Nobody had had any sleep at Castle Warnow excepting Frau von Wallbach. And even she had been repeatedly awakened or nearly so by strange noises of rolling and rattling, just as if she were at home in the Behrenstrasse and a dozen big parties were breaking up at the same moment, and an alarm of fire sounding between whiles. What could it have been? The maid who brought her chocolate to her bedside told her that it was the storm, which had been raging fearfully since her lady went to bed last night.
"How odd!" said Frau von Wallbach. "But why have you come in so early? I do not want to start before eleven."
"It is ten o'clock now, ma'am; it will be no lighter to-day."
"Of course not, if you do not open the shutters."
"They have not been shut, ma'am; we did not dare to do it even last night. One shutter has already been torn off by the wind, as I saw from the ground-floor window."
"How odd!" said Frau von Wallbach. "You have packed my things, I suppose?"
"Oh, certainly, ma'am; but we shall not be able to travel to-day. Herr Damberg has sent over to say that he is very sorry, but it can't be done; there is no knowing what may happen, and he must keep all his horses at the farm."
"Why, what could happen?"
"I don't know, ma'am, but they do say that it may be something very bad. If you would only get up, ma'am, and see for yourself. One would think the world was coming to an end. Every one is running about with pale faces, and I am dreadfully frightened, ma'am."
"It is very foolish of you. Is Fräulein von Wallbach up yet?"
"Yes, ma'am, she has already inquired after you twice."
"You may tell her that I can see her now. And then take my compliments to the Baroness, and ask her if she will be so kind as to lend me her horses to drive to Prora; I will come and see her myself as soon as I am dressed."
Carla came in just as Louisa was slipping on her dressing-gown. She was already dressed for the day, and Frau von Wallbach thought her looking very pale, with deep circles under her eyes. Carla assured her that this was only the dreadful light, and besides, she had not slept quite so well as usual; but this was certainly less the result of the storm than of the communication that the Count had made to her when he rode by yesterday evening; he had only remained five minutes, just long enough to tell her this delightful story in a few hasty words.
"What story?" asked Louisa, sipping her chocolate.
"The same story," said Carla, "which my sweet pet would not believe yesterday, but which she cannot help believing, now that the last interesting chapter has been partly played out in presence of Count Golm."
And Carla gave her, with all the additions and embellishments she considered necessary for her purpose, an account of the events at Wissow Head yesterday evening.
Frau von Wallbach meanwhile finished her second cup, which she usually took on the sofa, and leaned back.
"Well, what do you say?" asked Carla.
"What should I say," answered Frau von Wallbach, "since you prepared me for it yesterday? And I do not see either why you should pretend to be so very much astonished to-day. What does it signify after all to you or Golm? I should have thought you had both very good reason to be satisfied that things have turned out so. He could only marry one after all. It seems now that you will be the one."
"But what will Edward say?" cried Carla.
"I do not see what objection my husband can have. It seems to me rather, the more I think of it, that he only sent us here to settle it between you. Only I think it would have been more civil of him--and of you too, by the way--if you had told me so beforehand instead of leaving me in the dark; and I shall tell Edward so when we get home today."
Carla had sat down on the sofa by her sister-in-law, and was playing with one of the long ribbons of her dressing-gown.
"We, sweet pet?" said she. "I thought you meant to go home alone, pet?"
"And I think you are too foolish," answered Frau von Wallbach, "and I should be ashamed of myself in your place, only I suppose you are too much in love to know what you are talking about. How can you, now that you have come to an understanding with Golm, as you seem to have done--"
"But there is nothing decided between us!" cried Carla.
"It is all the same, besides--begging your pardon--I don't believe it. But no matter, you cannot remain another day as a guest in the house of Ottomar's aunt; it would be perfectly scandalous, and I will have nothing to do with it, and if you do not come with me--what's that?"
The remaining shutter closed noisily, and a pane of glass fell with a clatter into the room.
Carla jumped up with a scream of terror.
"Do you want us to travel in this weather?"
"If I can, so can you," said Frau von Wallbach; "and now have the goodness to get ready; we shall start in an hour at latest."
Fortunately for Carla, who did not know how to avert the threatened blow, the maid came back at this moment to say that the Baroness was very sorry that she could not oblige Frau von Wallbach; she was herself obliged to go out with Fräulein von Werben. But she had sent to inquire in the village; perhaps one of the peasants might provide horses, but it was not very likely.
