Part 22 (1/2)

'So you really could not make up your mind to part with that unhappy picture! I thought it had been destroyed long ago. How could you be so mad as to keep it in your possession?'

'Do not scold me, Armand.' The Countess's voice was stifled as though by tears. 'It is the only souvenir I have kept--the only one. It came to me with a last message from him, after ... after his death.'

'And for the sake of this sentimental folly you conjure up a frightful danger, a danger which threatens ruin both to yourself and your son.

Do not these features speak clearly enough? Formerly, when Edmund was a child, the likeness was not so striking, so extraordinary; but now that he is nearly of the same age as ... as the other, it is positively d.a.m.ning. Your imprudence has cost you a lesson, however, and a hard one. You know into whose hands the picture fell?'

'I have known since yesterday evening. My G.o.d, what will come to us now?'

'Nothing,' said Heideck coldly. 'The fact of his surrendering it is ample proof of that. Oswald is too good a lawyer not to know that a mere likeness is no evidence, and that a charge cannot be founded on such testimony. Still, it was a generous act to give it back. Another man would have held possession of it, if only to hara.s.s and torment you. That picture must be destroyed.'

'I will destroy it,' said the Countess.

'No, I will do that myself,' retorted her brother, replacing the little case carefully in his pocket. 'I rescued you once from a very real danger, Constance; now I must stand between you and the remembrance of it, which may be almost as fatal. That ghost has been buried for years. Do not let it rise up again, or the whole fortune and happiness of Ettersberg may be wrecked. This unfortunate souvenir must disappear to-day. Edmund must have no more suspicion of the secret than his father had before him.'

Involuntarily he raised his voice as he p.r.o.nounced these last words, but he ceased speaking suddenly, for at that very moment the door which led into the adjoining room was thrown open, and Edmund appeared on the threshold.

'What am I not to suspect?' he asked with quick vehemence.

The young Count had naturally not supposed that his mother's prohibition of admittance extended to himself. He had crossed the anteroom softly, fearing to disturb her. The closed doors and the subdued tone in which the conversation had been carried on made it well-nigh impossible that he should have overheard more than his uncle's last words. The expression of his face bore proof of this. It betokened astonishment, but no fear.

Nevertheless, the Countess bounded from her seat with a terrible start, and it required a mute but significant gesture of warning from her brother, a pressure of his hand upon her shoulder, to give her back her self-control.

'What is it I am not to suspect?' repeated Edmund, as he came quickly towards them. He addressed his question to the Baron.

'Is it possible that you can have been listening? asked the latter, his breath almost failing him as he thought of such a possibility.

'No, uncle,' said the young Count angrily. 'I am not in the habit of playing the spy or the listener. I merely caught your last words as I was opening the door. It is natural surely that I should like to know their meaning, and to learn what it is that has. .h.i.therto been kept secret from me as from my father.'

'You heard me beg my sister not to mention the subject to you,'

replied Heideck, who had now recovered his composure. 'I was alluding to a reminiscence of our youth which we shall do well to keep to ourselves. You know that our early days were pa.s.sed amid graver, sadder circ.u.mstances than yours. We had battles to fight and sacrifices to make whereof you can have no conception.'

The explanation was plausible and appeared to find belief, but Edmund's tone, though tender, was fraught with deep reproach, as he said, turning to the Countess:

'I could not have believed, mother, that you had a secret from me.'

'Do not torment your mother now,' interrupted Heideck. 'You see how very unwell she is?'

'You should have spared her then, and not have called up painful reminiscences to-day,' replied Edmund, rather warmly. 'I came to tell you, mother, that Hedwig and her father are here. May I bring her to you? As you felt able to see my uncle, you will, I am sure, not refuse to receive us.'

'Certainly,' a.s.sented the Countess. 'Indeed, I feel much better now.

Bring Hedwig to me at once.'

'I will fetch her,' said Edmund, and went; but before leaving the room he turned once again, and cast a strange scrutinising glance at his mother and uncle. There was no suspicion in his look, but, as it were, a vague presentiment of coming trouble.

The young Count had sent a message over to Brunneck on the preceding evening, with the news that he had been slightly wounded in the hand when out shooting, and therefore would not be able to pay his usual visit, adding that there was not the smallest cause for uneasiness.

This piece of intelligence had brought the Councillor and his daughter over to Ettersberg without loss of time. The sight of Edmund, who received them with all his wonted gaiety, soon set any remaining fears on his account at rest. Almost simultaneously with them came the neighbouring squire on whose estate the accident had occurred. He had driven over with his son to inquire after the patient.

Under these circ.u.mstances Baron Heideck's first meeting with the new relations was more easy and unconstrained than it would otherwise have been. The young lady's beauty was not without its influence on the rigid aristocrat, who, in spite of his prejudices, could not altogether withhold approval of his nephew's choice. Towards the Councillor, Heideck did indeed preserve a cool and reserved, though a polite demeanour. The presence of strangers made the conversation more animated and general. Edmund alone appeared unusually silent and abstracted. He refused, however, to admit that this had anything to do with his wound, attributing the depression he could not disguise to his recent parting with Oswald. He would not confess even to himself that any other vague trouble was weighing on him.