Wilfrid

“ On the night of the seventh, as Wilfrid was supporting upon his bosom the head of his afflicted master, and holding a cup of cooling drink to his parched lips, he murmured, "Is it you, my faithful Brithric?"
"No," replied the page, "Brithric is not present, neither hath he entered this chamber, my lord, since the term of your sore sickness commenced."
"Surely, then, he must himself be sick, perhaps dead," said the prince.
"No," replied Wilfrid, with a smile; "he is only fearful of exposing himself to the contagion of the fever." ”

“ Wilfrid was sensibly changed during the years we have allowed to pass silently by. To begin with, he had grown a beard. His health seemed finally to have established itself on a sound basis; his cheeks were growing sunny, and he showed the proportions of a very complete man. At the present moment, his consciousness of regards fixed upon him heightened his colour; his fine eyes danced in light; he checked a smile, and spoke sparingly here and there. ”

“ Her cheek paled again when she found that Wilfrid remained indifferent both to her presence and to her words.
“Give me your parole not to attempt escape, and you are free to wander at will through the castle and the isle.”
There was no reply. With a fresh sinking of heart she recalled Wilfrid’s utterance that he had spoken his last word to her.
“You are angry, I see; but I, too, have cause for anger in your resolve to do hurt to the Czar. Give me credit for good intentions. I am acting for the best interests of both parties. Why should two good men seek to slay each other?” ”

“ Wilfrid; "he can hit the mark himself, if he will."
Prince Edwin bent his bow, and this time the arrow entered the centre of the target. The ground rang with the plaudits of the spectators.
"Let us see now if Wilfrid, the son of Cendric, the traitor, can equal the Atheling's shot," shouted Brithric.
"Shoot, Wilfrid, shoot!" cried more than twenty voices among the royal wards.
"I have no wish to bend the bow to-day," said Wilfrid.
"Because you know that you must expose yourself to contempt by failing to make your vaunt good," said Brithric; "but you shall not escape thus lightly." ”

“ Wilfrid, despite his prejudice, was compelled to admit that here was a man as well as an emperor. His stately aspect seemed to breathe a sort of challenge to Wilfrid, upon whom there stole that elemental feeling that made the old heathen warrior raise his clenched fist to the skies with the cry of, “I defy thee, O Odin! Come down from heaven and let us try which is the better man!”
[288]
But Wilfrid’s desire to try conclusions with the Czar was immediately lost in a new interest as he viewed that monarch’s manner towards Pauline. ”

“ There was no reason for Wilfrid to ask if the new-comer were a doctor, for he carried his profession in every crease of his well-fitting frock-coat, in every line of his well-groomed hair.
"My name is Dr. Shelton," he said. "I am sorry to be so late, but I have only just got back to town. So this is your patient? What do you think he is suffering from? You have made an examination?"
"I haven't the remotest idea," Wilfrid said frankly. "I have never seen a case like it before. Mr. Flower lies there to all appearances dead. He does not breathe. ”

“ And Wilfrid, if Baranoff had spoken truly, was certain of gaining her love! To woo and carry off a fair princess from the power of a jealous Czar was just the sort of enterprise that appealed to his knightly and romantic character. He could no longer hesitate.
“Do you assent?”
“Assent!” echoed Wilfrid. “Is it possible to dissent? You say that provided I succeed in marrying this lady you will add to the pleasure by paying me the sum of three hundred thousand roubles! Really, your proposal is so extraordinary, so captivating, that I am almost inclined to think that you are trifling with me. ”

“ I am to receive a sort of—of douceur,” said Wilfrid. “Very much douce,” he added, with a smile. “It’s nature? Your pardon, Baroness. You shall know, but not yet. After it has been received.”
Pauline thought Wilfrid was becoming very mysterious all at once. It was hard for her to put a curb upon her curiosity. ”

“ From the moment when Wilfrid suspected the ethereal nature of the enchantress who had told him the secrets of his life in melodious utterance, he had longed to try to subject her, to keep her to himself, to tear her from the heaven where, perhaps, she was awaited. Earth and Humanity seized their prey; he would imitate them. His pride, the only sentiment through which man can long be exalted, would make him happy in this triumph for the rest of his life. ”