"This is pleasant," said Frau von Wallbach, "I cannot go away on foot. Where are the ladies going?"
The maid smiled. She could not say for certain, but Fräulein von Werben's maid thought they might be going to Wissow.
"Very well," said Frau von Wallbach; "just see that that window is put right. I will go myself to the Baroness, she will excuse my déshabillé. Come with me, Carla!"
Carla would much rather not have gone, but Louisa was so intolerably determined today, that she must do all she could to coax her back into good humour. Besides, if, as now appeared probable, Louisa did not go away, she had at least the pleasant prospect of seeing the two other ladies out of the house, perhaps for the whole day. She could soon talk over Louisa into not putting any insurmountable obstacle in the way of the daring, delightful scheme which she had hastily concocted with the Count yesterday. And as to the important question of her own stay, there could hardly remain a doubt.
"But, my sweet pet," said she to her sister-in-law, as they passed along the corridor to the Baroness's room, "you would not do such a thing by me as to make any allusion to Count Golm in my presence? So long as they keep silence towards us, we really need not be the first to speak."
"I thought nothing had been decided between you," said Frau von Wallbach.
"All the more then," said Carla.
Valerie was alone when the two ladies came in, and already dressed for her drive. She, too, looked pale and tired, so much so that the good-natured Louisa exclaimed:
"You should go to bed again, my dear Baroness, instead of braving this storm, which really seems to be frightful. I will go with Elsa, that sort of thing does not hurt me; or, what would be the wisest thing, we will all stay here and keep you company, even if my company is not too amusing."
"Certainly," interposed Carla, "we will willingly remain with you, and pass this dull day sociably together."
Valerie, without seeming to see Carla, took Louisa's hand.
"Thank you for your kindness, dear Frau von Wallbach, but forgive me if notwithstanding I seem to slight the duties of hospitality. It can only be for a few hours, as I expect another visitor to-day, Signor Giraldi, with whom I have to speak of some most important business. He will be surprised and disappointed, therefore, at not finding me, and so I wanted to ask you to tell him that I have gone to Wissow with my niece, whose betrothed--of course you have heard of it all from Fräulein von Wallbach--is exposed to great danger in this fearful storm. We have waited until now for news, but in vain, as was natural under the circumstances; and have no hope of receiving any now, while we fear the worst, at least I do; for my dear niece is still trying to inspire me with courage, though hers must be inwardly failing her. Your kind heart can feel for me--for us, I am sure."
"Of course, of course!" said Frau von Wallbach, in whose good-natured eyes tears were standing; "go, my dear Baroness, and think no more of us; and as for your commission--when do you expect Signor Giraldi?"
"He ought to have been here the first thing this morning, but no doubt the violence of the storm has detained him; he may arrive at any moment."
"It is all the same to me," said Frau von Wallbach; "I will do the honours to him. The chief thing is that you should set off; and here comes dear Elsa."
She met Elsa, who now came in ready for her drive, with a warmth to which Elsa gratefully responded. It was a comfort to feel that all good hearts would be on the same side in this conflict which was threatening all around, and in which so many of the worst passions were let loose, so many sordid motives were mingling. And she could not help admiring the honesty with which this woman, whose insignificance had become a byword, declared herself on the side which she considered right in the decisive moment, even in Carla's presence, following the impulse of her own heart with no thought for anything further. What Carla might think of it, as she stood apart, trying to retain her usual company smile of civility, but not venturing, in spite of her boasted self-possession and presence of mind, to join in this painful scene by so much as a word, Elsa did not desire to know; she was glad when she was in the carriage with her aunt, and they had started.
It was unfortunately impossible to-day to choose the shorter road to Wissow. The fields and meadows along the shore, through which Elsa had passed the evening before, were too wet, the coachman said, in consequence of the torrents of rain which had been falling since last night. They saw traces of this as soon as they had left the comparatively higher ground on which the castle with the park and home farm were situated, and had reached the hollow which extended along the side of the chain of hills on which the village stood, and which joined at either end the plain. The wheels sank at once almost to the axles, although the road was well gravelled and was in general quite dry; and they had some trouble in getting through it though it extended for barely two hundred yards.
