The Baroness de Simonie bounded like a tigress through the room, tearing at the bell till it sounded like a tocsin and the servants came rushing in terror from the anteroom.

“My carriage—­it must be ready in five minutes!” she cried.  The servants ran out and Leonore darted across the room, tore open the door of the adjoining chamber, opened a wardrobe in frantic haste, and dragged out a cloak, which she flung over her shoulders.

“In heaven’s name, Leonore, are you out of your senses?” asked her father, who had hurried after her and now seized her arm.  “What do you mean to do?  Where are you going?”

“To the Emperor Napoleon!” she cried loudly.  “To the Emperor Napoleon, to save the life of the man I love.  Give me the money, father!”

“What money, Leonore?”

“The bank-notes!  The blood-money which I have earned!”

Her father had carefully gathered up the bank-bills which she had thrown about the room, and gave them to her.  Leonore shuddered as she clenched them in her trembling hands.  “I have sold him,” she shrieked, raising the hand that held the papers toward heaven.  “His blood clings to this money.  But I will hurl it at the emperor’s feet.  I want no pay; I will beg his life for my recompense.  Pray father, pray that he may hear me, may grant me mercy, for I swear by all that is sacred, if Kolbielsky must die, I will kill his murderers.  And his murderers are—­you and I!”

“The carriage is at the door,” said a servant, entering.

She sprang forward.  “I am coming.  Pray, father, pray for mercy upon my loved one’s murderers!”

CHAPTER VIII.

PARDON.

Four days had elapsed since the execution at Schoenbrunn.  Baron von Kolbielsky had been forced to attend it and was then conveyed to Vienna to spend dreary, lonely days at the police station in the Krebsgasse.

He had vainly asked at least to be led before his judges to receive his sentence.  The jailer, to whom Kolbielsky uttered these requests whenever he entered, always replied merely with a silent shrug of the shoulders, and went away as mute as he had come.

But yesterday, late in the evening, he had entered, accompanied by the Chief Commissioner Goehausen, two magistrates, and a clergyman.  With a solemn, immovable official countenance Commissioner Goehausen opened the document which his subordinate handed to him, and, in a loud voice, read its contents.  It was a sentence of death.  The death-sentence of Baron Friedrich Carl Glare von Kolbielsky “on account of sympathy and complicity in a murderous assault upon the sacred life of his annointed imperial ally and friend, Napoleon, emperor of the French."[F] Early the following morning, at dawn, Baron Friedrich Carl Glare von Kolbielsky must be shot at Schoenbrunn.

Kolbielsky had listened to this death-warrant with immovable composure—­no word, no entreaty for pardon escaped his lips.  But he requested the priest, who desired to remain to pray with him and receive his confession, to leave him.