And yet I tell you
that when we meet again, I shall be master here, and not you.' And so it
has turned out, Vjera, for they shall meet me--they dead, and I alive.
They jeered and laughed, and sent me away with only the clothes I wore,
for I would not take their money. I hear their laughter now in my
ears--but I hear, too, a laugh that is louder and more pitiless than
theirs was, for it is the laugh of Death!"
CHAPTER III.
The Count rose to his feet as he finished the last sentence. It seemed as
though he were oppressed by the inaction to which he was constrained
during the last hours of waiting before the great moment, and he moved
nervously, like a man anxious to throw off a burden.
Vjera rose also, with a slow and weary movement.
"It is late," she said. "I must go home. Good-night."
"No. I will go with you. I will see you to your door."
"Thank you," she answered, watching his face closely.
Then the two walked side by side under the lime trees in the deepening
evening shadows, to the low archway by which the road leads out of the
Hofgarten on the side of the city. For some minutes neither spoke, but
Vjera could hear her companion's quickly drawn, irregular breath. His
heart was beating fast and his thoughts were chasing each other through a
labyrinth of dreams, inconsequent, unreasonable, but brilliant in the
extreme. His head high, his shoulders thrown back, his eyes flashing, his
lips tightly closed, the Count marched out with his companion into the
broad square.
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