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Page 43
"So the marriage was a happy one throughout?"
"Happy! why it was a blessing for everybody."
I said no more. It was plain that the count had not committed, and could
not have committed, a crime. I was obliged to yield to evidence. But,
then, what was the meaning of that scene at night, that strange
connection with the Black Pest, that fearful acting, that remorse in
a dream, which impelled the guilty to betray their past atrocities?
I lost myself in vain conjectures.
Knapwurst relighted his pipe, and handed me one, which I accepted.
By that time the icy numbness which had laid hold of me had nearly passed
away, and I was enjoying that pleasant sense of relief which follows
great fatigue when by the chimney-corner in a comfortable easy-chair,
veiled in wreaths of tobacco-smoke, you yield to the luxury of repose,
and listen idly to the duet between the chirping of a cricket on the
hearth and the hissing of the burning log.
So we sat for a quarter of an hour.
At last I ventured to remark--
"But sometimes the count gets angry with his daughter?"
Knapwurst started, and fixing a sinister, almost a fierce and hostile eye
upon me, answered--
"I know, I know!"
I watched him narrowly, thinking I might learn something now in support
of my theory, but he simply added ironically--
"The towers of Nideck are high, and slander flies too low to reach their
elevation!"
"No doubt; but still it is a fact, is it not?"
"Oh yes, so it is; but after all it is only a craze, an effect of his
complaint. As soon as the crisis is past all his love for mademoiselle
comes back. I assure you, sir, that a lover of twenty could not be more
devoted, more affectionate, than he is. That young girl is his pride and
his joy. A dozen times have I seen him riding away to get a dress, or
flowers, or what not, for her. He went off alone, and brought back the
articles in triumph, blowing his horn. He would have entrusted so
delicate a commission to no one, not even to Sperver, whom he is so fond
of. Mademoiselle never dares express a wish in his hearing lest he should
start off and fulfil it at once. The lord of Nideck is the worthiest
master, the tenderest father, and the kindest and most upright of men.
Those poachers who are for ever infesting our woods, the old Count Ludwig
would have strung them up without mercy; our count winks at them; he even
turns them into gamekeepers. Look at Sperver! why, if Count Ludwig was
alive, Sperver's bones would long ago have been rattling in chains;
instead of which he is head huntsman at the castle."
All my theories were now in a state of disorganisation. I laid my head
between my hands and thought a long while.
Knapwurst, supposing that I was asleep, had turned to his folio again.
The grey dawn was now peeping in, and the lamp turning pale. Indistinct
voices were audible in the castle.
Suddenly there was a noise of hurried steps outside. I saw some one pass
before the window, the door opened abruptly, and Gideon appeared at the
threshold.
CHAPTER XI.
Sperver's pale face and glowing eyes announced that events were on their
way. Yet he was calm, and did not seem surprised at my presence in
Knapwurst's room.
"Fritz," he said briefly, "I am come to fetch you." I rose without
answering and followed him. Scarcely were we out of the hut when he took
me by the arm and drew me on to the castle.
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