It was dreadful, said Herr Damberg, the farmer, who met them on their way to the village, and rode a little way back by the sides of the carriage; and one couldn't tell yet whether it might not get much worse, and if it would not be better to follow Captain Schmidt's advice, who had sent word all round the coast yesterday that there would be a frightfully high tide if the storm came up from the east, which might reach far inland, and measures should be taken to prepare for it. Well, the castle and the home farm lay high enough, unless things got worse than bad; but the hollow here, whose bottom was on the same level as, or even lower than the marshes, would at any rate be flooded, and then at Warnow they would be on an island. And a pleasant situation that would be, particularly as inland here they had got no boats, and nobody could tell how long this state of things might last. He was only glad that he had not signed the new agreement with the Count. The wheatfields and meadows there were all very well, but they could not yield enough to carry one through a calamity such as threatened now, and the consequences of which were not to be foretold, especially when rents were twice as high as they used to be.
"Ah! yes, my lady," said Herr Damberg, "your good husband was a just man. He thought of other people, and not of himself alone, like some other gentlemen. Well, my lady, I must go back now, and look after things at home, before they all lose their heads there. I hope your ladyship and the young lady will get safe to Wissow and back again, and tell the Captain that he had better keep some boats ready for us, as he may have work to do here before night."
The old man said this quite seriously, and then pulled his cap, which he had taken off, well down upon his forehead, set spurs to his horse, and rode down to the farm just as the carriage reached the first house in the village.
Here, too, the excitement, which to-day had roused the most sluggish, had taken hold of the people. Although they were themselves safe from the flood in case it came, with the exception of a few cottages at the foot of the hill, their comparatively lofty position had exposed them all the more to the ravages of the storm. Both thatched and tiled roofs had been partly or entirely destroyed, windows blown in, chimneys knocked down, hedges overthrown, branches had been broken off in quantities, and even the trees themselves blown down. On the little green before the inn-door, about the highest spot in the place, lay the great lime-tree, the pride of the village, torn up by the roots. It had only happened half an hour before, and it was fortunate that the three waggons which had come down from Jasmund, on their way to Prora, had not already stood where they were waiting now, at the inn-door, for if so horses and men must all have been killed. The men would not go any farther, said the landlord, who had come to the carriage-door; they were afraid that the waggon might be blown off the road in the storm. And indeed the Baroness had much better turn back too; for though the road to Wissow ran behind the hill for a part of the way, and so was to some extent protected, it might be very bad when they got round the point and down upon Wissow itself, where they would be fully exposed to the storm again.
"Oh, go on, go on!" cried Elsa.
She had indeed summoned up all her strength, so that no one who did not feel for her like Valerie could have guessed what was passing in her mind. But now, when the fury of the elements, from which she had been sheltered in the castle, broke upon her from all sides, and appeared to her by a thousand terrible signs; when she saw written upon so many faces, the terror which she, for her aunt's sake, had been hiding in her trembling heart, even her courage wavered, and she laid her head weeping upon her faithful friend's shoulder.
"Cry as much as you will, dear child," said Valerie kindly; "it will relieve your poor anxious heart. They are pure and gentle tears, and truly you need not be ashamed of them. You have struggled as not many could have done."
"But I had promised myself and him to be brave," sobbed Elsa; "and I always think he will find out if I am not, and then he will not be so strong himself as is required of him by his duty and by his own brave heart."
A wonderful smile flitted across Valerie's pale face.
"If all could rest as securely in their love and in their faith in those they love as you can do! Oh, Elsa, Elsa, how unspeakably happy you are in your sorrow!"
"I know it," said Elsa, "and am doubly ashamed of myself for burdening your poor heart with fresh cares for me."
"And for whom else should I care?" answered Valerie. "Certainly not for myself, I have told you all without losing your love; I want to carry your love with me to the grave, and so end my life joyfully, as a wild, fever-haunted night ends with a gentle morning dream. It might all be over then; for the day so passionately hoped for through the long, terrible years--the day when your father would say to me, 'Valerie, I have forgiven you,' will never come now."
"What if it were to-day?" said Elsa, taking her aunt's hand in hers. "Forgive me for what I have done without consulting you! As I sat by you last night, and the storm raged more and more furiously, I felt that I had over-calculated my strength, that I should have to leave you to-day to hasten to Reinhold, and that I ought not to leave you without sending for my father. I telegraphed to him early this morning; he will come, I am sure. But he cannot be here before the evening, and that is why, my dear aunt, I have let you accompany me. Everything fits in so well with this arrangement: that dreadful man has not come as we expected, and when we go home this evening, even if you go home alone, you will not have to meet him by yourself; you will have one by you who can and will protect you better than I could do. You are not angry with me, aunt?"