“ Sir Wilfrid shook his head.
"She overdid it," he repeated. "However, what do you think of the man yourself, Jacob?"
"Well, I don't take to him," said the other, unwillingly. "He isn't my sort of man."
"And Mademoiselle Julie--you think nothing but well of her? I don't like discussing a lady; but, you see, with Lady Henry to manage, one must feel the ground as one can."
Sir Wilfrid looked at his companion, and then stretched his legs a little farther towards the fire. The lamp-light shone full on his silky eyelashes and beard, on his neatly parted hair, and the diamond on his fine left hand. ”

“ Wilfrid’s smile implied that the Prince was welcome to try.
“He evidently imagines he has some grievance against you. I don’t ask for confidences, but I suppose some woman is the cause of it all?”
“It’s probable. He thinks that—but no matter what he thinks,” muttered Wilfrid, with a dark frown, as he recalled the night at the Silver Birch. If Ouvaroff could believe that of the Duchess, there would be a pleasure in slaying him. ”

“ I looked at Wilfrid. He was grave and thoughtful. As eight o'clock struck, we all rose to go, when suddenly the door opened, and three mean-looking fellows, with leaden faces, and eyes sharp as rats', followed by several more of the same sort, presented themselves on the threshold. One of them, with a long nose, which seemed to be on the scent for some mischief, a great cudgel in his fist, advanced with the demand—
"Your papers, gentlemen!"
Every one hastened to satisfy him. Unhappily, however, Wilfrid, who was standing near the stove, was seized with a sudden fit of trembling ”

“ Wilfrid thrilled, first with pleasure, and then with amazement, as he recognised that the lady, sought for by Izak and his confederates, was none other than his own duchess!
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CHAPTER XIX
THE PRINCESS’S KISS
“Fair lady,” said Wilfrid, bowing as he spoke, “you are alone, though it be the unwritten law of a masquerade that every one must have a companion.”
“Then are you breaking that law,” replied the lady; “for you, too, seem alone.”
“A Courtenay is ambitious, you see; he will have for his companion none but the fairest.”
“And have you not found her in Pauline de Vaucluse?” ”

“ Wilfrid, too, was silent. He was glad of the presence of Prince Ouvaroff and the four Finlanders; there could be no love-making so long as they were by. A beautiful woman is a beautiful peril and she becomes doubly perilous [305] when in distress. Wilfrid, in spite of the claims of honour, felt that he durst not trust himself alone with her, lest passion should usurp the place of reason. ”

“ Thinking of this, she felt more than ever drawn towards the daring young Englishman who had gone forth to vindicate her honour with his sword. She contrasted Wilfrid’s countenance with the Czar’s as portrayed on the canvas before her, and unhesitatingly gave the preference to Wilfrid’s. If the character of a man is to be learned from his personal exterior, then in her opinion Wilfrid’s disposition was frank and open, Alexander’s secretive and ambiguous. A similar conclusion forced itself upon Pauline, for she, too, had been making a mental comparison between the two men. ”

“ And then, confident that Wilfrid’s boldness could spring from but one nationality, he added, “You are an Englishman?”
“A man cannot choose his own parents, Sire.”
“Your name?” cried Paul, growing more angry.
“Wilfrid, Lord Courtenay.”
The Czar closed his eyes in thought. He seemed as if trying to recollect something. Wilfrid wondered whether the Emperor was connecting his name with that of the Princess. Suddenly opening his eyes again sharply, Paul said—“We have heard of you from Baranoff. You are the artist who tried by a picture to create an outbreak against established order?” ”

“ As for Jacob, Sir Wilfrid had cherished a particular weakness for him in the Eton-jacket stage, and later on, indeed, when the lad enjoyed a brief moment of glory in the Eton eleven. But at Oxford, to Sir Wilfrid's thinking, he had suffered eclipse--had become a somewhat heavy, apathetic, pseudo-cynical youth, displaying his mother's inertia without her good temper, too slack to keep up his cricket, too slack to work for the honor schools, at no time without friends, but an enigma to most of them, and, apparently, something of a burden to himself. ”

