Wildenau watched her intently.

"She has just gone to Cannes, where the old duke is staying, and the announcement of the engagement is daily expected."

"It is impossible--it cannot be!" murmured Josepha, trembling in every limb.

"But why not? She is free--has a right to dispose of her hand--"

Wildenau persisted.

"No--she is not--she cannot marry," cried Josepha, starting from her sofa in despair and standing before them with glowing cheeks and red hair like a flame which blazes up once more before expiring. "For Heaven"s sake--it would be a crime!"

"But who is to prevent it?" asked Wildenau breathlessly.

"I!" groaned Josepha, summoning her last strength.

"You?--My dear woman, what can you do?"

"More than you suppose!"

"Then tell me, that we may unite to prevent the crime ere it is too late."

"Yes, by Heaven! Before I will allow her to do Joseph this wrong--I will turn traitor to her."

"But Herr Freyer has no right to ask the countess not to marry again--"

"No right?" she repeated with terrible earnestness, "are you so sure of that?"

"He is only the countess" lover--"

"Her lover?" sobbed Josepha in mingled wrath and anguish: "Joseph, you n.o.ble upright man--must _this_ be said of you--!"

"I don"t understand. If he is not her lover--what is he?"

Josepha could bear no more. "He is her husband--her legally wedded husband."

The baron almost staggered under this unexpected, unprecedented revelation. Controlling himself with difficulty, he seized the sick woman"s hand, as if to sustain her lest she should break down, ere he had extorted the last disclosure from her--the last thing he must know.

"Only tell me where and by whom the marriage ceremony was performed."

As if under the gaze of a serpent the victim yielded to the stronger will: "At Prankenburg--Martin and I--were witnesses." She slipped from his hand, her senses grew confused, her eyes became gla.s.sy, her chest heaved convulsively in the struggle for breath, but the one word which she still had consciousness to utter--was enough for the Wildenaus.

When, a few hours later, Freyer returned with the physician and the priest, whom he had thoughtfully brought with him, he found Josepha alone on the sofa, speechless, and in the last agonies of death.

The physician, after examining her, said that an acute inflammation of the lungs had followed the tuberculosis from which she had long suffered and hastened her end. The priest gave her the last sacrament and remained with Freyer, sitting beside the bed in which she had been laid. The death-struggle was terrible. She seemed to be constantly trying to tell Freyer something which she was unable to utter. Three times life appeared to have departed, and three times she rallied again, as if she could not die without having relieved her heart of its burden. Vain! It was useless for Freyer to put his ear to her lips, he could not understand her faltering words. It was a terrible night! At last, toward morning, she grew calm, and now she could die. Leaning on his breast, she ceased her struggles to speak, and slowly breathed her last. _She_ had conquered and she now knew that _he_ would conquer also. She bowed her head with a smile, and her last glance was fixed on him, a look of reconciliation rested on her Matures--her soul soared upward--day was dawning!

CHAPTER XXVI.

THE LAST SUPPORT.

There was alarm in the Wildenau Palace. The countess had suddenly returned, without notifying the servants--in plain words, without asking the servants" permission. She had intended to remain absent several months--they were not prepared, had nothing ready, nothing cleaned, not even a single room in her suite of apartments heated.

She seemed absent-minded, went to her rooms at once, and locked herself in. Then her bell rang violently--the servants who were consulting together below scattered, the maids darted up the main staircase, the men up a side flight.

"I want the coachman, Martin!" was the unexpected order.

"Martin isn"t here," the footman ventured to answer--"as we did not know ..."

"Then send for him!" replied the countess imperiously. She did not appear even to notice the implied reproof. Then she permitted the attendant to make a fire on the hearth, for it was a raw, damp day in early spring, and after her stay in Cannes, the weather seemed like Siberia.

Half an hour elapsed. Meanwhile the maids were unpacking, and the countess was arranging a quant.i.ty of letters she had brought with her.

They were all numbered, and of ancient date. Among them was one from Freyer, written four weeks previously, containing only the words:

"Even in death, Josepha has filled a mother"s place to our child--she has rested in the chapel with him since this morning. I think you will not object to her being buried there.