Valerie smiled through the tears which ran down her pale cheeks.
"I cannot be angry with my good angel! May you have been my good angel in this case also!--but I dare not hope it! Your father knows and respects justice alone; the gracious, redeeming power of mercy he does not know. I cannot but suppose that he despises it, and despises those who plead for mercy. My imploring letters, which I was forced amidst a thousand terrors to hide from spying eyes, as I hid the answers also, have never moved him. Cold and repelling was the look with which he met me after so long a lapse of time, which generally softens the sternest; cold and repelling the few words which he deigned to address to me, merely to tell me what was the first step I must take if there were to be peace between him and me. He did not see what you, my darling, perceived at the first glance, that I could not take this step as matters now stood--that without the help of some compassionate heart I never could take it. Oh, Elsa, Elsa! I will not blame your father, especially before you; but, Elsa, many things would have happened differently and more happily for me--for us all--for your father himself--if he had ever really understood that profound saying, that the proud will not enter the kingdom of heaven."
"But my father has been so kind to me," said Elsa, "although my attachment has so completely destroyed all his hopes for my future. And it was he, too, who made the first advance to Reinhold's proud uncle, so that it was not his fault certainly that Ottomar's affairs turned out so badly."
Valerie did not answer. She did not wish to tell her dear niece how very differently the matter appeared to her; how she believed, on the contrary, that it was just his father's intervention that had made Ottomar's union with Ferdinanda impossible; and that even his consent in Elsa's case was not the hearty approval of a loving father, but that of a man who unwillingly allows what he cannot prevent, without violating his highest principles of justice.
Elsa was silent also; her thoughts had flown forward in advance of the carriage, which seemed hardly to make any progress, in spite of all the efforts of their bold driver and powerful horses. They would have been even slower in their movements over the ill-made road, which in some places was almost destroyed by the rain, if the hill, along the side of which they were driving, had not broken the force of the gale. Two or three times only, on rising ground, they met its full power, and then it seemed almost a miracle that the whole equipage was not blown over.
Still it held firm, and so did the horses, who repeatedly had to stand still and stem the blast with the whole weight of their bodies. At such moments when they could see over the plain to the left, right down to the sea, the two ladies saw with terror, above the long waving line of the grey dunes from Golmberg to the point, another white line rising and falling, and here and there shooting up thirty or forty feet into the air, and falling upon the land in dense clouds. They knew that this was surf, the surf of that same sea whose waves generally rippled and splashed on the smooth sand, fifty or a hundred yards away from the foot of the dunes, as they had done on that rainy evening when Elsa stood there wrapped in her cloak, and the waving grasses on the edge of the dunes behind her seemed to entice her on farther to more delightful adventures.
Ah! her mind was no longer full of adventures! Whither had fled that bold and daring spirit which had thought it might defy fate? Whither the sunny cheerfulness which had then so filled her whole soul that that dark and rainy evening had seemed to her brighter than the brightest day! Whither, ah! whither, the joyous heart that knew nothing of love, nor wished to know anything excepting as the rose-scented, nightingale-haunted idea reflected back from the enchanted mirror of fancy and dreamland? Now the reality had come, in grim mockery of the bright fable of old! And yet--and yet! poor tormented heart, you would not resign it for Paradise, if you could not meet him there!
"And if I did not meet him again!"
She had exclaimed it aloud, horrified at the sight which presented itself to her, when having surmounted the line of hills which now descended from Wissow Head to the sea, Wissow itself lay below them. The little peninsula, which might be at the outside a mile long and about half as wide at the foot of the headland, looked with its small houses, as seen from the moderate elevation at which they were, like a narrow plank on which children had built their toy-houses, and had then set afloat in a brawling stream. The surf, which till now they had seen only from a distance, and always partly concealed by the dunes, here rose between the open sea and the little strip of sand like a great wall, whose upper edge, torn into zigzag lines, rose and fell, and rose again, and was driven in foam and froth over the grey sand and amongst the little houses.
And yet, strange as it seemed, these little houses on the grey sand could still afford safe shelter! But how could she hope that he would meet her on the threshold of one of them? That his boat would be one of the twenty or thirty vessels of all sizes which were rocking at anchor immediately below them, in the bay between the little peninsula and the mainland? He would be out beyond, beyond where, as far as the eye could reach, foaming waves towered above each other; beyond where sea and sky mingled in one terrible darkness, as if they had met together for the destruction of the world.
