"Yes, it is from Wollnow, but to me and about you."

"About me! that's strange, and pa.s.sably long too."

He tried to feign a yawn as he let the sheets slip through his fingers; but had scarcely cast a glance at them, and read the first lines, when he started up like a madman, and hurling the letter upon the table, exclaimed:

"This is infamous! This demands blood! I will see nothing more, hear nothing more! I will not be the patient victim of a vulgar intrigue. We will speak of this again, sir, we will speak of this again."

He wandered restlessly up and down the room; Gotthold remained quietly in his seat.

"You have a moment to decide whether you will read the letter, or whether I shall show it to Count Zarrentin, before taking farther steps."

Brandow paused in his walk. "So you really mean to have a scandal! I thought so. Well, perhaps it will be worth the trouble, to see how you intend to begin."

He threw himself into his chair again, seized the letter, and began to read it with the air of a man who wished to get rid of a troublesome pet.i.tioner. A scornful smile played around his lips. "I was mistaken,"

he muttered as if talking to himself, "it is simply ridiculous, utterly ridiculous."

But his lips were pale; the smile changed to a grin, and his hands trembled more and more. He had read very rapidly at first; but the farther he proceeded the longer he lingered over every separate sentence, and even word. Many he seemed to weigh and test two or three times, and he made a pretence of reading long after he had evidently reached the end. At last, amid the terrible tumult of his soul, a resolution was formed.

"You were going to give this--letter to our chairman," he said, carefully folding the sheets; "I have no objection, but on one condition."

He withdrew the hand with which he had held out the letter to Gotthold.

"On condition that I may first take a copy of this precious doc.u.ment, to serve as a basis for the charge of scandal I shall bring against the n.o.ble writer and delicate-minded receiver of this bungling performance.

To a man so extremely just as yourself, a man who does not hesitate, on the most absurd proofs, to charge his friend with the most horrible crimes, this will doubtless be perfectly agreeable."

"Entirely so," replied Gotthold; "you can also keep the original. The letter was merely to make you acquainted with certain things, to which I did not wish to refer verbally, and has performed its work."

"And this interesting conversation is over," said Brandow, rising; "I mean for to-day; to-morrow we shall have more to say to each other; only the tables will be turned. The things of which I shall accuse you are no shameful inventions like the story about the bills, or silly fancies like the horrible murder of Hinrich Scheel, which you will probably cry, with all the terrible details, at the next fair, but facts, positive facts--a pretty commentary on the song of the worthy man, who knows how to make no better use of the hospitality offered him, than--you have done. So farewell until to-morrow!"

Brandow walked towards the door with a wave of the hand intended to be contemptuous; Gotthold stepped before him.

"You will probably have patience a short time longer, when I tell you that your future fate must be decided now and here."

"My fate? Are you mad?"

"Decide for yourself. Hinrich Scheel was found by me yesterday evening in Wiessow, where he had concealed himself, and is now at my lodgings guarded by the brothers Prebrow."

Brandow staggered back as if a bullet had struck him, until his hand clutched the arm of a chair, and in that att.i.tude stood staring at Gotthold with eyes that seemed starting from their sockets.

"Hinrich Scheel!" he stammered.

"Whom you thought had disappeared from the scene forever, though you were careless or n.i.g.g.ardly enough not even to pay off your accomplice properly. I am now obliged to have him watched, not to prevent his escape--he has no wish to fly, he will endure any punishment if only the man for whom he did what he did, does not escape; I have him watched simply to prevent his taking this punishment into his own harsh, cruel hands."

Brandow had sunk into the chair. His shameless courage and elastic strength seemed to have utterly deserted him; he looked ten years older; but suddenly he started up again.

"Bah!" he cried, "do you think you can frighten me in that way? If that rascal Hinrich has allowed himself to be caught, so much the worse for him! What harm can he do me? I hope my word will weigh no less than that of a rascally groom, who has evidently been bribed by my enemies.

