CHAPTER X.

As soon as he was alone Oswald took the Conte's fateful letter from his pocket, and read it through once more.

No! he had read it aright, there it stood in black and white!.... "After what I have thus told you," so the letter concluded, "it is evident that a duel between us two can be nothing but a mere formality--it is, however, a formality which I demand as due to my honour as a man ...."

He must go to his mother and show her the letter; there was nothing else to be done--nothing--! He must know whether he had the right to shoot him down like a dog, or .... He was overcome by a sudden dizziness, and the thought occurred to him, 'What if I should faint away, and some one should find this letter here and read it--!' He rose, lit a match and burnt the letter, with a feeling akin to relief when nothing remained of the disgraceful doc.u.ment, save a few ashes.

George's words recurred to him; evidently Georges suspected something wrong, that was clear,--but what? the contents of that letter he could not suspect. But what if it were true? What if some one should discover it? Every one would flee from him, even those who had loved him most.

And on a sudden he himself felt a fearful, paralysing disgust at the blood in his veins! A dull lump seemed to rise in his throat,--it choked him. 'But it cannot be,' he said to himself, 'it cannot be.'

Then he sat still for a long time, scarcely daring even to think; he himself did not know for how long, but when at last the door opened and Georges entered, he noticed that it had begun to grow dark.

"Well--the affair is settled!" began Georges gloomily.

"For when?"

"To-morrow morning at six o'clock--devil that he is, it could not be soon enough for him; he pretended that he must leave for Paris in the evening; probably he thought that if the duel were delayed you might reconsider it, and instead of giving him satisfaction for the insult of which he complains, add to it the thrashing which he deserves."

Oswald sat leaning his head on his hand and did not speak.

"G.o.d knows, I would not have gone to him," Georges went on, "if I had not hoped to arrange matters amicably, even against your will,--if I had not thought I could persuade him to withdraw his crazy challenge!

But the swindler has resolved to fight you; it is the greatest social triumph that he has achieved in all the years that he has been trying to climb. Kilary told me, in so many words, that it was only for show, that it was to be a mere formality,--but--. Even that cynic, Kilary, declares that he cannot understand your condescension. Well, you rank so high in public opinion, that people will only wonder at your eccentricity. Will you say good-bye to Fritz, or shall we go immediately?"

Fritz had fallen asleep, Oswald would not disturb him, and so they rode off.

There must have been a storm in the neighbourhood; the air had grown cooler, a light wind whirled the dust aloft. Heavy broken clouds were driving overhead, and where the sun had set there was a glow as of a conflagration, as if the sun in descending had set fire to the clouds.

The red light slowly faded, and all colours were merged in melancholy, uniform gray.

The two men rode on in silence, which was broken at last by Oswald; "Georges, I know that if this affair turns out badly to-morrow you will be blamed for your share in it, blameless though you be. Wherefore I will leave a letter behind me, telling how I absolutely forced you to be my second."

"What an idea!" exclaimed Georges angrily; then he added affectionately--"if so terrible a misfortune should occur, I should have neither heart nor head to care what people said! Moreover, after what Kilary told me, there can be no chance of any tragical conclusion to the affair."

"One never can tell," rejoined Oswald.

Georges was startled, and after a short pause began. "Don't be childish, Ossi! It depends entirely upon you whether this duel ends harmlessly or not;--there's not much honour to be gained in provoking a mad dog. Since you condescend--to my utter mystification--to fight with Capriani, do not irritate him by disdainful conduct on the ground. A very minute portion of courtesy will suffice to satisfy him,--but thus much is absolutely necessary!"

Oswald made no reply. After a while he turned his horse. "Where are you going?" asked Georges.

In a constrained, unnatural voice Oswald replied. "You ride on towards home, I should like to go to Rautschin to see Gabrielle, before...."

Georges, who had failed to understand so much in his cousin's behaviour through the day, thought this desire at least quite natural. He let Oswald go, and rode on alone to Tornow. He looked round once after Oswald, and was surprised to see him ride so slowly,--he was walking his horse.

What the young man wanted was,--not to clasp his betrothed in his arms,--all that he wanted by this prolongation of his ride was the postponement of the interview with his mother. When he reached Rautschin he stopped short and looked up at the windows of the castle.

He thought of the first happy days of his betrothal in Paris; image after image pa.s.sed before his mind with beguiling sweetness;--for a moment he forgot everything.

The windows of the corner drawing-room where the family were wont to pa.s.s their evenings were open;--he listened. He could hear them talking, and could distinguish Zinka's soft, somewhat veiled tones, and the sweet, childlike voice of his betrothed, but without catching her words;--once he heard her laugh merrily, almost ungovernably. When was it that he had last heard that very laugh? He shuddered,--it was on the evening of his betrothal in the Avenue Labedoyere--when Zoe Melkweyser had unfolded her ridiculous mission.

