they
liked. It would be too late."

Emergency had given Hedwig insight. She saw that the woman before
her, voicing dangerous doctrine, would protect herself by letting the
initiative come from her.

"This priest--he might be difficult."

"Not to a young couple, come to him, perhaps, in peasant costume. They
are glad to marry, these fathers. There is much irregularity. I fancy,"
she added, still with her carefully detached manner, "that a marriage
could be easily arranged."

But, before long, she had dropped her pretense of aloofness, and was
taking the lead. Hedwig, weary with the struggle, and now trembling
with nervousness, put herself in her hands, listening while she planned,
agreed eagerly to everything. Something of grim amusement came into
Olga Loschek's face after a time. By doing this thing she would lose
everything. It would be impossible to conceal her connivance. No one,
knowing Hedwig, would for a moment imagine the plan hers. Or Nikky's,
either, for that matter.

She, then, would lose everything, even Karl, who was already lost to
her. But--and her face grew set and her eyes hard--she would let those
plotters in their grisly catacombs do their own filthy work. Her hands
would be clean of that. Hence her amusement that at this late day she,
Olga Loschek, should be saving her own soul.

So it was arranged, to the last detail. For it must be done at once.
Hedwig, a trifle terrified, would have postponed it a day or so, but the
Countess was insistent. Only she knew how the very hours counted, had
them numbered, indeed, and watched them flying by with a sinking heart.

She made a few plans herself, in those moments when Hedwig relapsed
into rapturous if somewhat frightened dreams. She had some money and
her jewels. She would go to England, and there live quietly until things
settled down. Then, perhaps, she would go some day to Karl, and with
this madness for Hedwig dead, of her marriage, perhaps--! She planned no
further.

If she gave a fleeting thought to the Palace, to the Crown Prince and
his impending fate, she dismissed it quickly. She had no affection for
Annunciata, and as to the boy, let them look out for him. Let Mettlich
guard his treasure, or lose it to his peril. The passage under the gate
was not of her discovery or informing.

CHAPTER XXXII. NIKKY AND HEDWIG

Nikky had gone back to his lodging, where his servant was packing his
things. For Nikky was now of His Majesty's house