From the monotony of his moody and irritating reflections he was roused one day by the entrance of a visitor, and he started on finding himself face to face with Margarita Palenka, who had come to the camp on horseback, escorted by old Theodore, the veteran of Sadowa. Her eyes were full of unshed tears, as she gave Cecil her hand, and it was impossible for him to behold this beautiful girl's sympathy unmoved.
'How can I ever thank you,' said he, 'for all this deep and kindly interest in me—almost a stranger?'
'I fear the worst, from what my brother says,' she replied in a low and husky voice.
'The worst—death?'
'Better that than—Siberia!'
'So say I,' was Cecil's grim response; and then he added hotly: 'I am a British subject; how dare they menace me with such a fate?'
'A British subject once—a Servian soldier now,' said she, gravely.
Cecil thought of the old Cameronians, and his heart seemed to swell painfully, while he eyed with some contempt the brown sleeve of his Servian tunic.
Margarita had come to Deligrad, we have said, on horseback; thus a brown riding-habit—almost claret-coloured in tint, out of compliment to the Servian uniform, and like it faced with scarlet and laced with gold—set off her magnificent bust and figure generally. A smart hat encircled by a white ostrich feather, with white riding gauntlets, made up a costume that was altogether very effective, and became the brilliant and striking character of her beauty.
At her left breast she wore the bright ribbon of St. Catherine of Russia, procured for her by Tchernaieff, and given to ladies of rank alone.
'Think not ill of me for this visit,' said she after a pause, and when he led her to a seat on the divan; 'I have come to comfort you, when none other dare attempt it—to save you if I can, and none other dare attempt that either, or is perhaps inclined to do so.'
She felt the peculiarity, the delicacy of her position; and Cecil felt it too, with a rush of gratitude in his heart—all the greater, no doubt, that she was so beautiful in person, and winning in manner.
Intensely interested as she had found herself to be in the fortunes and safety of a young stranger; knowing the wiles and the vengeance of which he was assuredly the victim, and all that he had to apprehend in the present and in the future, sleep had almost deserted the eyes of Margarita for some nights past, and thus their lids were inflamed and her face looked wan. For hours, without retiring to bed, she had been wont to sit musing by the windows of her room, watching the stars as they shone above the dark woods of Palenka, and listening to the distant roar of the Morava, till inaction became torture, and she made up her mind to ride to Deligrad, to discover the truth of all the alarming stories that had reached her and the old countess, and also what she could do to serve—if possible to save him.
Hence her most unexpected visit to Cecil.
'When you warned me to beware of Mattei Guebhard,' said he, 'I could little imagine, or anticipate, all he can be capable of.'
'And I little thought, when we parted at Palenka, to see you again,' said she, with something pathetic in her voice; 'and less than all, under such circumstances as the present.'
'But you do not believe—you cannot believe——'
'About the commission? No—of course not: the idea of your being colonel of a regiment of such wretches as the Black Mountaineers is too absurd! Savages whose tastes for strong waters, the property of their neighbours, and the noses, ears, and even the skulls of their enemies, are proverbial,' she added with a shudder. 'Besides, I understand that you never even heard of Kara Georgevitch?'
'Never before. I knew not there was such a person in existence.'
'How singular! I have met him often at Vienna; danced with him at the palace on the west side of Innerstadt, and know that he—admired me very much,' she added, with a little smile.
'His commission had my name in it, my accusers assert.'
'I do not yet understand the mystery of that—though how it came into your possession is plain enough to me.'
'And to be accused of killing a couple of Montenegrins——'
'Who would have killed you if they could! The concealed paper was a dernier ressort, in case you escaped them. Oh, it is all so like the subtle and elaborate villany of Mattei!'
'And how absurd is the accusation that I meant to carry away the King's despatches for the service of Kara Georgevitch or the Turks, when I risked life to defend them!'
'Time will unravel all this—meantime, I shall watch over you, if I can,' said she, almost tenderly, holding out her hand to him ungloved, with a pretty yet imperious air, as if to show its whiteness and beauty, for she was a coquette to the tips of her fingers.
He touched it very lightly, but instead of retaining it, as she doubtless expected, drew back—as if to avoid temptation, she seemed to think, for she said haughtily:
'You forget yourself, sir, or me!'
'Would that I could do so!' said Cecil.
The gentleness of his tone, the sadness and bewilderment of his air, touched her; she took his hand deliberately in both hers, and kissing him on the forehead with warm and throbbing lips, said:
'My brother's preserver and my brother's friend! I repeat that I have come to serve you and save you, if I may—to see you and comfort you at least, in a land where you are so utterly friendless.'
Her voice broke a little.
'By whose permission did you reach me?' asked Cecil hastily, and apparently oblivious of her emotion.
'That of Tchernaieff—he could not refuse me.'
'Who that looked upon your face could refuse you anything!' he exclaimed, more in a spirit of gallantry than anything else.
'I detest compliments; so seek not to flatter me.'
'Nay, flattery exists not in paying praise due to beauty or merit, but in praise misplaced.'
After a pause, Cecil said with a smile:
'Surely you never, at any time, loved this man Mattei Guebhard?'
'I never did so,' said she, emphatically; 'but, I once said before, I could not help him loving me. I have never loved anyone; and moreover I shall never—marry!'