"There! There!"
But the words died on Elsa's trembling lips; the hand with which she had pointed seawards fell heavily beside her.
Valerie took the cold, rigid fingers:
"He will return, Elsa!"
But Elsa shook her head.
It was about four o'clock in the afternoon. Frau von Wallbach sat in the drawing-room, in her usual place by the fire, and stared at the flames, which, after many vain efforts, had at last been successfully kindled; and, notwithstanding the terrible uproar that raged round the castle, was on the point of forgetting her annoyance in a refreshing afternoon nap, when Signor Giraldi was announced, having only just arrived.
"He might as well have stayed away another hour," said Frau von Wallbach. "Well, it is all the same to me; let dinner be got ready for him, François, and then ask him to come here."
"Signor Giraldi particularly wishes to see you at once, ma'am."
"Very well; it is all the same to me today."
Frau von Wallbach had just time to turn her head towards the door as she leant back in her chair, when Giraldi entered. He was still in his travelling dress, having only thrown down his wet cloak in the hall; his black beard, which was usually so carefully arranged, was wild and dishevelled; his calm, dark eyes glowed with a lurid fire; his usually impassive face, that had seemed chiselled in yellow marble, was furrowed and agitated.
"Dear me, how strange you look!" said Frau von Wallbach.
"I must apologise," answered Giraldi; "but I have been travelling since last night, perpetually detained by the most provoking hindrances, and I arrive here at last to learn that the Baroness, with whom I have to talk upon the most important and urgent affairs, is not at home. You can imagine----"
"Do sit down," said Frau von Wallbach. "You make me quite nervous by standing about like that, and talking so quickly."
"I must apologise again," said Giraldi.
"Not at all. I only remained here to receive you, although I tell you fairly that I had rather not have done so."
"Then I will not take up another moment of your valuable time----"
"Do sit still, and don't make any speeches. I never make any, as you know, and am not at all inclined for them to-day. Oh yes, you may look at me as scornfully as you please. I dare say you think me, as other people do, half a child or a fool; but children and fools speak the truth, and the truth, my dear Signor Giraldi, is, that if you had not intermeddled and set everything at sixes and sevens, Carla would be Ottomar's wife by this time, and everything would be properly arranged, while now she is out in this dreadful weather--you must have met them I should think--riding with the Count, although I told her to the Count's face that it was scandalous, to say nothing of her catching her death of cold."
"You cannot possibly hold me responsible for the irresistible impulse which makes heart meet heart," answered Giraldi, with an attempt at his usual supremely ironical smile, which only resulted, however, in an evil grimace.
"Hearts!" said Frau von Wallbach; "stuff! The little heart that Carla ever had was Ottomar's, and no one else's; and there would have been quite enough for matrimony, at least I know some that have done very well with less. And as for the Count, good heavens! at first she was always telling me that he talked such nonsense, and my husband said so too, and old Countess Kniebreche and every one; and then you came and cried him up to the skies, and of course what you said must be true, and so you have got your own way so far. And why? because it suited you that Ottomar should not marry, but should continue his careless way of living, and get into all sorts of troubles and scrapes, and that you should have him in your power. And you have succeeded very nicely, as Carla would say. But I don't think it nice at all, but perfectly horrid of you; for Ottomar has always been pleasant and good-natured to me, and I like him a thousand times better than the Count; and if I had never respected Elsa before, I should now that I see she does not care one bit for the Count, but has declared honestly, as the Baroness told me and Carla this morning in Elsa's name, that she is going to marry her sailor, although it is rather a strange proceeding for a Fräulein von Werben; but that is her affair; and she has gone with the Baroness to see him at Wissow, or whatever the name of the place is, which is quite right, I think, under the circumstances. I was to tell you this, and that they would be back in a few hours; and now I will add a few words from myself. You think, perhaps, that you have done something very fine by upsetting Ottomar's and Carla's engagement; and I dare say you are not less pleased at Elsa losing her inheritance in this way, but you are very much mistaken. The Baroness and Elsa are one, heart and soul; and if Ottomar chooses to marry Captain Schmidt's cousin, the Baroness will have no objection, and she will make the brother and sister her heirs, whatever the trustees may say. If I were in her place I should do the same thing. And now here comes François to tell you, I suppose, that your dinner is ready. I wish you a good appetite."
