Part 88 (1/2)
”It was; but then he was pardoned. This time there is no hope.”
She stood silent for a second or two; then she said, regarding him with a sad look,
”You think me heartless, Stefan. You think I ought to be overwhelmed with grief. But--but I have been kept from my child for seventeen years.
I have lived with the threat of the betrayal of my father hanging over me. The affection of a wife cannot endure everything. Still, I am--sorry--”
Her eyes were cast down, and they slowly filled with tears. Von Zoesch breathed more freely. He was eagerly explaining to her how this result had become inevitable--how he himself had had no partic.i.p.ation in it, and so forth--when Natalie Lind stepped quickly up to them, looking from the one to the other. She saw something was wrong.
”Mother, what is it?” she said, in vague fear. She turned to Von Zoesch.
”Oh, sir, if there is something you have not told me--if there is trouble--why was it not to me that you spoke?”
She took hold of her mother's hand.
”Mother, what is it?”
”My dear young lady,” said Von Zoesch, interposing, ”you know that life is made up of both bitter and sweet--”
”I wish to know, signore,” she said, proudly, ”what it is you have told my mother. If there is trouble, it is for her daughter to share it.”
”Well, then, dear young lady, I will tell you,” he said, ”though it will grieve you also. I must explain to you. You cannot suppose that the happy news I deliver to you was the result of the will of any one man, or number of men. No. It was the result of the application of law and justice. Your--sweetheart, shall I call him?--was intrusted with a grave duty, which would most probably have cost him his life. In the ordinary way, no one could have released him from it, however much certain friends of yours here might have been interested in you, and grieved to see you unhappy. But there was this possibility--it was even a probability--that he had been selected for this service unfairly. Then, no doubt, if that could be proved, he ought to be released.”
”Yes, yes,” she said, impatiently.
”That was proved. Unfortunately, I have to tell you that among those convicted of this conspiracy was your father. Well, the laws of our a.s.sociation are strict--they are even terrible where a delinquent is in a position of high responsibility. My dear young lady, I must tell you the truth: your father has been adjudged guilty--and--and the punishment is--death!”
She uttered a quick, short cry of alarm, and turned with frightened eyes to her mother.
”Mother, is it true? is it true?”
The mother did not answer; she had clasped her trembling hands. Then the girl turned; there was a proud pa.s.sion in her voice.
”Oh, sir, what tiger is there among you that is so athirst for blood?
You save one man's life--after intercession and prayer you save one man's life--only to seize on that of another. And it is to me--it is to me, his daughter--that you come with congratulations! I am only a child; I am to be pleased: you speak of a sweetheart; but you do not tell me that you are about to murder my father! You give me my lover; in exchange you take my father's life. Is there a woman in all the world so despicable as to accept her happiness at such a cost?”
Involuntarily she crushed up the telegram she held in her hand and threw it away from her.
”It is not I, at all events,” she exclaimed. ”Oh, signore, you should not have mocked me with your congratulations. That is not the happiness you should offer to a daughter. But you have not killed him yet--there is time; let things be as they were; that is what my sweetheart, as you call him, will say; he and I are not afraid to suffer. Surely, rather that, than that he should marry a girl so heartless and cowardly as to purchase her happiness at the cost of her father's life?”
”My dear young lady,” he said, with a great pity and concern in his face, ”I can a.s.sure you what you think of is impossible. What is done cannot be undone.”
Her proud indignation now gave way to terror.
”Oh no, signore, you cannot mean that! I cannot believe it! You have saved one man--oh, signore, for the love of Heaven, this other also!
Have pity! How can I live, if I know that I have killed my father?”
He took both her hands in his, and strove to soothe down her wild terror and dismay. He declared to her she had nothing to do with it, no more than himself; that her father had been tried by his colleagues; that if he had not been, a fearful act of treachery would have been committed.