"Are there any better?"
Both had at this supreme crisis of their fortunes but the one
thought,--that the only days through which they had really lived were
those last two days of flight, of hurry, of hope alternating with
despair, of light-hearted companionship, days never to be forgotten,
when each snatched meal was a picnic seasoned with laughter, days of
unharnessed freedom lived in the open air.
Clementina was the first to perceive that her behaviour fell below the
occasion. She was safe in Italy, journeying henceforward safely to her
betrothed. She spurred herself to understand it, she forced her lips to
sing aloud the Te Deum. Wogan looked at her in surprise as the first
notes were sung, and the woful appeal in her eyes compelled him to as
brave a show as he could make of joining in the hymn. But the words
faltered, the tune wavered, joyless and hollow in that empty morning.
"Drive on," said Clementina, suddenly; and she had a sense that she was
being driven into bondage,--she who had just been freed. Wogan drove on
towards Peri.
It was the morning of Sunday, the 30th of April; and as the little cart
drew near to this hamlet of thirty cottages, the travellers could hear
the single bell in the church belfry calling the villagers to Mass.
Wogan spoke but once to Clementina, and then only to point out a wooden
hut which stood picturesquely on a wooded bluff of Monte Lessini, high
up upon the left. A narrow gorge down which a torrent foamed led upwards
to the bluff, and the hut of which the windows were shuttered, and which
seemed at that distance to have been built with an unusual elegance, was
to Wogan's thinking a hunting-box. Clementina looked up at the bluff
indifferently and made no answer. She only spoke as Wogan drove past
the church-door, and the sound of the priest's voice came droning out to
them.
"Will you wait for me?" she asked. "I will not be long."
Wogan stopped the pony.
"You would give thanks?" said he. "I understand."
"I would pray for an honest heart wherewith to give honest thanks," said
Clementina, in a low voice; and she added hastily, "There is a life of
ceremonies, there is a life of cities before me. I have lived under the
skies these last two days."
She went into the church, shrouding her face in her hood, and kneeled
down before a rush chair close to the door. A sense of gratitude,
however, was not that morning to be got by any prayers, however earnest.
It was merely a distaste for ceremonies and observances, she strenuously
assured herself, that had grown upon her during these ten days. She
sought to get rid of that distaste, as she kneeled, by picturing in her
thoughts the Prince to whom she was betrothed. She recalled the
exploits, the virtues, which Wogan had ascribed to him; she stamped them
upon the picture. "It is the King," she said to herself; and the picture
answered her, "It is the King's servant." And, lo! the face of the
picture was the face of Charles Wogan. She covered her cheeks with her
hands in a burning rush of shame; she struck in her thoughts at the face
of that image with her clenched fists, to bruise, to annihilate it. "It
is the King! It is the King! It is the King!" she cried in her remorse,
but the image persisted. It still wore the likeness of Charles Wogan; it
still repeated, "No, it is the King's servant." There was more of the
primitive woman in this girl bred in the rugged country-side of Silesia
than even Wogan was aware of, and during the halts in their journey she
had learned from Mrs. Misset details which Wogan had been at pains to
conceal. It was Wogan who had conceived the idea of her rescue--in the
King's place. In the King's place, Wogan had come to Innspruck and
effected it. In the King's place, he had taken her by the hand and cleft
a way for her through her enemies. He was the man, the rescuer; she was
the woman, the rescued.