Trusia: A Princess of Krovitch

"I hope she's not dead," Carter said fervently as he bent over the unconscious girl. He beckoned to his chauffeur. "You can't catch her horse, Carrick. No use trying. Just hand me my flask."

As he forced the brandy through the pale lips he inwardly cursed his own lust for speed which had been the cause of the possibly fatal catastrophe.

Tempted by a bit of road, straight and smooth, full power had been put on in a feverish desire to interpose as much space as possible between the automobile and the Gray Man at the inn, repugnance for whom seethed in Carter's soul. As the touring car had neared a turn in the way, its two occupants had been horrified to see a spirited black horse, ridden by a beautiful girl, swing at a sharp gallop directly in their path. A rare presence of mind on Carrick's part had prompted an instant application of the brakes which had undoubtedly prevented a collision although it had very nearly hurled him and his companion from their seats. The steed for a fraction of a second had been petrified with fear. Then it had reared violently, thrown its rider, and panic-stricken, had turned and fled in the direction of its coming.

Carter, kneeling, gently placed the girl's head against his shoulder, while he passed an arm around her the better to support the relaxed body. He looked helplessly at the Cockney.

"Wasn't there some one with her?" he inquired, with the memory of a meteoric vision of another rider fleeing back along the road on a plunging, squealing steed.

"Yes, Mr. Carter, a young chap in uniform. 'Is 'oss bolted too, sir. 'E stuck on all right though. We've certainly 'ad a bad day for a start, don't you think, sir?"

Calvert did not answer; he was bending anxiously over the still face, praying for a sign of life. He was appalled by the girl's beauty and a twofold fear possessed him. He feared she was dead. Scarcely less than this, if fortunately she was alive, he dreaded the necessity that would require his laying desecrating masculine hands upon her for her better resuscitation.

"Is she dead, sir?" asked Carrick, bending above them as he noted Carter groping blindly for her pulse. "She looks like a queen," he added in a voice husky with the awe inspired by the marble stillness of her face.

Hesitatingly Carter's finger rested on her wrist. A lump leaped to his throat, he could have shouted with joy as he found that the pulse still stirred.

"She is not dead," he said in a voice vibrant with thanksgiving. His eyes sought the Cockney's for a responsive gleam of gratitude.

His trembling fingers awkwardly loosened the habit about the round white throat. The unavoidable contact with the satiny skin caused his head to whirl and his face to crimson. Finally controlling himself he began to watch patiently for the sign of returning consciousness. During the ages it appeared to take, he inventoried the beauty of the face, the perfect ensemble of which had impressed him as she rode into view.

A shapely little head of wavy black hair lay in the crook of his elbow. The loosened strands breeze-blown against his cheek seemed light as the sheen of a spider's craft. These waved to the rhythm of beauty above a low white forehead veined in an indefinite tint of blue. The eyebrows were fine and daintily arched. Black lashes long and up-curling swept the unexplainable curve of her cheek, at the present time apparently masking eyes too rare for the vision of man. The nose, thin and ever so slightly bridged, was an epitome of aristocracy.

The mouth, just beginning to quiver with reanimation, was curved in the curl of flowers in bud, and sweet and kind as the animate soul of a rose. A womanly chin turned, none could say where, into the matchless sweep and curve of the throat and breast, a glimpse of which he had had vouchsafed in such a breathless vision.

"Where's her hat, Carrick?" Carter asked, not because there was any immediate use for that article of apparel, but with the instinct of an orderly man to keep all things together. After a considerable search the chauffeur picked up something from the gutter by the side of the road and handed it to his master.

"This must be it, sir," he commented. It was a broad felt hat with one side of the brim looped up with a jewel a la cavalier while a fine black plume curled about it. For the first time, attracted doubtless by the head covering, Calvert noticed that the girl's was not the conventional costume one sees on equestriennes either in the Park or along the Row. Nevertheless the habit itself was elegantly plain.

Across from the right shoulder passing to the waist at the left was stretched a broad ribbon as red as war. A great jeweled star moved sluggishly upon it above her faintly struggling breast. The centre of the medal bore a lion rampant in blue enamel. On the beast's head was a royal crown. There was something suggestive about it which awakened his mind to grope tentacle-like for that of which it was reminiscent.

A startled exclamation from Carrick caused him to look up quickly. Fumbling nervously at his shirt with one hand, with the other the wide-eyed Cockney was pointing at the star.

"The guvnor's shiner," he exclaimed excitedly as he drew forth from the folds of his blouse a battered duplicate of the medal she wore.