And from out the past resounded distinctly on his ear; "Gabrielle and the son of the Conte Capriani--! Gabrielle and the son of Capriani!"

He struck his forehead with his fist.--Over the low wall on this side of the castle, that separated the park from the road, hung the branch of a rose-bush heavy with Marechale Niel roses. Oswald plucked one, kissed it, and tossed it through the open window of the drawing-room.

"Good-night, Gabrielle!" he called up.

When she came to the window to bid him welcome, she saw only a horseman enveloped in a cloud of dust trotting quickly past the castle in the direction of the little town.

CHAPTER XI.

Night had set in, and Oswald had not yet returned to Tornow. The Countess was waiting for him, sitting beside a table whereon stood a lamp with a rose-coloured shade. Georges had told her that her boy had gone round by the way of Rautschin, which she had thought quite natural, but none the less was she anxious for his return.

The clock struck a quarter past ten; perhaps he had returned after all and had not come to her. But no, he would certainly have come to ask after her health; he had thought her looking ill to-day, and had been anxious about her, had tenderly begged her to lie down for a while to recover the sleep that she had lost on his account. She had tried to smile at him unconcernedly, but it had been a hard task; a casual remark by Pistasch that morning had informed her of Oswald's interview with Capriani in Prague, at which no one else had been present, and which had agitated him excessively. She divined his misery. His love for her, and his confidence in her were so unbounded that he regarded his torturing suspicion as an _idee fixe_. Perhaps this temporary distress of his would pa.s.s away without its cause ever being mentioned between them. G.o.d grant it might! But if not? If he should come to her to-day or to-morrow and say 'Mother I cannot of myself be rid of this,--forgive me, mother, if I lay down at your feet this burden that oppresses me, and beg you to soothe my pain!'

She shuddered as this possibility occurred to her. What answer should she make? 'Shall I have the strength to lie?' she asked herself, and then she told herself, 'I must find the strength; what do I care about myself? My whole life for years has been falsehood and deceit,--but he must have peace--his life I must save!'

She knew that if she could succeed in uttering this lie calmly, his suspicion would be laid at rest forever, that no evidence in the world would prevail with him against her word. How she should continue to live on after this lie, was quite another thing, but she could die, and G.o.d knew she would willingly lay down her life for her child.

She tried to shake off these evil forebodings. All that she dreaded might never come to pa.s.s; surely she might succeed, by preserving a calm, circ.u.mspect demeanour, in slaying his doubt, in destroying his suspicion without recurring to a direct falsehood.

Poor woman! Upright to a rare degree as was her nature in its essence, it became distorted beneath the terrible burden weighing on her, and she was ready to resort to every petty artifice that could afford her any stay in her miserably false position! She had buried her sin deep, deep, and had reared above it a wondrous temple sacred to all that is fairest, n.o.blest, and most unselfish in the world. So grand and firm was this temple towering aloft to the blue skies, that she dreamed it would endure forever. She trusted it would. Out of love for her child she had grown devout. For years she had prayed the same prayer every evening: "Oh G.o.d! I thank Thee for my dear, n.o.ble child--accept his excellence, as an atonement for my sin!"

She believed that G.o.d had heeded her prayer, nay, she even believed, in her boundless affection for her child, that G.o.d had wrought a miracle in her behalf! She forgot that the great mysterious Power that shapes our destinies never transgresses the laws that it has made, and that the consequences of our guilt inexorably pursue their way, until their natural expiation is fulfilled. In this case that expiation took a shape far different from any that a mother's tender heart could have devised.

The clock had struck eleven. Her anxiety increased although she could not have defined her dread. Her windows were open, she listened;--at last there was the sound of hoofs, the jingle of a bit and bridle. She breathed a sigh of relief.

A few moments elapsed, and then a weary, lagging step came along the corridor to her door;--why did that step instantly reveal to her that the decisive moment had come? There was a knock at her door,--Oswald entered. "Forgive me for disturbing you so late, mamma," he said in a tone lacking all animation, "I saw your light from below...."

"Late?--it is hardly eleven o'clock; you know that you never disturb me, dear child. Since when have you learned to knock at my door? The next thing you will send in your name."

The forced gayety of her tone did not escape him. "Oh, I did not know--I--" he murmured vaguely, dropping, without kissing, the hand which she extended to him; then he took a seat near her, but outside of the little oasis of light shed by the lamp on the table beside the Countess.

"You came home by the way of Rautschin?"

"Yes."

"Are they all well there?"

"I do not know; I did not go in, it was too late."

"And Fritz? How is the poor fellow?"

"Very ill!"

"Did you give him my message?"