Loyalty to Rupert urged that he should follow him and share the perils into which his cousin was hastening.

But caution whispered that he was not irrevocably committed, that nothing overt yet connected him with Rupert's schemes, and that we who knew the truth should be well content to purchase his silence as to the trick we had played by granting him immunity.

His fears won the day, and, like the irresolute man he was, he determined to wait in Strelsau till he heard the issue of the meeting at the lodge.

If Rupert were disposed of there, he had something to offer us in return for peace; if his cousin escaped, he would be in the Konigstrasse, prepared to second the further plans of the desperate adventurer.

In any event his skin was safe, and I presume to think that this weighed a little with him; for excuse he had the wound which Bernenstein had given him, and which rendered his right arm entirely useless; had he gone then, he would have been a most inefficient ally.
Of all this we, as we rode through the forest, knew nothing.