Four weeks had passed since the arrival of the strangers at the inn at Tausens; every day, favoured by the clear summer skies, they had made delightful excursions among the mountains, and still no one talked of leaving; Uncle Balthasar indeed, instigated thereto by Aunt Minni, who, in spite of her comfortable quarters, missed the luxuries of the villa in K----, had once or twice asked his niece how long she intended to stay at Tausens, but he had received no decided answer. The kindly old man, seeing how his pet was enjoying herself, would have been the last to wish to cut short her enjoyment, even had he not been so thoroughly at his ease as he was. For his own part he declared he never had been so much entertained as in the agreeable society in which he now found himself. Every evening the party at the inn was joined by the cousins from the castle, and by the judge, the forester, and the collector from the village, and Uncle Balthasar was in his glory. Also he spent as much time as he could with 'dear Guido,' only regretting that his favourite was not duly appreciated by the rest of the party. He gladly accompanied him upon his walks from time to time, never dreaming that the former dragoon's only reason for desiring his society was the hope that he entertained of gaining some certainty as to his future prospects from the old man's artless talk of Eva and her relations with Delmar and Leo.
In fact, poor Uncle Balthasar was deeply grieved that Delmar, Herwarth, and Leo should treat Bertram with such haughty reserve, and that Eva did not comport herself towards her lover as a girl should, but showed a decided preference for the strangers. The kindly soul therefore took care that Bertram should always have a place at the breakfast-table which made it possible for him to avoid all necessity of speaking with Delmar or Herwarth.
Such a seat Uncle Balthasar had provided, between himself and Aunt Minni, for his 'dear Guido' on a certain clear, rather cool morning in August, when the party had assembled upon the balcony at the Post. It was rather late, nearly nine o'clock; there was to be no long walk to-day, because the young people had made so distant an excursion the day before. Leo and Hilda had not come down from the castle, but had invited Eva and Delmar, with Herwarth and his betrothed, to spend the day with them in the castle garden and in seeing all that there was of interest within the old walls.
Conversation did not flow as easily as usual this morning. Herwarth and Aline talked, it is true, but Delmar sat gazing dreamily abroad over the valley, and Eva rarely spoke.
Paul had lately lost much of his former vivacity; he sometimes had no power to rouse himself and conquer his depression, and would sink into a revery, from which he awakened only when he observed Hilda regarding him with a look of trouble on her lovely face. Then perhaps for a while he would be as merry as ever, although this would not last long. He would leave the rest, lagging behind upon some side-path if they were walking, or absenting himself upon some slight pretext from the party on the balcony.
After a month of hard struggle Paul at last confronted a crisis in his fate. The goal which he lived to attain was reached. Between Leo and Eva there was now only the promise given by the latter to Bertram. The heart of each was laid bare to the other. It was in Paul's power to remove the obstacle that separated the lovers. Why did he hesitate to pronounce the word that would avail to do so? He excused this to himself by urging that he must first keep the promise given to Leo, whereby he was pledged to learn all that could be known of his past from Dr. Putzer. He did not confess even to himself that he dreaded keeping this promise; that he shuddered when he received from Dr. Atzinger, who was in constant attendance upon the sick man, daily intelligence of the slow improvement in his patient's condition; that his heart had throbbed fast when he heard that Putzer would soon be in complete possession of his faculties and able to receive Delmar's visit; and that on this very morning, as he sat silent at the breakfast-table, he was lost in gloomy reflection because Dr. Atzinger had reported on the previous day that he hoped on the ensuing morning to allow Delmar the long-talked-of interview with the sick man.
This visit Delmar was now anticipating with harrowing anxiety. In the sleepless night he had passed he had reviewed in detail every circumstance of the last few weeks. Four weeks since death would have been welcome to him, in view of the horrible certainty that Hilda was legally his sister, although bound to him by no natural tie; all that had given life an interest to him then had been the hope of insuring his friend's happiness; he thought this hope now upon the point of fulfilment, and yet a possible death seemed to him far from welcome now.
What had produced this change in the last month? Was his conviction that Hilda was legally his half-sister shaken? No, on the contrary it had been confirmed; after his conversation with Leo he had written to a prominent lawyer in K----, instructing him to make every possible inquiry as to Herr Delmar's place of abode and family circumstances before he had come to reside in K----; placing at his disposal the means for making these investigations thorough at any cost. The result had been such as to remove all doubt in Paul's mind, had any such existed, as to his relationship with Hilda.
The lawyer had established the fact that Paul Delmar, the son of Herr Delmar, had died a few days after his mother,--there were official records of this,--and also that Herr Delmar had established himself in K---- shortly after leaving his native place. He had brought to K---- with him a child, whose certificate of birth and baptism as his son Paul had been shown to the proper authorities. Of course, as the lawyer wrote, the fact that Herr Delmar had produced an adopted son as his own could be proved beyond a doubt; but this would never be done unless by Herr Paul Delmar's desire.