"Joseph."

The countess again glanced at the letter, her eyes rested on the errors in orthography. Such tragical information, with so terrible a reproach between the lines--and the effect--a ludicrous one! She would gladly have effaced the mistakes in order not to be ashamed of having given this man so important a part in the drama of her life--but they stood there with the distinctness of a boy"s unpractised hand. A man who could not even write correctly! She had not noticed it before, he wrote rarely and always very briefly--or had she possessed no eyes for his faults at that time? Yes, she must have been blind, utterly blind. She had not answered the letter. Now she tore it up and threw it into the fire. Josepha"s death would have been a deliverance to her, had she not a few weeks later received another letter which she now read once more, panting for breath. But, however frequently she perused its contents, she found only that old Martin entreated her to return--Josepha had "blabbed."

That one word in the stiff hand of the faithful old servant, which looked as if it might have been scrawled with a match upon paper redolent of the odors of the stable, had so startled the countess that she left Cannes by the first train, and traveled day and night to reach home. A nervous restlessness made the sheet tremble in her hand as she thrust it into the flames. Then she paced restlessly to and fro. Martin was keeping her waiting so long.

A little supper had been hurriedly prepared and was now served. But the countess scarcely touched the food and, complaining that the dining-room was cold, crept back to her boudoir. At last, about half past nine, Martin was announced. He had gone to bed and they had been obliged to rouse him.

"Is Your Highness going out?" asked the footman, who could not understand the summons to Martin.

"If I am, you will receive orders for the carriage," replied his mistress, and a flash from her eyes silenced the servant. "Let Martin come in!" she added in a harsh, imperious tone.

The man opened the door.

"You are dismissed for to-night. The lights can be put out," she added.

Martin stood, hat in hand, awaiting his mistress" commands. A few minutes pa.s.sed, then the countess noiselessly went to the door to see that the adjoining rooms were empty and that no one was listening. When she returned she drew the heavy curtains over the door to deaden every sound. Then her self-control gave way and rushing to the old coachman she grasped his hand. "Martin, for Heaven"s sake, what has happened?"

Tears glittered in Martin"s eyes, as he saw his mistress" alarm, and he took her trembling hands as gently as if they were the reins of a fiery blooded horse, on which a curb has been placed for the first time.

"Ho--ho--dear Countess, only keep quiet, quiet," he said in the soothing tones used to his frightened steeds: "All is not lost! I didn"t let myself be caught, and there"s no proof of what Josepha blabbed."

"So they tried to catch you? Tell me"--she was trembling--"how did they come to you?"

"Well," said Martin clumsily, "this is how it was. They seem to have driven Josepha into a corner. At her funeral the cook told me that just before she died, two strangers came to the house and had a long conversation with the sick woman. When the hare she was ordered to cook was done, she carried it up. But the people in the room were talking so loud that she didn"t dare go in and stood at the door listening.

Something was said about the countess" favor and a crime, and Josepha was terribly excited. Suddenly she heard nothing more, Josepha stammered a few unintelligible words, and the gentlemen came out with faces as red as fire. They left the hare in the lurch--and off they went. Josepha died the same night. Then I thought they might be the Barons von Wildenau, because their coachman had often tried to pump me about our countess, and I said to myself, "now I"ll do the same to him." And sure enough I found out that the gentlemen had gone away, and where? To Prankenberg!"

The countess turned pale and sank into an arm-chair. "There, there--Your Highness, don"t be troubled," Martin went on calmly--"that will do them no good, the church books don"t lie open on the tavern tables like bills of fare, and the old pastor will not let everybody meddle with them."

"The old pastor?" cried the countess despairingly--"he is dead, and since my father, the prince, has grown weak-minded, the patronage has lapsed to the government. The new pastor has no motive for showing us any consideration."

"So the old pastor is dead? H"m, H"m!" Martin for the first time shook his head anxiously. "If one could only get a word from His Highness the Prince--just to find out whether the marriage was really entered in the record."