Frau von Wallbach's last words were spoken without the least touch of sarcasm, in the same lazily comfortable way as the former ones, with her pretty head resting sideways against the back of her chair, and her eyes turned away from Giraldi and looking at the ceiling, as if it were all written up there and she were merely reading it off.
But not the most passionate warmth, nor the bitterest attack could have so upset the composure of the man who had sat before her gnawing his white lips, without interrupting her by a word, and who now rose to leave the room with a silent bow, as this imperturbable calmness and blunt sincerity affected him from a woman whom he had hitherto considered a nonentity, as the emptiest of all empty-headed dolls, and who now dared to tell him this to his very face; to unfold the web of intrigue which he had toiled so hard to spin with all the energy of his crafty mind, and to show him the gaps which his sharp eye had overlooked, his most watchful art had not succeeded in covering, and then calmly to tear it from top to bottom like some worn-out rag!
He had hardly entered the dining-room, where a place had been laid for him at one corner of the large table, before he gave free vent to the fury which had nearly choked him. He stamped, he swore, he tore his beard, like a madman, thought François, who handed him his soup as calmly as if monsieur's wild gestures had been a gymnastic exercise which every gentleman was in the habit of practising before sitting down to dinner after a fatiguing journey and a long drive.
"Why don't you speak?" shrieked Giraldi.
"I am waiting for monsieur's permission."
"Speak, then!"
"I have written all my observations to monsieur with such minuteness----"
"You have written nothing that was worth reading! You did not write me one word about the intimacy that has sprung up between madame and her niece, and which you must have seen if you had eyes in your head. You are either a fool or a traitor."
"I am unfortunate----"
"Don't let me hear any of your confounded long words! I have no time for them. What else do you know?"
"Besides what I told monsieur on his arrival, I know absolutely nothing of importance. Ah! by-the-bye, I had almost forgotten that!"
François slapped his forehead suddenly. He had not forgotten it for a moment; he had been considering all the time that monsieur was in the drawing-room with Frau von Wallbach, whether he should say it or not. He could not speak without betraying madame as he had betrayed monsieur, but for what purpose take money from both if not to betray both? So far everything had gone on well; all he had to consider was that each step to right or left should be well paid; and if he were not greatly deceived, now was the moment to take another step on monsieur's side.
"Will you speak?" cried Giraldi, shaking his fist at him.
"I have forgotten it after all," said Francois, looking with impudent coolness into Giraldi's face, that was white with passion.
Giraldi dropped his arms,
"How much?" he ejaculated.
"I cannot do it cheaply, monsieur. The matter, in case I can recollect it, is one of the utmost importance for monsieur, and as madame has been lately so extraordinarily kind to me, and has given me, through Madame Feldner, so many sterling proofs of her kindness, and monsieur will of course not trust me in future, but this will undoubtedly be the last service which I shall render monsieur----"
"How much!" shrieked Giraldi.
"Ten thousand francs, monsieur."
Giraldi pulled out a pocket-book from which he took a handful of bank-notes, and threw them on the table.
"Count them!"
"There are three thousand thalers, monsieur."
"Take them and speak!"
François smoothed the notes carefully, put them no less carefully into one side of his pocket-book, and said, as he took a paper from the other side:
"Monsieur's generosity is adorable, as usual. I should be most deeply ashamed if I were not convinced that monsieur would take this as a fully sufficient equivalent."
And, with a low bow, he handed Giraldi the paper--a copy of Elsa's telegram to her father.
François had hoped that the terror which must now be painted on monsieur's expressive face would produce an interesting variety in the scene; but he flattered himself in vain. Monsieur, who had been trembling all over with rage and fury, and who had gesticulated and raved like a madman, now stood, after glancing in his own rapid fashion over the paper, looking as calm and composed as François had ever yet seen him; and asked, in his usual low inquiring voice:
"When and where was this sent out?"
"This morning, at five o'clock, from Prora, by a man on horseback, whom I sent myself, after I had taken a copy of the open note."
"Then your news is not worth a farthing. The telegraphic communication between Berlin and Sundin has been interrupted since four o'clock this morning."