After this intelligence from his lawyer, Paul needed no confirmation from Dr. Putzer of his relation to Herr von Heydeck, but nevertheless he was determined to obtain it. Towards ten o'clock Dr. Atzinger made his appearance, and announced that his patient had exceeded his expectations by himself earnestly entreating that Herr Delmar would visit him.
When Paul heard this he sprang up from the breakfast-table and would have hurried away, when suddenly his glance fell upon Bertram, who was observing him narrowly. The thought instantly occurred to him that after this interview with Dr. Putzer he might not be able to endure another twenty-four hours in the society of his friends. Therefore before seeing the sick man Eva must be released from her bondage.
He stood reflecting for a moment, and then turning to Herwarth, Aline, and Eva, he begged them not to delay their visit to the castle upon his account; he should in all probability shortly follow them, although he might be detained longer than he anticipated by Dr. Putzer. Eva's offer to wait for him he decidedly refused to accept; and only when they had all promised to set off without him did he turn to Bertram, saying, "Before I see Dr. Putzer, Herr von Bertram, you will perhaps grant me the pleasure of fifteen minutes' conversation with you. Shall we walk?"
Certainly no invitation could have been more suavely and courteously expressed, and yet Bertram's face grew ashy pale, and his heart sank within him as he bowed and stammered a few words of assent to Delmar's proposal.
As soon as Paul had requested Dr. Atzinger to await him at Dr. Putzer's, he left the balcony and led the way, Bertram following, to the village street, where first he moderated his pace, that the ex-lieutenant might walk beside him.
"Do you know, Herr von Bertram, why I have thus requested your company?" he began.
"Indeed--Herr Delmar--I cannot conceive----"
A look of contempt from Delmar greeted these stammered words of denial. "Your embarrassment assures me that you are perfectly aware of what I wish to discuss," Paul continued. "I will therefore come to the point at once. Your unnatural relations with Fräulein Eva Schommer must cease this very day,--this very hour!"
"Herr Delmar----"
"Do not interrupt me. Experience must have taught you that when I speak I mean what I say. For the last four weeks I have watched Fräulein Schommer narrowly; there is no need to tell you that your betrothed abhors you, that she loves my friend, Leo von Heydeck, with all her soul, and that nothing but her inexorable sense of right withholds her from retracting the promise by which she bound herself to you. You know all this as well as I do. If you were a man of honour, such knowledge would suffice to induce you voluntarily to renounce----"
"Herr Delmar, you insult me! Remember your promise!"
"I promised you nothing, and I cannot conceive how the mention of a fact of which you are perfectly cognizant can insult you; but we will not quarrel about words. The fact is that you do not voluntarily dissolve an engagement which you never should have contracted, and that you thus force me to make use of the power over you which I possess. Listen then to a brief declaration of my intentions. Either you will, in order to preserve at least the semblance of honour, make known to Fräulein Schommer in a letter that you release her from her promise, that you voluntarily dissolve the engagement between you, after which you will instantly leave Tausens, so that all further explanation may be impossible, or Fräulein Schommer shall learn from me what reasons moved you to make your public apology to Leo von Heydeck, and I will present in K----, to be cashed, a certain forged check.
"If you do as I require I am ready to hand over to you a sum of five thousand thalers as soon as your letter is sent to Fräulein Schommer. If you refuse, you will be expelled this very day from our circle, where there is really no room for a detected forger. Make your choice!"
Guido trembled with futile rage while Delmar went on speaking with calm decision. Had he only been alone with his foe, he would have throttled him. But they were walking along the village street, the observed of many eyes. Bertram knew that he was in his enemy's power, and he knew Delmar, and that his was no vain threat. He dared not make any resistance; he only hoped to gain time. He thought of the ebony casket, and of Nanette. If Delmar would only grant him a little time, a few days, he might bring the maid over to assist in his plans, now that she was daily yielding more and more to his influence. Therefore he suppressed all expression of anger; nothing could be wrung from this man by opposition; submission and entreaty must be tried.
"You are fearfully hard upon me, Herr Delmar," he said, with feigned humility. "Was it magnanimous to leave me so long in torment between fear and hope? I implore you to give me a few days in which to prepare myself for the step you demand of me. I will speak with my betrothed, and will entreat her to tell me frankly whether indeed she cannot look for happiness in a life spent by my side. And if, as I fear she will, she tells me that she cannot, that she can only give me her hand without her heart, and that her promise alone binds her to me, then I can fulfil your desire honourably, Herr Delmar. Why, after keeping me waiting for weeks without pronouncing judgment against me, do you suddenly insist upon handing me over to disgrace? Only give me a few days' respite, and I promise to do your bidding."