A man who knows himself innocent cares nothing for bribery: or do you really expect to make any one believe that, if even a suspicion could have fallen upon me from any quarter, I would have let the fellow go without securing his silence in some way? That is certainly sheer nonsense: or will you say, he gave him nothing, so that if he were caught no one would ask, From whom and for what did you get this money?

Settle it among yourselves, and do as you please--an honest man like me laughs at your threats."

Again he went towards the door, but his step grew slower the nearer he approached it; and ere he reached the threshold, he turned on his heel and came up to Gotthold with a smile on his lips.

"Let us drop the tragic masks, Gotthold, and talk like sensible people; what are your conditions?"

"The first is that you shall confess the deeds of which Wollnow's letter accuses you. You know what I mean."

"Not entirely. Is the confession only for yourself?"

"If you consent to the other conditions, yes."

"Very well; I did what I am said to have done. What more?"

"That which follows as a matter of course. The daughter of an honorable family cannot and shall not be the wife of a criminal. That is, you will give your consent to everything we--I mean Herr Bogislas Wenhof, Wollnow and I--may dictate in regard to the divorce."

"And my daughter?"

"Answer the question yourself."

"I love the child."

"You lie, Brandow; and even were it possible, as it is impossible, you would still have forever forfeited the right to keep her, or even maintain any communication with her. I hope she will forget you are her father."

"Which, however, I shall ever remain, and, _mon cher_, I'll give you this knowledge, which is doubtless uncommonly pleasing, as a wedding-present; or don't you intend to carry to a fitting end the business you have so beautifully begun?"

"The point in question is your destiny, not mine."

"Which, however, seems to be somewhat nearly connected with me. Or did you want me to believe you were doing all this for the service of G.o.d?

Pshaw, my dear friend, our acquaintance is not a thing of yesterday, and our paths do not cross here and now for the first time. I have been in your way, and you in mine, on the schoolroom benches, the playground, at the dancing-lessons, and everywhere; I supplanted you in those days, and gave you a punishment to remember all your life. Well, you have done so, and this is the reprisal. I have lost the game--by a single foolish play--no matter! I have lost it; and I am too old a gambler not to understand and feel that it is my fate; but the game is not yet over; we shall meet again, and he who laughs last, laughs best."

The man's eyes flashed glances of deadly hate, as he strode up and down the room with hasty steps. His sharp teeth gnawed his livid lips, and he tugged and tore at the ends of his long fair mustache, as he again paused and said:--

"Only one question more. Shall I also have to provide the dowry?"

"I don't know what you mean by that; I only know we intend to leave you to take your own course as soon as you have paid your debt--outwardly at least--and replaced the sum stolen. You will have a chance to do so to-morrow. It is gambler's money, but that don't concern us."

"And if I don't win?"

"You will work. Dollan has been leased to you for five years more; you can, if you choose--and you will be compelled to choose--pay back in less than half the time the ten thousand thalers I shall advance to you--it is almost the last remnant of my fortune. At any rate the package will be found on Dollan moor to-morrow evening, and day after to-morrow be in the coffers of the convent."

"How well you have provided for yourself!"

"And you too. If we drove you from your home, as you deserve--for you are not worthy to have German laborers call you master--you would go to ruin in the shortest possible time, and that, for your child's sake, I do not desire."

Brandow essayed a scornful laugh, but Gotthold's last words, and the tone in which he uttered them, closed his lips.

"You said just now, Brandow, that you loved your child: it was a lie; if you had done so even a little, for her sake you would at least have kept yourself innocent of crime. You have never loved any one except yourself, and that with a coa.r.s.e, vain, egotistical love, which had no trace of respect for the sacredness of that which even the roughest men reverence. Yet--although this is my honest opinion--I am a man, and may be mistaken; perhaps it will touch your heart, when you hear that your child is ill, very ill--that we shall possibly only be able to prolong her innocent young life a few days. It is terrible to say it, but I cannot lighten the burden you have laid upon your conscience: if it dies, you have killed it."

"I?" faltered Brandow; "I?"