“It is possible that he has secretly acquired the power to drive us out of the Werve like beggars, but he cannot compel me to marry him.”
“We shall see about that,” I rejoined, proudly.
“You dare to talk to me of constraint—to me!” she cried, becoming furious, and advancing towards me—“you, Leopold,” she added, with an accent of real pain.
“Yes, Francis,” I answered, resolved to follow up my advantage, “you shall submit to the constraint of your own conscience, which must tell you that you owe me an apology. I am going away. Farewell. Try to reflect on this in your calmer moments. You have touched me to the quick; you have wounded my feelings of honour and my heart. Do not let me wait too long, or the wound will become incurable.”
I gave her a last look of gentle reproach, but her glassy eyes seemed insensible to all around her. I shook hands with the old Baron, who, with bowed head, was weeping like a child. Rolf followed me to my room, and besought me not to leave the Castle in such haste.
“She is like this,” he said, “when anything goes wrong with her. Within an hour she will regret what she has said, I am sure; the storm was too violent to last long.”
But my mind was made up. I packed up my luggage, slowly, I must confess, and always listening for a well-known step and a knock, which should announce Francis repentant and seeking a reconciliation. But she did not come.
I was miserable beyond all expression. It was like being shipwrecked in the harbour after a long voyage. To think this was the same woman at whose feet I had kneeled an hour ago, and whose hand I had kissed in a delirium of pleasure. And now she had turned upon me like a fury and declined my offer with contempt! I reflected that I ought to have acted more frankly and straightforwardly with her. For a moment the idea occurred to me to renounce all my rights as to Aunt Sophia’s property; but, after all, what good end could it serve—it would only reduce us both to poverty. I promised myself that, once arrived at Zutphen, I would send her in writing a complete statement of how affairs stood, and enclose aunt’s letter, which, out of delicacy, I had so far kept to myself. I would add a few words of explanation, and I doubted not that, in her calmer moments, she would do me justice.
And thus I acted; but as all the documents together made up too large a packet for the post, I confided them to a waiter at the hotel, who was to hand them over to a carrier calling every day at the Werve for orders. I flattered myself I should speedily receive an answer, and all the following day I passed in a feverish excitement, only increased in the evening when no answer came. During the night I never slept a moment. Another day passed, and still no answer; and now I gave myself up to the most complete despair. There was nothing for me to do but settle my affairs in all haste at Zutphen and return to the Hague.
I kept Overberg in the dark about my rupture with Francis, only telling him pressing business called me back to the Hague. I signed all the papers he put before me, and told him I would return as soon as possible. The fact was I felt seriously unwell, and, as you know, home is the best place under such circumstances; I thought I could there immerse myself in my favourite studies, but I only remember feeling an unbearable weight of oppression come over me.