Paul's eyes gloomily sought the ground. A word of entreaty always had great weight with him; it was only where he met with resistance that he was hard. True humility and docility were sure to disarm him. Earnestly as he wished that Leo's fate should be decided, much as he desired to be at liberty to do as he pleased, it is more than probable that he would have yielded to Bertram's entreaty if a suspicion had not suddenly dawned upon him that the man meant to play him false. Why should he desire an interview with Eva? Did he hope to induce the wealthy heiress to buy her freedom from him? Such a scheme might well be attributed to the scoundrel, and Paul was convinced that Eva would be ready to sacrifice her entire fortune if by so doing the detested tie might be severed. The sudden suspicion steeled him against Bertram's entreaty, and he replied, "Not a day, not an hour, will I give you; you must decide upon the spot!"
One look into Delmar's calm, resolute face convinced Bertram that he had no respite, however short, to expect; he still might perhaps succeed in moving him in another respect, and with a profound sigh he continued: "You are terribly severe and cruel with me, Herr Delmar. How have I deserved such scant mercy at your hands? In a miserable moment of my life, a prey to despair, I was led to invoke destruction upon my head by that stroke of the pen. I was half frantic. I had to choose between disgrace and death by my own hand. Love of life conquered, and I forged that signature, an act which I have repented bitterly ever since. You then saved me from merited disgrace, for which I was inexpressibly grateful to you. I felt the wrong I had done you in handing you the forged check, and I was never without a sense of devotion to you as my saviour from dishonour. And yet you are now the one to invoke disgrace upon my head. Remember how you have punished me already. You forced me to public dishonour among my comrades, to resign from the army, to destroy all my hopes in life, and now you thrust me into the abyss from which a marriage with Eva would save me.
"You are enormously wealthy, and you know nothing of the misery of poverty; therefore you thrust me forth into the world with a paltry pittance of five thousand thalers. You offer me five thousand thalers as indemnification for what you take from me! Can five thousand thalers begin life afresh for me and worthily support the name I bear? Can I even live for a few short years upon such a sum? Be magnanimous, Herr Delmar, and let me have, not as a gift but as a loan, a sum sufficient to buy an estate upon the income of which I can live as a landed proprietor, and in time repay you. You will not miss it, and I shall be forever grateful to you."
With inexpressible contempt Paul regarded the speaker who thus in his servile entreaty for money laid bare all the meanness of his sordid soul. He would gladly have paid any sum to secure Leo's happiness, but to supply this aristocratic beggar with the means for a life of dissipation would in his estimation be a sin against humanity. Utterly disgusted, he turned away; he would have nothing more to do with the fellow. "Not a word more, Herr von Bertram!" he exclaimed, harshly; "you have heard my offer, which I now almost regret having made; you must now decide whether to accept or to reject it. You would squander fifty thousand thalers as quickly as five thousand at the gaming-table. I know that I was wrong in offering you money. But I did so, and will stand by my word, if you declare yourself ready this minute to do as I command you. The time which I was free to devote to you is past. I must have a simple 'yes' or 'no'! Answer me!"
"I implore you, Herr Delmar----"
"'Yes' or 'no'! Not another word! If you do not reply, I shall understand it as 'no,' and you must abide by the consequences."
Not yet could Bertram bring himself to utter the decisive 'yes.' He still hesitated, but Paul left him no time for further reflection. When Bertram paused he turned from him with contempt, and would have returned to the inn. His firmness conquered.
Bertram saw that all would be lost, and the promised five thousand thalers besides, if he did not instantly submit. He hastened after Delmar. "Yes, Herr Delmar!" he exclaimed, "I submit to your wishes; I confide in your magnanimity!"
"You have made prudent use of the last moment," Paul rejoined coldly; "follow me to my room."
Again he led the way, Bertram following him. At the door of the inn they met Aline, Eva, and Herwarth about to start for the castle. "I will soon join you," Paul said, as he passed them. Bertram never lifted his eyes from the ground, and they did not appear to notice him.
Arrived in his room, Delmar directed Bertram to his writing-table. "Sit there," he said; "take a sheet of paper, and write. I will dictate to you a letter that shall serve as the last chapter of the miserable romance of your betrothal. You shall extricate yourself from this wretched business as a man of honour; at least you shall appear such in Fräulein Schommer's eyes. It is of course more than you deserve, and is probably great folly on my part; it is not done for your sake, but because I owe some reparation to Fräulein Schommer for a former unjust estimate of her, and I should like to save her from the humiliating conviction that she has been betrothed to so utter a scoundrel as yourself. Therefore I will surround your brow with the halo of high-souled renunciation. Write!"
Bertram bit his lips, not daring to vent the rage that was consuming him. Without a word of reply he took up a pen, and wrote down the words which Delmar, standing behind him, dictated over his shoulder.
"Four terrible, agonizing weeks have I passed, weeks in which each day was torture to me. With every miserable hour I have become more and more clearly convinced that you, dearest Eva, have accorded me a right to remain near you as your betrothed only in consequence of a promise too hastily given. I have seen that your heart belongs to another, and that it never can be mine.
