Wogan started at the mention of this name. It seemed strange that that
fitful and brilliant man, whose brief, passionate, guilty life and
mysterious end had made so much noise in the world, had crossed that
lawn and stood before that window at just such an hour, and maybe had
sat shivering in Wogan's very chair.
"I have no such story as Count Philip von Königsmarck no doubt had to
tell," said Wogan.
"Chevalier," said Count Otto, with a nod of approval, "Königsmarck had
the like reticence, though he was not always so discreet, I fear. The
Princess Sophia Dorothea was at that time on a visit to the Duke of
Würtemberg at the palace in Stuttgart, but Königsmarck told me only that
he had snatched a breathing space from the wars in the Low Countries and
was bound thither again. Rumour told me afterwards of his fatal
attachment. He sat where you sit, Chevalier, wounded as you are, a
fugitive from pursuit. Even the stains and disorder of his plight could
not disguise the singular beauty of the man or make one insensible to
the charm of his manner. But I forget my duties," and he rose. "It would
be as well, no doubt, if I did not wake my servants?" he suggested.
"Count Otto," returned Wogan, with a smile, "they have their day's work
to-morrow."
The old man nodded, and taking a lamp from a table by the door went out
of the room.
Wogan remained alone; the dog nuzzled at his hand; but it seemed to
Wogan that there was another in the room besides himself and the dog.
The sleeplessness and tension of the last few days, the fatigue of his
arduous journey, the fever of his wounds, no doubt, had their effect
upon him. He felt that Königsmarck was at his side; his eyes could
almost discern a shadowy and beautiful figure; his ears could almost
hear a musical vibrating voice. And the voice warned him,--in some
strange unaccountable way the voice warned and menaced him.
"I fought, I climbed that wall, I crossed the lawn, I took refuge here
for love of a queen. For love of a queen all my short life I lived. For
love of a queen I died most horribly; and the queen lives, though it
would have gone better with her had she died as horribly."
Wogan had once seen the lonely castle of Ahlden where that queen was
imprisoned; he had once caught a glimpse of her driving in the dusk
across the heath surrounded by her guards with their flashing swords.
He sat chilled with apprehensions and forebodings. They crowded in upon
his mind all the more terrible because he could not translate them into
definite perils which beyond this and that corner of his life might
await him. He was the victim of illusions, he assured himself, at which
to-morrow safe in Schlestadt he would laugh. But to-night the illusions
were real. Königsmarck was with him. Königsmarck was by some mysterious
alchemy becoming incorporate with him. The voice which spoke and warned
and menaced was as much his as Königsmarck's.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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