Part 19 (2/2)

The old servant, who had completely lost his head and was as terrified as his mistress, would have rushed after her; but just at that moment Oswald entered the boudoir by an opposite door.

'Where is my aunt?' he asked hastily.

'With the Count by this time, I think,' said Everard, pointing in the direction she had taken. 'My lady was so shocked when I told her about the accident, she hastened to him at once.'

Oswald frowned. 'How could you be so imprudent!' he said, with an impatient gesture. 'The Count's wound is not at all serious. I came myself to a.s.sure my aunt that there is not the smallest cause for anxiety.'

'Thank G.o.d, thank G.o.d!' breathed Everard, with a great sigh of relief.

'The groom was saying----'

'The groom has grossly exaggerated the affair,' Oswald interrupted him. 'Your master is very slightly injured--wounded in the hand, nothing more. It was quite unnecessary to alarm the Countess in this way. Go now and let Baron Heideck know the true state of the case, that he may not be startled in like manner by the news of some dangerous injury.'

Everard withdrew to fulfil his mission, and Oswald was about to leave the room, when his eyes, wandering with a casual and indifferent glance towards the writing-table, fell on the small case which lay thereon.

Curiosity did not rank among Oswald's failings, and he would have thought it impertinent to examine even that which lay open to view in his aunt's room. But now he was misled by a very pardonable error.

Only the day before he had begged the Countess to make over to him a portrait of his father, which had been in the possession of the late Count Ettersberg, and was, no doubt, still to be found among his personal belongings. Now that he was leaving the old home, Oswald wished to take this souvenir with him, and the Countess had been quite willing to accede to his wish, promising to look for the portrait. It appeared, so he said to himself, that she had been successful in her quest.

In this certain presumption, Oswald took up the picture. He had but a dim remembrance of it, and really did not know if it were enclosed in a frame or in a case. The faded appearance of the little _etui_ seemed to confirm his belief, so he opened it.

The case contained a portrait, certainly--a miniature painted on ivory--but it was not the one he sought. At the first glance Oswald started, surprised in the highest degree.

'Edmund's likeness!' he murmured, under his breath. 'Strange that I should never have seen it before. Besides, he has never worn uniform, to my knowledge.'

With ever-increasing astonishment he examined first the miniature, which so unmistakably portrayed the young Count's features, and then the old-fas.h.i.+oned and discoloured case wherein it had evidently long lain enclosed. He had alighted on an enigma.

'What can it mean? The portrait is an old one. That is plain from its colouring, and from the shape of the case--yet it represents Edmund as he now appears. To be sure, it is not quite like him, it has an expression, a look which is not his, and ... Ah!'

This exclamation burst from his lips with sudden vehemence. In an instant the young man's eyes were opened. With the vividness of lightning, the truth flashed upon him, the perception of all that was, and had been. The enigma was solved. Hastily he strode up to a life-size portrait of Edmund, an oil-painting which hung in the Countess's boudoir, and with the open case in his hand, began comparing the two, feature by feature, line by line.

Lines and features proved identical; there were the same dark hair and eyes, but with a difference, a marked difference of expression. The resemblance to Edmund was so extraordinary that he might have sat for the miniature, and yet the face depicted in it was not his, but another's. Another's, differing from the young Count's most essentially, as a prolonged examination abundantly showed.

'So I was right!' said Oswald, in a low hoa.r.s.e tone. 'Right in my suspicion after all!'

There was neither triumph nor malicious satisfaction in his tone. On the contrary, it conveyed a certain unfeigned horror; but as he caught sight of the secret compartment now standing open, every other feeling was merged in sudden, bitter anger.

'Yes,' he murmured. 'She hid it well--so well, that no eyes but hers would ever have beheld it, had not her mortal fear on Edmund's account for once robbed her of all prudence and power of reflection. To think that it should fall into my hands! This surely is more than a mere accident. I think'--here Oswald drew himself up to a proud and menacing att.i.tude--'I think I have a right to ask whom this picture represents, and I shall retain possession of it until an answer to my plain question be given me.'

So saying, he thrust the little case into his breast-pocket, and quickly left the room.

The alarming report which Everard had conveyed to the Countess turned out to be a most exaggerated one. The accident that had befallen Edmund was of no serious importance. While scrambling through, or over, a hedge, his gun had been accidentally discharged, but fortunately the shot had only grazed his left hand. The injury was very slight, hardly deserving to be called a wound, yet the whole castle was in commotion about it. Baron Heideck hastened to his nephew's room, and the Countess could find neither rest nor peace until the doctor, sent for in post-haste, had a.s.sured her positively there was no cause for uneasiness, and that the lesion would be healed in a few days.

Edmund himself took the matter most lightly. He laughed and joked with his mother about her anxiety until it yielded beneath his cheery influence, protested strongly against being treated as a disabled man, and was with difficulty prevailed on to listen to the doctor, who prescribed absolute rest and quiet.

Evening closed in. Oswald was alone in his own room, which he had not left since his great discovery of the morning. The lamp burning on the table threw but a partial light over the apartment, which was large and rather sombre at night, with its heavy leather hangings and deep bay-window. The furniture was ma.s.sive and good, as in every room throughout the house, but it had not been renewed for years, and was in strong contrast to the bright and handsome appointments of the main building, and especially of that part of it dedicated to the young Count's use. The nephew, the offshoot of a younger branch, had been banished to a distant wing. In this, as in all else, his inferiority to the heir must be well marked; he must stand back, yielding the precedence to the master of the house.

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