"I do not blame you; I only bewail the ill fortune that shatters all my life's fairest hopes. I should be indeed lost to all sense of honour if I attempted to hold you, my beloved Eva, to a promise given me when you were ignorant of your own heart. You, at least, shall not be unhappy. I give back to you the faith which your inexorable sense of rectitude forbids you to recall. I voluntarily release you from your engagement.
"I shall not, I cannot, see you again. It is with the deepest pain that I leave you, but there is some consolation for me in the thought that you will not think of me with hatred, but will accord me some measure of friendly remembrance in the knowledge that I have sacrificed my happiness to yours.
"Guido von Bertram."
The letter was written. Paul took it, and read it aloud, laughing bitterly as he finished it. "Excellent!" he said; "an epistle which might worthily find a place in any romance, and which is certainly not dear at five thousand thalers. Uncle Balthasar may still speak with genuine emotion of his 'dear Guido;' the fair Eva may think kindly of the noble self-renunciation that inspired the letter, and perhaps privately repent that she did the writer such injustice. Even Leo will shake his head, unable to conceive how such words could have been written by him who penned them. Seal it with your signet-ring, and I myself will deliver it to Fräulein Schommer."
Bertram obeyed in silence. He sealed the letter and gave it to Delmar, who in return took from his pocket-book five thousand thalers in large notes, which he handed to the ex-lieutenant, saying, "Our business is now concluded, Herr von Bertram. I leave you, never to see you again. I myself will order a carriage for you from the postmaster. It will be at the door in five minutes; just in time for you to catch the midday train from the railway-station. In a quarter of an hour you will have left Tausens. Only upon this understanding; do I give you this money. I shall reclaim it if I find you still here when I return from a visit I am about to make in the village. And if you should dare to attempt to obtain an interview with Fräulein Schommer, I shall ruthlessly use against you the forged check in my possession. Make haste with the packing of your portmanteau; you have but a quarter of an hour's time at the most."
Delmar expected no answer, and received none. Bertram swept up the pile of notes, and with a last look of hatred as his only farewell to Paul, hurried away to his room, where he locked himself in, while Delmar quietly went down-stairs and ordered Hansel to have a conveyance brought to the door for Herr von Bertram, who wished to catch the midday train. After which he proceeded to pay his visit to Dr. Putzer.
When Bertram found himself alone in his room, he no longer restrained the expression of the rage that possessed him. Muttering curses upon the failure of his schemes, he paced the floor like some caged wild beast. All was over! He was powerless in the grasp of his deadly foe; thrust forth thus into the world with a paltry pittance of five thousand thalers to atone for the millions he had lost.
How gladly he would have murdered his pitiless, inexorable enemy! But even in the midst of his paroxysm of anger he shuddered at the thought of Delmar's cold, quiet manner, which always had power to overawe his coward will.
His fate was decided; he must submit. The ebony casket again recurred to him. Just then there was a rustle in the next room. Eva and Aline had gone to the castle. Nanette must be there alone. Hitherto he had not thought of making her his accomplice in the theft; this now occurred to him. Only with her aid could he hope to make the coveted prize his own.
But if he did thus gain possession of it, would not suspicion instantly fall upon him? Eva would miss her treasure as soon as she returned from the castle, and Delmar would not leave her long in doubt as to who had stolen it. He pondered the matter. Eva could not possibly return from the castle before two a clock; she was to dine at three at the inn. But by two he might be far away. If he took the train to Toblach, and then drove to Schleuderbach, he could reach the Italian frontier before even a telegraphic message could be despatched in search of him, although Delmar should immediately institute a pursuit of the fugitive. Once across the frontier he would surely be able to elude all discovery.
What would Eva say when she found her precious casket missing and divined who had taken it? As he thought of the letter he had just written, and the contrast it formed to the act he contemplated, he laughed bitterly. But his time was short, every minute was precious, he dared delay no longer. He knocked cautiously at the door leading to the next room. The bolt was withdrawn, and Nanette opened it. She was received by him with a tender embrace. "My little darling," he said, "how fortunate I am in seeing you once more before I leave!"
The girl looked at him with terrified surprise. "What do you mean, Herr von Bertram? You are going away? How? Where?"
"I will tell you, my pet, and you only. I have just received intelligence that a suit has been instituted against me in K---- for leaving there without leave of absence from my superior officer. I am to be arrested here to-day and taken back a prisoner to K----. I must fly or I am lost; in a quarter of an hour I must leave Tausens."
"What will become of Fräulein Schommer?"
"Do not mention her. I am glad to be rid of her even in this way. I hate her, but it breaks my heart to leave you. Oh, Nanette, if you really cared for me you would leave all and come with me! You should be my darling little wife, with nothing to do but enjoy yourself all day long!"
