowledge of it to filter through her father.
“Ask Fräulein Philippa to come to us,” he said almost peremptorily, as he swung himself out of the saddle and entered the house, “and you shall hear.”
Harlberg called her, and she came into the room where Zarka stood impatiently playing with his riding whip. His quick eye detected a certain only half hidden radiance in her face, and he felt that he could guess its cause. Harlberg turned to him invitingly for his explanation.
“I think,” Zarka began, “I have to congratulate you, Fräulein, on a lucky escape.”
He told himself that he was right to have taken her by surprise, for she looked at him with a start of obvious discomposure.
“How, Count?” she asked.
“From the tusks of one of the most formidable wild boars I have come across for many a day.”
“Ah, you know?” she said with a smile, having recovered command of herself.
“Yes,” he returned almost viciously, “I know. Know enough to be sure that I might easily at this moment be condoling with the General rather than congratulating you.”
She was puzzled to know how he had found it out, and he intended that she should be in the dark till he was master of the facts. He turned to Harlberg.
“Fancy, General. A monstrous brute, with fangs as long as that”—he indicated a length on his riding whip. “No unarmed man would have had a chance against him. It was a providential escape, Fräulein, and one which might hardly happen twice.”
“You told me nothing of this, Philippa,” Harlberg said, in a tone of aggrieved reproach.
“I had not seen you, father,” she replied. “My dress was torn and I had to change it. Of course I was going to tell you.”
Zarka laid his hat and whip on the table. “Pray let us hear the full account of it now,” he said.
Philippa told the story shortly, and had the satisfaction of seeing that the Count’s conjectures as to her preserver were upset when she described him as a stranger. Indeed, D’Alquen’s identity seemed to concern him more than her safety, or the danger she had courted.
“But the man who shot the brute?” he asked, as the story came to an end and Harlberg had rounded it off with a reproving comment. “A stranger, you say? You had never seen him before?”
“Never,” she answered. “Nor, but for the fact that he saved my life, should I wish to see him again.”
Zarka was all curiosity. “Why not?”
“His manner was disagreeable.”
“My dear child,” Harlberg objected, “under the circumstances you can hardly criticise his manner.”
“I do not,” she replied; “only, when it was all over, he frightened me almost as much as the boar had done.”
“Ah! Will you describe the fellow to me,” Zarka said, “that I may know him if we meet, as is probable?”
Philippa did so, relating also the way in which D’Alquen had questioned her. The Count was darkly suspicious.
“Anything to do, think you, with the Prince Roel affair?” Harlberg asked, impressed by the other’s gravity.
“Hardly,” Zarka replied with a tolerant smile. He was not playing the game with this dull, uninteresting old soldier, but with his step-daughter. Presently the opportunity came for which he had waited. Harlberg left them together.
“You have passed through a great danger to-day, Fräulein,” Zarka said, changing his manner to one of intensely sympathetic interest. “I blame myself that it is I who am indirectly responsible for it. I wish you would give me the right to protect you from all these risks in future.”
“I am not likely,” she replied coldly, ignoring his tone of caress, “to put myself in the way of such danger again.”
“From wild animals, no; let us hope not. But from men hardly less dangerous. You cannot feel safe there.”
“I hope,” she rejoined, “my life will not be passed in a place like this, where protection seems so necessary.”
He leaned forward. “Why should it not?” he asked earnestly. “Why should it not, much of it, be passed here, as mistress of Rozsnyo?”
She rose, not trusting herself to look at him. “No, no,” she answered. “That cannot be.”
“It may be, easily,” he persisted, following her. “You have only to say the little word, Yes. You will say it, Philippa? You must know how devotedly I love you. Dearest, you will be my wife?”
She shook her head. “I cannot be.”
“Ah!” he cried impatiently, “you do not know what you say. You will be my wife, be queen of this great forest, and of all that is mine.”
He took her hand but she drew it away. “No,” she said. “It is good of you, Count; I appreciate the honour you offer me. But I cannot accept it.”
“Cannot be my wife?” he exclaimed, with the evil gleam in his eyes which opposition to his will ever brought there. “You do not think what you refuse.”
“A great honour; yes.”
“A man who loves you truly with heart and soul.”
“But whom I cannot love.”
“Cannot?” The draught he was swallowing was not a pleasant one, and his face showed it. “Not for your father’s sake, if not for your own?”
“My father,” she replied, “will hardly wish me to marry a man I cannot love.”
He knew, even better than she, that her step-father was the last man in the world to trouble about that side of the question, providing other considerations were favourable; but he could not say so.
“Your father, I know,” he returned positively, “would be glad to see you Countess Zarka.”
“I am sorry,” she replied simply, leaving the unsatisfactory topic of Harlberg’s views, “but it cannot be.”
“And why not?” he demanded, hardly keeping down his chagrin. “There can be but one reason. Your love is, or you fancy it is, given to another man. Tell me if it is so,” he added sharply, as she kept silence.
“It is useless to discuss that,” she answered, meeting his persistency with a touch of dignity. “You must be content with the knowledge that what you wish cannot come to pass.”
“Content!” he echoed. “Content is scarcely the doctrine to preach to me. You might know that, Philippa, and my character better than to suggest it. I do not take your refusal, for it is not logical; it is—I know, though you may not—it is against your best interests. No,” he continued, with the set tone of a determined will, “I am not the man to be content to let another snatch the prize I covet. You will reconsider your answer, Philippa? Yes?”
She shook her head. “No, Count.”
He laughed. “Then let your lover look to himself. He will need great resources and the Devil’s luck into the bargain who enters the lists with Aubray Zarka.”
She looked at him, half fascinated by the power of his remarkable personality. But she did not falter when he held out his hand.
“I do not despair, Philippa,” he said with mock deference.
“I should be sorry to think you did,” she returned, meeting his eyes boldly.
“Ah!” he rejoined, understanding the words as she meant them. “We shall see.” Against her will he kept her hand in his. “It is a pity,” he added suddenly, “that, instead of your uncivil preserver, the gallant Lieutenant Von Tressen did not come along and shoot the boar. That shot would have paid for the other. Is the finger healed?”
He bent down as though to examine her hand, and suddenly, before she could prevent him, pressed it to his lips. Then he laughed again. “Don’t be offended, mein Fräulein; I shall kiss your lips before this day week,” he said.