Barring its condition attributable to time and rough usage it was similar in every respect.

Growing surmise as to its origin and Carrick's connection thereto were interrupted by a tearful incoherence on the part of the reviving girl. Her bosom heaved convulsively, her eyes opened wide and startled into life. She arose to a sitting posture glancing around as a child might who has been suddenly awakened from slumber. Carter still knelt at her side with ready arm for her support should weakness overtake her.

Like the sweep of rose light across a sunset land, the blush of recollection passed over her face, as the full details of the catastrophe came back to her and she recalled that, inevitably, this stranger had held her in his arms while he had performed services strictly feminine. Her eyes retreated behind the satin sheen of their lids. She struggled to her feet.

"Pardon, monsieur," she addressed him in the French of St. Germain. "Where is my gentleman? And my horses, where are they? Horses, hereabouts, are strangers to the automobile."

"Both have bolted, mademoiselle, doubtless for that very reason. I feel very guilty, I assure you. I hope and pray that you are not seriously hurt. I assure you that I would have given anything to have spared you that fall. Can you ever forgive me? Will you let me make amends?"

As one born of high places, she raised her eyes straight and frankly to his. Reading sincere regret and pain in the face of this handsome stranger, she smiled as she generously held out her hand.

"You are forgiven," she said graciously. "I am only a trifle shaken. Will you kindly take me to my castle in your car, as I do not wish my people to worry?"

Nothing could have more tactfully displaced Carter's self-censure than this expressed wish of hers. Seeing that she was still weak he gravely offered his arm for her support.

Lightly she placed her gauntleted hand upon his elbow, but soft as that touch was, no other woman had so thrilled him.

"To whom am I indebted, monsieur?" she asked with native curiosity.

"Calvert Carter, of New York, mademoiselle, is indebted to you for overlooking the accident he has caused."

"Mr. Carter," she added in delicious English, "the Duchess of Schallberg is grateful for your kindness. The question of indebtedness we will not pursue. It is not a good basis of friendship."

This was the Duchess of Schallberg; the possible aspirant to its throne?

"You – you are Trusia?" he stammered.

"I am the Lady Trusia," she corrected gently.

VI

THE GRAY MAN AGAIN

"Which wye?" asked Carrick who, having started the auto, kept his eyes steadily on the road in front of him and shot the question over his shoulder.

"Straight ahead. The lady is unconscious again."

This was true, for as they entered the car Carter had been just in time to catch the Lady Trusia in his arms as she toppled forward in a sudden return of the fainting spell.

"Why not back to the inn, sir?"

Carrick's suggestion betrayed that he shared his companion's concern for Her Grace of Schallberg.

"I'd rather not. We are not popular there and I feel present conditions would hardly increase their friendship. We'll try the castle. I fancy that's her home, anyhow."

He glanced up to where, distinctly outlined, its towers in the clouds, they beheld the grim structure, recognizable from its significant location as the one they had espied from the thither side of the forest.

"Where's the wye to it?" The chauffeur was puzzled, for straight before them the cliff ran perpendicular to the side of the road, without an apparent break. "Must be on the other side, sir, for blyme it's not on this."

"More speed then, Carrick. This faint promises to last awhile."

Carter bent over the unconscious Trusia, and, as he noted the powerful effort of her strong soul to beat off the paralysis of the senses, a thrill of tenderness shot through him.

For a man with Calvert Carter's strength of character to hold a beautiful girl in his arms it would be inevitable that a certain sense of ownership should subconsciously mingle with his thoughts of her. The germ of love may be discovered in propinquity.

Be that as it may, as the lax slender form in his arms set his heart beating wildly, he was tempted to crush her to his breast and to press his lips savagely, yearningly, upon her tender mouth. Then, in reaction, her helplessness appealed to him and aroused all the chivalry of his nature. For less than the space of a sigh the primitive savage within him had struggled with the gentleman, – and the gentleman had won. This very conflict with himself, however, had increased though it had chastened his desire. The more personal concern he now felt for her recovery was but another expression of the primal instinct dignified by discipline.

Meanwhile the touring car had been lurching forward with increasing acceleration for more than a quarter of a mile, when, surprising them agreeably, the cliff apparently opened, showing a narrow way cut through its face, leading directly up to the castle. Before the distant portal a group of horsemen could be seen making preparations for departure.

"Evidently a relief party. That riderless horse of hers must have returned and started an alarm."

"They see us, sir," said Carrick, who had brought the machine to a stop. "They're pulling up. It's a good thing, as there's barely room for me to run the car up, without their crowding the road."