Nanette listened, speechless with rapture. Here was a proposal she had never ventured to hope for! A great gentleman, and the betrothed besides of her hated mistress, asked her to fly with him and be his wife,--his real wife,--a lady of rank! Her head grew giddy at the thought. She could hardly believe her ears.
But Bertram went on pouring forth his insidious protestations and entreaties until she could doubt no longer. And when he pointed to the ebony casket and said that it contained what would give them a careless, happy life in Italy, she made no resistance to his taking it from the table where it stood, and bewildered and submissive only asked whether they should not be found out. He soothed her with the assurance that they should both be far beyond the Italian frontier before the absence of the casket was detected or any pursuit thought of.
Before many minutes were past Bertram had won the girl over to his purpose; she consented to accompany him in his flight, she became his accomplice. By his directions she locked on the inside the door leading from Eva's room to the passage, and then followed her grand gentleman, who carried the casket, into his room where he locked the door of communication and put the key in his pocket.
Time was precious, and Bertram made haste to thrust the casket, which must be hidden from sight while he was leaving the inn, into his portmanteau. Here however he encountered an unexpected difficulty. On each side of the box was a large ornamented gilt handle, by which it had usually been lifted. These handles made the box too large for the interior of his portmanteau. As Bertram tried in vain to pack away the casket so that the small trunk would close, he muttered an oath. He could not possibly allow the box, which the postmaster and the inn servants knew to be Eva's property, to be seen in his possession, and there was no way of concealing it except by packing it into the portmanteau, which was too small for it. He tried to bend one of the metal handles, and as he did so it broke off in his hand. "So best!" he said, throwing it aside, and then wrenching off the other, which he also threw on the floor. The casket now fitted perfectly inside the portmanteau, filling it however so completely that Bertram was forced to leave most of his clothes behind him.
In a few minutes the portmanteau was locked, and Bertram himself carried it down to the conveyance which was awaiting him at the inn-door. The postmaster stood by it, cap in hand, expressing sorrow that the gentleman was about to leave him. His surprise was great when Nanette suddenly made her appearance in her bonnet and shawl and took her seat beside Herr von Bertram in the carriage.
"I will take this opportunity of driving to town," she said, observing honest Hansel's amazement. "I have several commissions to execute for my mistress, and I will come back towards evening in the carriage. Adieu, Herr Postmaster!"
"Drive on!" cried Bertram. "I must catch the midday train!" The driver cracked his whip, and the horses started at a rapid pace.
Hansel looked after the carriage as long as it was in sight, and then turned into the inn with a wise shake of his head. This sudden departure of the young nobleman, and so strangely accompanied too, did not seem to him just what it should be. But these great people from the city certainly did have many queer ways, and as long as Herr Delmar had ordered the carriage everything must be right, and thus Hansel forced himself to think.
He went up-stairs to see that Herr von Bertram had forgotten nothing in his room, and to his surprise found the door locked. This was vexatious. The Herr must have locked it absently and put the key into his pocket. Ten to one he would forget to give it to the driver when they reached the railway-station.
Hansel went grumbling and fetched his master-key, which opened all the bedrooms in the house; but when he entered Bertram's apartment he found it in a condition which greatly increased his misgivings with regard to the sudden departure. One or two suits of clothes and a quantity of linen lay about the floor in disorder. They could not have been forgotten; they must have been left behind intentionally. All these clothes had been brought to the inn in Herr von Bertram's portmanteau, and yet Hansel had noticed that it had looked much fuller without all these articles in it when the gentleman had put it into the carriage just now. Again Hansel shook his head; he did not know what to make of all this, and he resolved to ask Herr Delmar about it as soon as he returned to the inn.
After Delmar had ordered the carriage for Bertram, he walked slowly along the village street towards Dr. Putzer's. The nearer he came to the house the more he lingered; never had he experienced such a dread as possessed him at thought of the coming interview which would decide his fate.
But he was ashamed of what seemed to him cowardice, and as he paused for an instant at the small grated gate opening into the doctor's garden he braced himself to meet his fate, reflecting that no delay would postpone the inevitable, and then walked quickly through the garden to the house-door.
Dr. Atzinger received him. "You have been long in coming, Herr Delmar," he said. "Our patient has been impatiently awaiting you. If I had yielded to his wishes you would have seen him some days ago; but even now, I confess frankly, I should have liked to postpone this interview. I think him far too weak for any agitation of mind, and I have yielded to him in this instance only because I feared more from the effect of his restless impatience than from the conversation with you, which he evidently considers as of the first importance. Unfortunately I cannot be present at this interview. He has asked to see you alone, and I must therefore entreat you to use extreme caution, remembering that any over-excitement on his part is certain death. Pray do all you can to soothe him."
Paul willingly promised all that was asked of him. He felt no irritation towards Putzer, who had been but the tool of Herr von Heydeck.