Now Cecil had known and seen enough of the world to be aware that when a handsome young woman declares her intention of never marrying, it becomes one of the broadest hints a man can receive; and, under all the circumstances, he heard her now with a perplexity that bordered on irritation.
At such a time cold reason might suggest that Mary Montgomerie, and his country too, were lost to him for ever! In Servia was his new home; Margarita was beautiful, anxious to serve him and to win his gratitude—too evidently his love, if she could. Just rage at Guebhard invited him to meet her half-way; but the image of Mary came before Cecil, and he thought:
'Montrose was right in his song—"Love one, and love no more!"'
He was perfectly conscious that some time or other, at Palenka, he had spoken of love to Margarita; but was then referring to his love of Mary Montgomerie; while she had believed that he was in some curious way pleading his own cause with herself.
There was even now a struggle going on in the heart of Margarita, between her mind and her affections; and though eventually it seemed as if the latter would conquer, some sense of propriety, of what society and training inculcated, and the moral force of her own spirit, did battle against them; and then, moreover, she was not without some dread of her brother the Count of Palenka.
Despite all this, and her recent coquettish announcement that she could never love, and would never marry any man, Cecil found her coming to the point with him and taking the initiative, piqued perhaps that he was the only man she had never yet subdued; and so, before he knew very well how it had all come to pass, or by what she had prefaced it, he was startled by her saying in her most dulcet Servian:
'So you think, dear Cecil, I could make your life a happy one?'
She asked this softly, yet a little imperiously, while flicking the skirt of her riding-habit impatiently with her switch, and with downcast looks, as Cecil paused in perplexity, thinking, 'What had he said to draw this forth?'
'Surely I am not so uncivilised; I don't ever paint and powder, like all the English girls I saw at Vienna!' she added.
'But,' said poor Cecil, who thought he had perils enough to encounter, without thus being 'run to earth,' and having this perplexity added to them, by an impulsive girl, who probably had something Hungarian and Italian in her blood, inherited from the old heyduc; 'but they don't all wear paint and powder—and one girl I knew at home certainly did not do so.'
This was, to say the least of it, an unfortunate speech.
'One,' said Margarita, with a flash in her eyes; 'who was she?'
'One of whom you remind me—at times,' he replied, thinking to compliment her by saying that which was simply untrue.
'Who was she—who is she—one you cared for?'
'Not as I care for you,' replied Cecil unwisely, yet truthfully enough; 'but long ago—ah, how long ago it seems—she passed out of my life, and I out of hers.'
'She is dead, then?'
'Yes—to me.'
'To the world, you mean—so she is in a convent, then?' said Margarita, readily adopting the idea suggested by herself.
'You have no need to be jealous of her,' said Cecil.
'Nor am I,' replied Margarita proudly, and still switching her riding-skirt.
'Was she like me, as you say?'
'Handsome, with perfect features—mignonne face, and——'
'Enough—let us talk of ourselves now,' said Margarita softly, and then Cecil found himself adopted and placed—he feared—on the footing of an accepted lover, without having attempted to play the character, in any way.
What might be the result, if this too evident regard for him turned to hatred under his coolness? He remembered the well-known couplet in Congreve's 'Mourning Bride,' and became filled with positive apprehension, if it be true that there is 'no fury like a woman scorned.'
Platonism was evidently a rôle she did not understand; and when any suspicion of his doubts or hesitation occurred to her, her full proud lips curled, her dark eyes flashed, and a flush crossed her cheek. But how was he to indulge in love-making—and still more in affecting such, environed by perils as he was then.
It was but too evident that Margarita, like most coquettes, had fallen a victim to herself at last, and was actually pining for a man who had never spoken to her more than words of the merest friendship and thanks; and but for the memory of Mary, and a sentiment of chivalry that mingled with his love for her, Cecil, under all the circumstances of his position, might have yielded to the temptation that beset him, and at all hazards have become the lover of this Servian girl, whose wild impulses came to her with the mixed blood of more than one fiery race; and who, hence, could not be judged of by the same standard as an English girl of the same position.
At last she rose to retire.
'I cannot conceal from you, that, from all I hear, your peril is very great,' said she, nervously attempting to button her riding gauntlets, a task which Cecil hastened to perform for her.
'I shall demand a court-martial!' he exclaimed.
'Palenka tells me that such will not be accorded to you.'
'What then?'
'By the fiat of the King, through the minister of police, you may be—will be—I cannot speak it,' she continued in a broken voice, as her tears fell fast, and her head drooped for a moment on his shoulder; 'rather let me aid you to escape, and fly this place for ever. Have you money?'
'None.'
'That shall be my care—and horses too, by which to reach the frontier of Bulgaria, about fifty miles from this, where you will be comparatively safe. But how to get you out of this place—and how to elude these Russian sentinels at the door, are the difficulties that appal and bewilder me!'
'Margarita, the idea of flight is most repugnant to me—it looks so like timidity and confession of guilt.'
'They are determined to deem you guilty, I fear, under any circumstances. You have but yourself to consider, and—me.'
'But without a guide——'
'Fear not for that—I shall provide you with a guide too,' she replied with a bright and tender smile; and so ended this strange interview, which, for a little time at least, had served to lure him from his troubles, yet had added to his perplexity; for he felt that if Margarita saved him from impending peril—and that she would do so at all hazard he never doubted—that circumstance would load him with a debt of gratitude which the devotion of his future life could—in her estimation—alone repay!