“ It was a new thing for Wilfrid to be stealing along a corridor at night like a thief, fearful of being seen or heard—an altogether humiliating experience, made endurable only by the thought that it was necessary for the honour, the safety, perhaps even the life, of the Princess. Twenty paces—he had a reason for taking accurate measurement—brought him to a landing, whence a short staircase led to the floor above, where was a corridor, similar in all respects to the one he had just left.
Moving forward twenty paces along this, Wilfrid paused before a certain door. ”

“ Being expelled from his bishopric, and having travelled in several parts, Wilfrid went to Rome. He afterwards returned to Britain; and though he could not, by reason of the enmity of the aforesaid king, be received into his own country or diocese, yet he could not be restrained from preaching the Gospel; for, taking his way into the province of the South Saxons, which extends from Kent on the west and south, as far as the West Saxons, and contains land of 7,000 families, who at that time were still pagans, he administered to them the word of faith, and the baptism of salvation. ”

“ Small wonder that the heap of child-like disposition that pretty well made up the substance of Wilfrid’s manhood, should have been stirred into extravagant merriment by the wild movements of the two fellows’ bodies, the windmill-like flourishings of their oars, the flopping and flapping of the red cap, the incessant straining and twisting of the chocolate faces over the shoulder to see how they were heading, the shrill exclamations that sounded from the instant the fellows were within ear-shot and that never ceased until they had floundered and splashed alongside. ”

“ Hoping that Wilfrid, now an aged man, would be softened by adversity, he was suffered to return. To the new king, as well as to his sister, S. Elfleda, Abbess of Whitby, Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury wrote, to exhort them to receive Wilfrid with unreserved kindness. They consented, and in 687 he reappeared at York; but it was to excite new storms in his diocese, and he was again exiled in 691.
Alcfrid died in 705, and the Northumbrian crown passed to a prince named Eadwulf. Wilfrid had taken advantage of the death of Alcfrid to return, but was ordered to leave the country in six days. ”

“ He would never breathe to her a word which could reveal such a thought, but Wilfrid, with his susceptibility to the beautiful in character, his nature so intensely in sympathy with her own, might more or less consciously judge her to have fallen from fidelity to the high ideal. ”

“ Wilfrid crept back into the deep shadow of the drawing-room door and waited. It was somewhat difficult to see, for he had only the gleams of the light coming from the hall to guide him. Presently, as his eyes became more accustomed to the gloom, he saw that he was not mistaken. A man drew near with step noiseless and agile as a cat's. A peculiar perfume preceded him, a perfume which Wilfrid had not the least trouble in recognizing. It was the same strange scent he had smelt during the eventful night he had spent at Maldon Grange. He saw the stranger try the door of the bedroom ”

“ Petersburg was like a city of the dead.
Wilfrid soon began to see that he was with a guide of peculiar excellence; the real reason, perhaps, why he had been selected for the trust. On a foggy night blindness is better than sight.
In walking down the staircase of the hotel Wilfrid had guided Alexis; in the street it became the turn of Alexis to guide Wilfrid. Linking Wilfrid’s arm within his own he walked forward with no more hesitation than an ordinary man would have shown in traversing the street in broad daylight. ”

“ Wilfrid was awed by his blessedness. There were times when he scarcely dared to take in his own that fine-moulded hand which was the symbol of life made perfect; Emily uttered thoughts which made him fear to profane her purity by his touch. She realised to the uttermost his ideal of womanhood, none the less so that it seemed no child would be born of her to trouble the exclusiveness of their love. ”

“ Nevertheless Wilfrid put before him, with Roman rhetoric and with uplifted hands, the story of our Lord, and Caedwalla, keeping his face set during all that recital, could not forbid this story to sink into the depths of his heart, where for many years it remained, and did no more than remain.
The kingdom of Sussex, cultivated by men of various kinds, received Wilfrid the Bishop wherever he went. ”

“ Helens became full of dismay, as he realised that Wilfrid was perfectly serious in his utterance. If Alexander were equally determined there was no power on earth to stay the duel; and since Wilfrid had no peer in swordsmanship, what but ill would befall the Czar in a mortal combat? In cooler moments Wilfrid might not wish to kill the Emperor, but in the hot excitement of the duel, when he saw before him the man who was persecuting the Princess with unwelcome attentions, there was no knowing what might happen, especially if Wilfrid’s anger should be aggravated by the smarting of a wound. ”