An odious smile hovered upon Sorr's lips as he watched the Freiherr while he read this letter aloud, and as he marked the impression that it produced upon him. He exchanged a significant glance with Werner, and then, when the reading was finished, continued: "I was beside myself with grief and fury when I found that my adored Lucie had left me. She had fled, that was clear, although I could understand neither her threat nor her strange intimations that I had desired to part from her, that I had sold her. She had vanished; no trace of her could I find, although I even summoned the police to my aid. Surely, as a forsaken husband, I had a right to do so. All was in vain. Again and again I read her mysterious letter, and at last, upon a sudden impulse, I hastened to Repuin, showed him Lucie's note, and demanded and received its explanation. The wretch had the effrontery to tell me with a smile, of the manner in which he had destroyed the happiness of my life. We fought. I arose from the sick-bed, where a wound received in the duel prostrated me for weeks, an altered man. I have taken a vow never again to touch a card. I have since that day earned my daily bread by honest toil, correcting proofs for publishers, and giving lessons in French and English. I have now an assured although moderate income. In this period of struggle one hope alone has sustained me, that of finding my Lucie again. She is my wife by the indissoluble bond of marriage, a marriage blest by the Church. I know that she will gladly return to me and share my toil and my poverty when she knows of my change of heart and life. And chance has befriended me, Herr Baron, leading me to a knowledge of your son, the Herr Finanzrath, from whom I have learned that, in order to secure herself from fancied persecution, my wife has taken refuge in a feigned name, and that she dwells beneath your roof as Anna Müller."
The Freiherr stared at Sorr in blank amazement. "Good God, sir! what do you mean? Are you mad?" he exclaimed. "Fräulein Müller a wife, and your wife!"
"Ask your son, Herr Baron," Sorr replied; "he will confirm my words."
"Herr von Sorr speaks but the truth, father; it is my duty to attest this. Frau von Sorr has seen fit to undertake to fill the position of Celia's governess under a feigned name. I had, of course, no idea of this when I engaged her through Frau von Adelung. I learned her true name only lately and by chance, and I felt it my duty to acquaint Herr von Sorr with her place of abode."
When the first shock of his surprise had passed, the old Freiherr looked from Werner to Sorr and from Sorr to Werner in a kind of fury. He had no suspicion as to the truth of Sorr's story; he remembered that, by Count Styrum's desire, no allusion was ever made to Fräulein Müller's past; there could be no doubt that Anna was Sorr's unfortunate wife, forced by a sad fate to fly from her husband. What the Freiherr did doubt, what, indeed, utterly discredited, was the man's assertion of an altered course of life. One glance at his bloated features, at his watery, crimson-lidded eyes, proclaimed the fact that Sorr was deeply plunged in debauchery and drunkenness. This man had never aroused himself to a life of honest toil. It was no affection for his wife that impelled him to seek her out.
The Freiherr's mind was filled with vague suspicion as to the man's motives, suspicion that attached in a degree also to Werner, to whose last words he sharply rejoined, saying,--
"So you have been playing the spy here that you might betray the poor thing's confidence?"
"As Frau von Sorr never honoured me with her confidence I could not possibly betray it," Werner replied coolly to his father's reproach. "When I saw how great was her husband's misery, and how sincere his resolution to amend, I judged it my duty to acquaint him with his wife's retreat."
"I owe the Finanzrath an eternal debt of gratitude for bringing me hither," Sorr interposed, "and for promising to set the crown upon his kindness by doing all that lies in his power to induce my beloved Lucie to fulfil the duty that she owes to an unfortunate husband."
The Finanzrath bit his lip. Sorr's words reminded him, as they were meant to do, of the promise he had made the Russian to do all that lay in his power to further his schemes. The part assigned him here was odious enough, but the fear inspired by the Russian's threats conquered his distaste for it. He had gone too far to retrace his steps, and he therefore replied to Sorr, "I will certainly keep my word, although I think there will be little need of any influence of mine. Frau von Sorr, I feel assured, will willingly follow you; but should she refuse to do so, my father will surely not sustain her in such a departure from her duty. Castle Hohenwald cannot possibly be an asylum for a wife who has deserted her husband in misfortune and refuses to return to him."