CHAPTER NINETEEN

THE CHAPEL ROYAL

Nervy Trafford left the Council with the dawning consciousness that he was not a very wise man. There are kings and kings, he reflected, kings to serve, honour and obey, and kings to harass, embarrass and decapitate; but it was best on the whole to leave the choice of treatment to the subjects of the particular monarch to be dealt with. He had sided against Karl from an innate love of excitement and a romantic enthusiasm for the rebel Princess. He had saved Karl from premature death, because he was a well-brought-up American with a sneaking respect for the sixth commandment. The result was, that the revolution,--which had been by no means bloodless,--was likely to be followed by an aftermath of civil war infinitely more sanguinary. Had he not interfered, Karl might still have been on the throne. Had he persisted in his revolutionary policy, logically and relentlessly, Grimland might have found peace and tranquillity under the unopposed banner of Gloria. As it was, Karl was evidently in Weissheim, and the good Weissheimers,--according to Herr Gottfried,--were preparing glacis and grapeshot for those who did not see eye to eye with them in things political.

He found his way to the Rubens room, and seated himself, wondering how long it was necessary to wait before demanding access to the private apartments. The short winter day was well-nigh done, and the great, unlit chamber looked vast and ghostly in the failing light. The shadowed corners, the rich stillness, touched and oppressed his imagination. Great men and proud women had passed in sumptuous pageantry through the walls of that noble chamber; and Trafford felt their presence, and strove to exorcise them with the fumes of a cigarette. But the impalpable dust of centuries seemed to impregnate the air, and by-gone monarchs looked askance at him from their dim gold frames, in a scornful wonder at the American interloper who sat so carelessly in the seat of kings. He rose, impatient of their glances, and walked to the window. Snow was falling. The sun that had graced and greeted the new-crowned Queen had sunk beneath the rugged outline of the encircling mountains; the sky, which had been of no uncertain blue, was a nondescript monotone weeping a white haze of crystalline tears. His thoughts harked back to the ashen face and sad eyes of the new-crowned Queen. Why had she not grasped the fact that Karl's immurement in the _Eisenmädchen_ was a humane act of rescue, not a piece of callous cruelty? She herself had experienced the same hiding-place under the same innocuous conditions, and yet it did not seem to have occurred to her that the spikes might still be reposing at the bottom of his overcoat pocket. That the others should have failed to suspect the truth was only natural. That they would be angry on discovering it, was probable--but for that he cared not one jot.

What troubled his awakening conscience was, that good men and true must go down before peace reigned again in the troubled monarchy of Grimland.

After a few more minutes of such meditation, he made his way through the Rubens-saal in the direction of the private apartments. In the corridor leading to the Queen's chamber stood the officer on guard, and talking to him was no less a personage than Von Hügelweiler.

"My orders are precise," the former was saying. "Her Majesty is resting and will see no one."

"But have the goodness at least to send in my name," Von Hügelweiler returned pettishly.

"It would be no use, Captain," retorted the other. "The Queen is resting and must not be disturbed."

Von Hügelweiler's disappointment showed itself plainly in his crestfallen air.

"I want access to her Majesty," he said doggedly. "It is true that by admitting me you risk offending the Queen, but by not admitting me you offend me for a certainty."

"I am very sorry, Captain," said the officer in a conciliatory manner. He was quite a young man, and he was rather alarmed at having to defy so important a person as Von Hügelweiler had become. Still, he held stoutly to his position in the centre of the corridor.

"You may be sorrier still, if you persist," said the Captain darkly, detecting, as he fancied, symptoms of wavering on the other's part. "We move in strange times, Lieutenant, and my goodwill is better worth having than my enmity."

At this juncture, Trafford,--who had overheard this conversation, and whose approach had been inaudible on the thick carpet of the Palace corridor,--coughed affectedly, and advanced with admirable swagger.

"I wish to see her Majesty," he said, addressing the lieutenant on guard, and completely ignoring Von Hügelweiler.

It was the latter, however, who answered him.

"The Queen is resting, and will see no one," he said roughly.

Trafford paid not the slightest attention to the Captain's words.

"My name is Trafford," he went on, to the officer.

The Lieutenant's face was a picture of puzzled dismay. His orders were to conduct Trafford to the royal apartments as soon as he presented himself. To all others he was to give the message that her Majesty was exceedingly fatigued and would on no account see anyone. After a moment's embarrassed indecision,--during which he felt Von Hügelweiler's eyes absolutely scorching him,--he bade Trafford follow, and turning his back on the furious Captain, led the way down the long corridor. Arriving at a doorway concealed by a heavy curtain, he pushed open a massive oak portal and signalled Trafford to enter.

The chamber in which the latter now found himself was lofty, smelling of incense, and lit by lamps hanging from a frescoed ceiling. At the far end was an altar garnished with many candles and a silver crucifix.

This undoubtedly was the private chapel of the Neptunburg.

"We are awaiting you," said the quiet voice of Gloria.

Trafford advanced towards the new Queen, who was standing before the steps of the altar in the company of a priest. The chapel was dark, for the stained-glass windows shut out most of the remaining light, and the hanging lamps were little more than points of ruby flame. And yet he could see that Gloria's face was still of an even pallor, and that her eyes were red from recent tears.

"I am a woman of my word, you see," she went on in dull tones. "I promised to marry you under certain conditions, and, those conditions being fulfilled, I waste no time."

"You are carrying out the letter of the contract," returned Trafford, "but are you observing the spirit? I did not bargain for a tearful bride."