Atzinger conducted him to the door of the doctor's bedroom, saying as he opened it, "Here is the man you so wish to see; now remember, my dear friend, to send him away as you promised, as soon as you feel exhausted."
"Yes, yes; tell him to come in," was the reply, in feeble tones.
Delmar entered, and Dr. Atzinger left him alone with the patient.
The room was large and sunny, and supplied with every comfort that could be procured in a retired Tyrolean village. The sick man's bed was so placed that as he lay with his face turned to the window he had a full view of the steep rock crowned by Castle Reifenstein.
Upon Paul's entrance the invalid raised himself into a half-sitting posture and turned his face full towards his visitor. "I have been longing for you for many days, Herr Delmar," he said, in a faint, scarce audible voice. "You are come at last, and I thank you. I was afraid I should never see you again."
Was this Dr. Putzer? Delmar never could have believed it from the evidence of his senses. There was absolutely no resemblance between the wine-flushed bloated countenance which Paul remembered and this ashy-pale flabby face, save for the light disordered hair that fell on either side of it. And just as little did the invalid's weak gentle voice resemble Dr. Putzer's hoarse brutal tones.
Delmar was so shocked and startled by the alteration he observed in the man that he could at first find no words in which to reply to his salutation.
The doctor continued: "Sit here, Herr Delmar, close by my bed; I have much to say, and not much strength wherewith to say it. I must pray you to lend me your patient attention."
Paul obeyed; he drew a chair to the bedside and sat down, filled with pity for the sick man, whose every word evidently cost him a painful effort. His compassion got the better of his desire to hear what the man had to say. "Talking is too much for you, Herr Doctor," he said kindly. "You must not exert yourself I beg you reserve what you have to tell me for another day, when you are stronger and better, and let us discuss only commonplace topics at present. I will pay you a daily visit, and your friend Dr. Atzinger tells me that you will be much stronger and more equal to the task you have imposed upon yourself in a few days."
A grim smile, which reminded Paul of the Dr. Putzer of his remembrance, flitted across the pale face. "My dear friend Dr. Atzinger is an ignoramus!" the sick man replied. "I shall never be stronger; I shall shortly be found dead in my bed,--perhaps to-day, perhaps to-morrow,--any time within the next fortnight. I know this with absolute certainty, and therefore I was so impatient to see you, for I must and will speak with you. I will not die without being revenged upon the worthless woman whose fault it is that I lie here a dying man, and who has had no thought except for her own safety. She expected me to die without ever being able to utter another word, and she robbed me of every cent I possess that she might escape danger; but she was mistaken,--I still live, and will use my last breath in revenging myself upon her."
The doctor's voice grew stronger and his eyes flashed as he said these words. But the momentary excitement over, he sank back exhausted among his pillows. Paul feared he was dying, and rose hastily to call Dr. Atzinger, but Putzer divined his intention. "Stay," he gasped; "it will pass off,--in a moment I shall be strong enough."
Again Paul obeyed, and after resting for a few minutes, the doctor continued: "Indignation at that wretched woman exhausted me; it shall not occur again. I will husband my strength for what I have to do. There may be no to-morrow for me, and you shall not leave me until I have armed you for my revenge upon that fiend. I might tell you much, but I think you already know most of what I have to say. You would not have come to Tausens if you had not known that Herr von Heydeck has defrauded you of your inheritance, and if you did not wish to recover it from him. You know this, but you do not know what it is most important that you should, and you perhaps imagine that with the help of certain proof of which I am ignorant you can force Herr von Heydeck to acknowledge you as his son and to leave you his property and his name. Is not this so?"
Paul made no reply except by a faint motion of the head, which the doctor took for assent, and continued: "I thought so. You will scarcely undertake a wearisome lawsuit for the sake of the property. I have heard that you are very rich, that you are the possessor of millions. Is this true?"
"Yes, it is true!" Paul replied, firmly.
His answer satisfied the doctor. "Then I am right. Herr von Heydeck's wealth does not allure you; you did not come to Tausens to demand your rightful inheritance? Answer me, am I right?"
"Yes!" Paul said, distinctly.
"Then it is the name and title of von Heydeck that you covet. I thought so. Well, Herr Delmar. I shall have to depress your hopes slightly. I think I remember, before my illness, when I was not exactly myself, having told you that you could lay no claim to the name of Heydeck. What I then said is true; you are the son of Count Menotti, not of Herr von Heydeck!"
"But Herr von Heydeck acknowledged me as his son, and such I therefore am in the eye of the law," Paul rejoined, hoping to incite the doctor to further revelations by this insistance. His hope was fulfilled.