"Just so, monsieur. That was what the clerk said who received the telegram, after he had inquired at Sundin and received the answer that he might telegraph through Grünwald; there might be some chance there. Inquiry made at Grünwald. Reply, 'Yes, and on through Stettin.' The messenger, an old trustworthy servant, one of the late Herr von Warnow's, monsieur, took note of everything, and reported it all to mademoiselle in my presence, adding that according to the clerk's report the telegram would reach Berlin rather late, but certainly in the course of the morning."
"In your presence, do you say? How came that?"
François shrugged his shoulders.
"Mademoiselle knows how to appreciate my knowledge in such matters--an old courier, monsieur! To speak the truth, I had myself given the messenger the necessary instructions."
"Why were you not sent?"
François smiled.
"The night was very stormy, monsieur; I am not fond of roughing it. I said I could not ride, and did not know the way."
"But you can ride, and you know the way to Wissow?"
François bowed.
"How far is it, to ride?"
"If one rides fast, one may do it in half an hour."
"Even through the storm?"
"I think so, monsieur."
"And how long would the ladies be, driving?"
"Like the rider, they must take the longest road over the hill and through the villages, monsieur; that could not take less than an hour, monsieur."
Giraldi had taken out his watch and was making a calculation. He put back the watch.
"It is just twenty minutes past four. You must be ready in ten minutes, at latest, to take a letter from me to madame at Wissow."
"Impossible, monsieur; even this morning, at eleven o'clock, Frau von Wallbach, who was bent upon going away, could not get horses; nobody will supply them, monsieur."
"There are the horses which brought me."
"Impossible, monsieur; I saw them, and they are quite exhausted. It must be a good, fresh horse, monsieur, a riding horse. There are none such in the stable."
"You can find one if I give you another thousand thalers in case madame is back at the castle before six o'clock."
"Two thousand, monsieur."
"Good. And now, paper and ink--quick!"
François brought the required materials in a moment from the next room, and Giraldi was already writing at the table beside his untouched dinner, when François left the dining-room to prepare to earn the second sum, if possible, of which he had serious doubts.
Giraldi wrote:
"Your drive to Wissow is a subterfuge or a flight. I forgive your vacillation, even your desertion, which can only be a passing error, for the sake of the love which you bear me, and which I bear you. And if your love is extinct (mine is not!) the accompanying letter, which I copy for you (the original, which I cannot trust to the messenger, I retain in my own hands), will awake new flames from the ashes, as he has awoke to life for us, in whose death I could never believe. And as my faith was the stronger, so am I in all things stronger, and would make unrestrained and pitiless use of that strength, no longer for myself, but for our son. You know me, Valerie! As the clock strikes six, I leave the castle for ever, with the Warnow property, which I carry about me to the last thaler, and which now belongs to mother and son, or to the son alone if it should appear that he has no mother. But it cannot, it will not be. I implore to this end the most holy, the sorrow-laden Mother of God. She who bore all the pangs of maternity will guide a mother's heart!
"Giraldi.
"Warnow. Half-past four in the afternoon."
He took a letter from his pocket, which he had received last night when he got home from Philip's party, and had first found time to read in the waiting-room at the railway station, and wrote, with a hand that flew like lightning over the paper:
"With failing hands, and eyes darkened by the shadow of death, I write this: Antonio Michele is your son. A very aged woman in Arsoli, who has been known since she suddenly appeared in this place, seven and twenty years ago, under the name of Antonia Falcone, but whose real name is Barbara Cecutti, and who was the mother of that Lazzaro who carried off your child from Pœstum, confessed this to me yesterday on her death-bed. She was found by the woman Michele in a ravine of the hills above Tivoli, on the verge of starvation, the stolen child beside her almost at the last gasp too, the wounded Lazzaro having breathed his last an hour before, during their flight. The woman Michele took pity upon these unfortunate creatures; the two women swore, on the Host, the one never to say that she had received the child from Barbara, and the other that she had given him to the Michele, so that Barbara might wear out the end of her life undisturbed by the police, and that Father Michele might make no inquiries after the parents of the child, whom his wife pretended to have found on the hills, exposed, like Moses on the shores of the Nile, by a poor girl whom she knew well, but whose name she would not mention. She had never had any children herself, though she had longed for them, and would not part with this one at any price. She carried her secret with her to the grave. Barbara Cecutti also is now no more; and you, my dear sir, receive this legacy from the dead at the hand of a dying man. The ways of God are wonderful! Let us praise His mercies! Amen!
"Ambrosio."