"The tears are dried and gone."

"But not the cause that made them flow. You wept because you are a woman, and the woman who regards even the formula of marriage as a little matter has yet to see the light of day. And you wept because you are not sure which thing conscience commands--the violation of a contract or the taking of false vows."

"You are strangely wise to-day," she said with a faint smile. "I did not know such intuition lurked in that wild brain of yours."

"I am right, then?"

"I cannot say"--she hesitated. "Yes, the marriage vow is a serious thing, and this wedding,--as I warned you,--can be no more than a solemn mockery. I am Queen of Grimland. You are a brave man and a gentleman--but you are not a prince of blood royal."

"The Traffords are not people of particularly humble origin," he retorted drily.

"Nor would it affect me if they were. But the State would never sanction my marriage with a commoner."

"Then is it worth while going through the mockery?" he demanded.

"I have asked myself that question, and the answer is that you find me here. My word is pledged."

"Your word, but not your heart."

"Ah, but I once told you that I had no heart."

"Then you uttered a falsehood," he insisted. "Your heart,--whose existence you deny,--bled at the thought of Karl's suffering. Your heart, which was disposed to entertain some kindly emotion for me, has cooled towards me because I compassed Karl's cruel demise."

"Go on, wise man!"

"I will not ask you if I am right," pursued Trafford, "for I read acquiescence in those tear-spoiled eyes. But I will say one thing more: as Queen of Grimland your marriage to me will be null and void. What if you are deposed from your sovereignty, and became again Gloria von Schattenberg, the exile?"

"That will not occur just yet," she replied.

"I am not so certain," he mused. "What if those rumours mentioned by Gottfried were true in substance and in fact? What if Karl really escaped with General Meyer and Saunders and others to Weissheim? What if Grimland's King is still in his own country, alive, alert, surrounded by sage counsel and loyal hearts? Is your position then so very sure?"

"But Karl was put into the _Eisenmädchen_," she protested wonderingly.

"So were you," was Trafford's retort.

"I--yes. But you had unscrewed all the spikes. The Maiden was as harmless as an unfanged snake."

"I put those spikes in my overcoat pocket," said Trafford slowly. "They are still--in my overcoat pocket."

For a dazed moment Gloria stood staring at him. Then she reeled--literally--grasping at the altar rails for support.

"You put him into the Iron Maiden--to save his life?" she gasped.

"That was my rough idea. You see, I am an American, and I hate killing things--especially brave things. There are plenty of men I would kill in the heat of battle--one or two, perhaps, whom I would kill without much heat, but Karl,--whatever his deeds or misdeeds,--was playing the man that night in the Palace yard, and I would sooner have cut off my right hand then have done him an injury. Forgive me, your Majesty, for I served you badly. Providence, which gave me a fair share of muscle and brute courage, was stinting to me in the matter of logic. I should have been logical and replaced the spikes in the _Eisenmädchen_."

"Herr Trafford!"

A hand was laid on Trafford's arm, and in the scanty light of the shadowy chapel the American found himself looking into eyes bright with tears, but tears not of sorrow or vexation, but of happiness and vast relief.

"Oh, what a weight you have taken from off my heart--it was heavier than I could bear," she murmured. "I felt like a murderess, a guilty creature who had risen through blood to the summit of her base ambitions."

"Then I am forgiven?"

"There is nothing to forgive. You have helped me and served me with your splendid impetuosity and your fearless resource. A Grimlander would have slain Karl, and crowned his service with a deed of shame. You were illogical--and I--I almost love you for your noble lack of logic."

"You almost love me?" he asked in a trance.

"At least as much as I have ever loved----"

She broke off suddenly, and smiling upon him one of her rarest smiles, she added: "Yes, George Trafford, I will marry you, and if the Queen of Grimland cannot wed an American, then I will no longer be Queen of Grimland."

Trafford gazed into the pale, brave face as he had never gazed at any living thing. His breath caught with a short gasp. A strange fire had sprung to quivering life in his bosom; a wild march was pealing in his ravished ears. His feet were no longer on the chequered marble pavement of the Chapel Royal, but somewhere in the fine regions of rolling planets and shimmering nebulae. It was no mere human being who bent over that sweet young face and kissed the warm tears from the drooping eyelids as he breathed the one word "Gloria" in an echo of long-drawn sound, but a demi-god, an heroic anachronism with the passions of Phoebus in his kindling soul.

"I thought love was worship," he said, as he strained the slim form to him. "So it is, and something more--something infinitely and deliciously more."

"We are in church," she remonstrated, gently disengaging herself, "and not alone."

But again he kissed her, and this time gently on the brow.

"I was forgetting all things save one," he said, "and that is that you love me."

"Almost love you," she corrected, with a sigh.

"At least as much as you loved the others," he affirmed.

"And that contents you?" she demanded, raising her eyebrows in well-feigned astonishment.

Her question puzzled him.

"It ought not to, of course," he said with wrinkled brow. "I ought to want all or nothing. But I would be content if it were even less you gave, for in the dim light of this ancient chamber I seem to see the workings of Fate."

"Then you are willing on such a basis to go on with the ceremony?"

"If you are content to do so," he returned gravely, "knowing that Karl is alive and may prevail, and that in that event no Parliament will trouble to undo what the good priest does this afternoon."

Gloria looked him frankly in the face.

"I, too, believe in Fate," she said softly, after a pause; and then, slipping her arm into his, "Father Ambrose, you have been summoned here for a purpose. Fulfil that purpose."