"You think so, but you are mistaken," the doctor continued. "You think you know all about it because you probably possess proof that Herr von Heydeck delivered you over to Herr Delmar as a child, and that you are the boy whom Herr von Heydeck gave out for dead in order that he might appropriate to himself the child's maternal inheritance. All this you know, but you do not know that there was no child by Herr von Heydeck's marriage with his first wife; that you were the illegitimate child of your mother and Count Menotti; that you were born before Herr von Heydeck was married to your mother, and that therefore you can lay no claim whatever to the name of Heydeck."
The words were spoken. Paul saw the yawning abyss which was to have swallowed up his hopes suddenly disappear, and a sunny future expand before him. The burden which had wellnigh crushed him for weeks beneath its weight fell from him. Hilda was not even legally his sister, nor was Heydeck his father, but a stranger, to whom he was bound neither by the law of the land nor by that of nature. His brain reeled at the thought that if the sick man's words were true there was no longer any obstacle to separate him from his love.
The doctor perceived how deep was the impression produced upon Delmar by his words, but he ascribed his agitation to a false cause. "I see," he said more kindly than was his wont, "that my information pains you because it annihilates your hopes, but I could not spare you. You must know the entire truth that you may not proceed to false measures in dealing with Herr von Heydeck,--measures which might defeat your object. This object there is a chance of your attaining if you will follow my advice. I will put into your hands proof that you are not the son of Herr von Heydeck, and it may be the very means of enabling you to induce the cowardly old miser to leave you his name and title."
"Give me this proof, Herr Doctor," Delmar cried, in the greatest agitation, "and I assure you that at no price will I consider it dearly bought! Ask what you will for this proof, and I will give it you!"
Paul's eager words called forth a melancholy smile upon the doctor's shrunken features. "That is a fine promise, but valueless to me," he rejoined. "Four weeks ago I would have thanked you for it; to-day it moves me not at all. In a few days this miserable body of mine will be six feet deep in the ground. I have all I want till then, and all that you have could not induce me to do your bidding against my will. But I will be revenged upon my wicked wife, who made my home a hell, who poisoned my life! I will atone for the wrong I did you. You have been my benefactor in this illness, my friend Atzinger tells me that you have sent a carriage for him daily, and given him a generous fee for attending me. I will show my gratitude to you. Listen to me, and I will tell you what you ought to know, and give you the proof which you need." The doctor then told his tale; he spoke in low, measured words, husbanding his forces, for he felt that he needed all the strength that he could muster. The import of his communication was as follows:
When Herr von Heydeck bought Reifenstein and passed some weeks there with his handsome wife, Dr. Putzer was a gay young fellow; he had studied well, understood his profession, and hoped to lead a pleasant life in Tausens. He soon found however that the position of a village doctor was by no means so pleasant or so lucrative as he had supposed, and that its income would never afford him the social enjoyments which he desired. He was fond of a glass of good wine, and he needed periodicals and scientific books to aid him in his studies. He had no mind for a hermit's life. The paltry fees which he received from his peasant patients but poorly sufficed for half his needs; he became deeply involved in debt, out of which he racked his brains in vain to find any means of extricating himself. Under these circumstances he thought it most fortunate that the wealthy Herr von Heydeck should buy Reifenstein, and that he should be sent for to visit the castle in his medical capacity. He took pains to recommend himself to the lord of the castle, whose love of scientific pursuits he humoured; and he succeeded. He became the confidant of Herr von Heydeck, who often bewailed to him the sorrow caused him by his unworthy wife, but never alluded to the past. It struck Putzer as very strange, this mystery enshrouding the past of Herr von Heydeck and his handsome wife. The husband lived in disgraceful dependence upon Madame von Heydeck's whims, never even venturing to remonstrate when Count Menotti publicly conducted himself as her declared lover.
The mystery was explained for the doctor when Herr von Heydeck, after his wife's death, came to Castle Reifenstein with his child. When Putzer was sent for to see the boy, a single glance at the child told the physician of the criminal deception that had here been practised upon the world. The newspapers three months before had announced the birth of a boy; but the child who had inherited his mother's property was at least a year and a half old, and must have been born before Herr von Heydeck's marriage, which had taken place not quite a year previously.
Herr von Heydeck, reading the doctor's thoughts in his face, could not refrain from giving him his entire confidence, especially since he needed his aid. He confessed to him that the infant was the child of the Count Menotti, and had been born some months before his own marriage. It was solely for the sake of bestowing an aristocratic name upon the child that its mother had consented to marry Heydeck, after he had promised in writing to acknowledge the child as his own within a year after their marriage. Within that time the intelligence of Frau von Heydeck's confinement was spread abroad in society, but the fruit of it, a boy, was pronounced so sickly and weak that no one except the nurse was allowed to see it.
This nurse, Rosy, was the foster-sister and confidante of Frau von Heydeck, and had contrived the entire scheme. It was by her advice that the marriage with Herr von Heydeck had been contracted, and to her keeping was entrusted the document whereby Heydeck bound himself to acknowledge the child as his own. With this in her possession she ruled her master with a rod of iron after his wife's death.