"Dear Sir,
"From the hand of a dying man, indeed! Our good brother Ambrosio--but just returned from his charitable mission--has this night departed, let us hope, into eternal blessedness, as no purgatory can be needed for him who was a saint on earth, I send you his bequest, and beg you to transfer to my poor convent the expression of your gratitude for the happy tidings which the grace of God has permitted you to receive by means of our brother who is now with Him.
"The Prior of the Convent of
"S. Michele at Tivoli,
"Eugenio."
Giraldi had just written the last word as the door flew open, admitting François, who wore a long cloak, below which appeared a pair of riding-boots. As he entered he exclaimed:
"Really, monsieur, I am ashamed to have doubted for an instant the luck of such a man! As I went into the courtyard, the Count's groom galloped in, who had been sent back to fetch a pocket-handkerchief which mademoiselle had forgotten! If it had only been an umbrella! In fact, monsieur, they wanted to get rid of the man; we shall hear nothing of either of them before to-morrow morning, you may take my word for it. I know the style of thing! I explained this to the man after a fashion, and he will let me have his horse. He says that neither man nor devil shall drive him out into this storm again."
"You must remain in my service, François," said Giraldi, laying his hand on the impudent fellow's shoulder. "And now--don't spare the horse."
"Monsieur may depend upon me!" answered François, putting the letter in safety. "Au revoir, monsieur!"
François hastened away, and Giraldi went to the deep bow-window which overlooked the courtyard, and watched while he mounted the handsome beast, whose bridle the groom was holding, and, waving his hand towards the window, galloped out of the yard.
Giraldi went back to the table and broke off a piece of bread, which he washed down with the glass of wine that François had poured out for him. Then he began slowly to walk up and down the great room with his arms folded across his chest.
How could he have allowed himself to be so carried away by his passion just now? What had happened for which he might not have been prepared--for which, in fact, he had not been long prepared? The weather was to blame for the disturbance of his nerves--weather only fit for northern barbarians and those in league with them! It could only have been some unfriendly demon which in the morning twilight had driven the little steamer, that was to have brought him over to the island from Sundin, against a rudderless drifting wreck, and so had forced it to turn back; an unfriendly demon who forbade the rude sailors to take his money and to venture the passage in an open boat, till at last, at half-past eleven, the steamer was repaired, and then took an hour to do the distance--half a nautical mile! Fiend against fiend! Gregorio Giraldi was the stronger. If the telegram had really reached the General at Berlin in proper time--if he left Berlin by the eleven o'clock train, he could not be at Sundin before three o'clock, or at Warnow before six. An hour! Kingdoms had been lost and won in an hour; and everything, everything else was on his side: Ottomar irretrievably entangled in the net which he had cast over him, and already at deadly feud with Wallbach, whose giddy sister was now in love with the Count, to say nothing else! the proud Elsa betrothed to a man of low degree, paying for her love with her inheritance!--the course clear from all obstacles, and at its goal the rich treasures, the great estates, which now fell to Valerie by law, and which she must leave absolutely to her own son, who had risen from the dead--that is to say, she must leave them to himself! Could she choose to do otherwise? Did any choice remain to her? Must she not submit whether she would or no? And if she wavered--one minute only alone with him--here in this room, in which so often they had in fancy stood together, which she had so minutely described to him that he knew every piece of furniture, every picture on the wall--this especially, the portrait of the man from whose arms he had scornfully torn her, that some day his picture might hang here--the portrait of the new lord, who would pull down this barbaric edifice and build a new castle--the new lord!
He stood before the picture, and looked at it with an evil smile.
"You were the last of your race, with your narrow forehead and the broad ribbon of some high order over your cold heart! and now you are mouldering in the tomb of your ancestors! And he, whom in life you could not vie with, stands still alive here, in his undiminished strength--the peasant's son, who will now be the founder of a race of princes for whom even the chair of St. Peter shall not be too high!"
A shock like that of an earthquake struck the castle. The windows rattled, the doors flew open and banged to again. The picture, to which he was looking up, and which had hung from its rusty nail for a generation past, shook and fell, so that the mouldered frame broke into fragments, and the picture itself, after standing upright for a moment, fell forward under his feet.
He sprang back.
"Do you still move, accursed dust? Down into hell to his accursed soul!"
And, as if in answer to the master's voice, from the depths of hell to which he had called, howls and yells resounded round Castle Warnow.