The Court of Marburg had condemned the Crown Princess Claire, and from their judgment there was no appeal. She was alone, defenceless--doomed as the victim of the jealousies and fears of others.

Returning to the ballroom, she left the Minister's side; and, by reason of etiquette, returned to join that man in the dark-blue uniform who cursed her--the man who was her husband, and who ere long was to reign as sovereign.

Stories of his actions, many of them the reverse of creditable, had reached her ears, but she never gave credence to any of them. When people discussed him she refused to listen. He was her husband, the father of her little Ignatia, therefore she would hear nothing to his discredit.

Yes. Her disposition was quiet and sweet, and she was always loyal to him. He, however, entirely misjudged her.

An hour later, when she had gone to her room, her husband burst in angrily and ordered the two maids out, telling them that they would not be wanted further that night. Then, when the door was closed, he strode up to where she sat before the great mirror, lit by its waxen candles, for Henriette had been arranging her hair for the night.

"Well, woman!" he cried, standing before her, his brows knit, his eyes full of fire, "and what is your excuse to me this time?"

"Excuse?" she echoed, looking at him in surprise and very calmly. "For what, Ferdinand?"

"For your escapade in Vienna!" he said between his teeth. "The instant you had left, Leitolf received a telegram calling him to Wiesbaden, but instead of going there he followed you."

"Not with my knowledge, I a.s.sure you," she said quickly. "Why do you think so ill of me--why do you always suspect me?" she asked in a low, trembling voice of reproach.

"Why do I suspect you? You ask me that, woman, when you wrote to the man at his hotel, made an appointment, and actually visited him there?

One of our agents watched you. Do you deny it?"

"No," she answered boldly. "I do not deny going to the Count's hotel.

I had a reason for doing so."

He laughed in her face.

"Of course you had--you, who pretend to be such a good and faithful wife, and such a model mother," he sneered. "I suppose you would not have returned to Treysa so soon had he not have come back."

"You insult me!" she cried, rising from her chair, her Imperial blood a.s.serting itself.

"Ah!" he laughed, taunting her. "You don't like to hear the truth, do you? It seems that the scandal concerning you has been discovered in Vienna, for De Lindenau has ordered the fellow to return to the diplomatic service, and is sending him away to Rome."

She was silent. She saw how every word and every action of hers was being misconstrued.

"Speak, woman!" he cried, advancing towards her. "Confess to me that you love the fellow."

"Why, Ferdinand, do you wish me to say what is untrue?" she asked in a low voice, quite calm again, notwithstanding his threatening att.i.tude.

"Ah, you deny it! You lie to me, even when I know the truth--when all the Court discuss your affection for the fellow whom you yourself introduced among us. You have been with him in Paris. Deny that!"

"I deny nothing that is true," she answered. "I only deny your right to charge me with what is false."

"Oh yes," he cried. "You and your brat are a pretty pair. You believe we are all blind; but, on the contrary, everything is known. Confess!"

he muttered between his teeth. "Confess that you love that man."

She was silent, standing before him, her beautiful eyes fixed upon the carpet.

He repeated his question in a harder tone than before, but still she uttered no word. She was determined not to repeat the denial she had already given, and she recognised that he had some ulterior motive in wringing from her a confession which was untrue.

"You refuse to speak!" he cried in a quick paroxysm of anger. "Then take that!" and he struck her with his fist a heavy blow full in the face, with such force, indeed, that she reeled, and fell backwards upon the floor.

"Another time perhaps you'll speak when I order you to," he said through his set teeth, as with his foot he kicked her savagely twice, the dull blows sounding through the big, gilt-ceilinged room.

Then with a hard laugh of scorn upon his evil lips the brute that was a Crown Prince, and heir to a European throne, turned and left with an oath upon his lips, as he slammed the door after him.

In the big, gorgeous room, where the silence was broken by the low ticking of the ormolu clock, poor, unhappy Claire lay there where she had fallen, motionless as one dead. Her beautiful face was white as death, yet horribly disfigured by the cowardly blow, while from the corner of her mouth there slowly trickled a thin red stream.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

IS MAINLY ABOUT THE COUNT.

Next morning, when she saw her reflection in the mirror, she sighed heavily, and hot tears sprang to her eyes.

Her beautiful countenance, bruised and swollen, was an ugly sight; her mouth was cut, and one of her even, pretty teeth had been broken by the cowardly blow.

Henriette, the faithful Frenchwoman, had crept back to her mistress's room an hour after the Crown Prince had gone, in order to see if her Highness wanted anything, when to her horror she discovered her lying insensible where she had been struck down.

The woman was discreet. She had often overheard the Prince's torrents of angry abuse, and in an instant grasped the situation. Instead of alarming the other servants, she quickly applied restoratives, bathed her mistress's face tenderly in eau de Cologne, washing away the blood from the mouth, and after half an hour succeeded in getting her comfortably to bed.

She said nothing to any one, but locked the door and spent the remainder of the night upon the sofa near her Princess.

While Claire was seated in her wrap, taking her chocolate at eight o'clock next morning, the Countess de Trauttenberg, her husband's spy, who probably knew all that had transpired, entered with the engagement-book.

She saw what a terrible sight the unhappy woman presented, yet affected not to notice it.

"Well, Trauttenberg?" asked the Princess in a soft, weary voice, hardly looking up at her, "what are our engagements to-day?"

The lady-in-waiting consulted the book, which upon its cover bore the royal crown above the cipher "C," and replied,--

"At eleven, the unveiling of the monument to Schilling the sculptor in the Albert-Platz; at one, luncheon with the Princess Alexandrine, to meet the d.u.c.h.ess of Brunswick-Lunebourg; at four, the drive; and to-night, `Faust,' at the Opera."

Her Highness sighed. The people, the enthusiastic crowd who applauded her, little knew how wearying was that round of daily duties, how soul-killing to a woman with a broken heart. She was "their Claire,"

the woman who was to be their Queen, and they believed her to be happy!

"Cancel all my engagements," she said. "I shall not go out to-day.

Tell the Court newsman that I am indisposed--a bad cold--anything."

"As your Imperial Highness commands," responded De Trauttenberg, bowing, and yet showing no sign that she observed the disfiguration of her poor face.

The woman's cold formality irritated her.

"You see the reason?" she asked meaningly, looking into her face.

"I note that your Imperial Highness has--has met with a slight accident," she said. "I trust it is not painful."

That reply aroused the fire of the Hapsbourg blood within her veins.

The woman was her bitter enemy. She had lied about her, and had poisoned her husband's mind against her. And yet she was helpless. To dismiss her from her duties would only be a confirmation of what the woman had, no doubt, alleged.

It was upon the tip of her tongue to charge her openly as an enemy and a liar. It was that woman, no doubt, who had spied upon her when she had called upon Count Leitolf, and who on her return to Treysa had gone straight to the Crown Prince with a story that was full of vile and scandalous inventions.