Dr. Putzer, on his first visit at the castle, easily comprehended the relations between the castle's lord and the pretty waiting-maid. The young physician was taken with her handsome face and pert coquettish ways, while her by no means spotless past was of no consequence in his eyes. Loaded down with debts he had but one wish, and that was to secure for himself a comfortable and assured existence; the safest way to attain this end was by a marriage with Rosy; together they could gain such an ascendency over Herr von Heydeck as to induce him to share his wealth with them.
They were soon agreed, and Heydeck weakly yielded to their mischievous influence. Rosy suggested to him that the boy's death would be the best luck that could befall him; but Heydeck, although scarcely too conscientious, was too cowardly to commit so grave a crime as murder. He consented to rid himself of the boy, but not by death; he would cause the intelligence of his death to be spread abroad, and he would bring him up in secret, until death did actually come, as he hoped it soon would, to the weakly, sickly child.
The doctor and his betrothed lent Heydeck their ready aid; the doctor wrote the official certificate of the child's death,--he had spread the report of its fatal contagious disease that no one might desire to see the corpse,--and he fitted up the basement of the tower, whither the unfortunate child was taken and committed to the care of the two half-idiotic Melchers.
The scheme which had been hatched in Rosy's brain was successful: the mock funeral took place, the boy vanished, and Herr von Heydeck was his heir. He paid the doctor and Rosy well for their services, and upon their immediate marriage hoped he was rid of them. Here however he was mistaken; his crime did not go unpunished, for he never was able to shake off the mastery maintained over him by the intriguing Rosy, not even when he secretly conveyed the boy away from the castle and falsely told the doctor that the child had died in Switzerland. Whenever Rosy wanted to extort money from Heydeck she threatened him with betrayal, not of the mock death of the child, in which crime she herself was an accomplice, but of that first deception of Heydeck's, whereby he had made official announcement of the birth of a child, who was in reality already more than a year old.
Rosy could produce the proof of this deception; she had carefully preserved the document entrusted to her by Frau von Heydeck, with a series of letters which made the fact of the deception incontestable. She could prove that the boy was Frau von Heydeck's illegitimate child, and if she did so to the relatives of her deceased mistress they would certainly come forward to assert their claims to an inheritance of which Heydeck had illegally possessed himself.
Rosy thus held the lord of the castle in perpetual thraldom, reducing him almost to despair in forcing him to satisfy her avaricious greed. She was the wretched man's evil genius.
The doctor's life too was scarcely less wretched than Heydeck's; his wife made, as he had said, his house a hell. She never ceased tormenting and aggravating him, and he had recourse to drinking to drown his misery. Only in forgetfulness could he find relief. The wicked woman made a perfect slave of him; he hated her, but rarely ventured to disobey her.
The worm will turn however, and sometimes when his courage was screwed up with wine the doctor rebelled against the tyranny that oppressed him. At some such moment he formed the plan of appropriating to himself the power which his wife possessed over Herr von Heydeck, thinking thus to make the evil woman subject to his will. He stole from her the papers by which she ruled Herr von Heydeck, and in spite of her rage when she missed them, bade her defiance, and never revealed the hiding-place where the important documents were concealed.
By this bold stroke he was at least enabled now and then to intimidate his wife by threats that he would deliver over the papers to Herr von Heydeck; but he was never able to shake off the yoke of her stronger nature, and his life was almost as miserable as before.
The absolute hatred with which he regarded her was fiercer than ever as he lay ill and helpless in bed; he could not forgive her for causing his attack by insisting upon his plunging his head beneath the cold water, and for then leaving him neglected and alone, that she might escape the punishment of the crime which Delmar had probably come to Tausens to investigate.
To revenge himself upon her the doctor now handed Paul the papers, which he had instructed Dr. Atzinger a few days previously to fetch from their hiding-place, and which he had since kept beneath his pillow. The worthless woman, the doctor declared, should perish in want and misery,--she had spent everything that she had extorted from Herr von Heydeck in dress and finery, and had only taken a small sum with her upon her flight. With these papers her power over Herr von Heydeck was gone,--he would certainly do nothing more for her when he knew that she could do him no further harm.
In possession of these documents Delmar could, the doctor explained, force Herr von Heydeck to bequeath to him his name. Through fear lest he should lose his money and be dragged through a disgraceful lawsuit the old coward, so said the doctor, could be made to do just as Delmar pleased.
With a sensation of absolute rapture Delmar received the precious papers which secured to him a happy future, from the hands of the sick man, who never dreamed how worthless in Paul's estimation was a high-sounding, aristocratic name.
Delmar thanked the doctor warmly, but the sick man shook his head. "I have done this not for your sake, but my own," he said. "I know that my detestable wife will perish in want; I am content. I pray you leave me now, Herr Delmar, my strength is exhausted. We shall never meet again. Farewell!"