"Then it is the name and title of von Heydeck that you covet. I thought so. Well, Herr Delmar. I shall have to depress your hopes slightly. I think I remember, before my illness, when I was not exactly myself, having told you that you could lay no claim to the name of Heydeck. What I then said is true; you are the son of Count Menotti, not of Herr von Heydeck!"
"But Herr von Heydeck acknowledged me as his son, and such I therefore am in the eye of the law," Paul rejoined, hoping to incite the doctor to further revelations by this insistance. His hope was fulfilled.
"You think so, but you are mistaken," the doctor continued. "You think you know all about it because you probably possess proof that Herr von Heydeck delivered you over to Herr Delmar as a child, and that you are the boy whom Herr von Heydeck gave out for dead in order that he might appropriate to himself the child's maternal inheritance. All this you know, but you do not know that there was no child by Herr von Heydeck's marriage with his first wife; that you were the illegitimate child of your mother and Count Menotti; that you were born before Herr von Heydeck was married to your mother, and that therefore you can lay no claim whatever to the name of Heydeck."
The words were spoken. Paul saw the yawning abyss which was to have swallowed up his hopes suddenly disappear, and a sunny future expand before him. The burden which had wellnigh crushed him for weeks beneath its weight fell from him. Hilda was not even legally his sister, nor was Heydeck his father, but a stranger, to whom he was bound neither by the law of the land nor by that of nature. His brain reeled at the thought that if the sick man's words were true there was no longer any obstacle to separate him from his love.
The doctor perceived how deep was the impression produced upon Delmar by his words, but he ascribed his agitation to a false cause. "I see," he said more kindly than was his wont, "that my information pains you because it annihilates your hopes, but I could not spare you. You must know the entire truth that you may not proceed to false measures in dealing with Herr von Heydeck,--measures which might defeat your object. This object there is a chance of your attaining if you will follow my advice. I will put into your hands proof that you are not the son of Herr von Heydeck, and it may be the very means of enabling you to induce the cowardly old miser to leave you his name and title."
"Give me this proof, Herr Doctor," Delmar cried, in the greatest agitation, "and I assure you that at no price will I consider it dearly bought! Ask what you will for this proof, and I will give it you!"
Paul's eager words called forth a melancholy smile upon the doctor's shrunken features. "That is a fine promise, but valueless to me," he rejoined. "Four weeks ago I would have thanked you for it; to-day it moves me not at all. In a few days this miserable body of mine will be six feet deep in the ground. I have all I want till then, and all that you have could not induce me to do your bidding against my will. But I will be revenged upon my wicked wife, who made my home a hell, who poisoned my life! I will atone for the wrong I did you. You have been my benefactor in this illness, my friend Atzinger tells me that you have sent a carriage for him daily, and given him a generous fee for attending me. I will show my gratitude to you. Listen to me, and I will tell you what you ought to know, and give you the proof which you need." The doctor then told his tale; he spoke in low, measured words, husbanding his forces, for he felt that he needed all the strength that he could muster. The import of his communication was as follows:
When Herr von Heydeck bought Reifenstein and passed some weeks there with his handsome wife, Dr. Putzer was a gay young fellow; he had studied well, understood his profession, and hoped to lead a pleasant life in Tausens. He soon found however that the position of a village doctor was by no means so pleasant or so lucrative as he had supposed, and that its income would never afford him the social enjoyments which he desired. He was fond of a glass of good wine, and he needed periodicals and scientific books to aid him in his studies. He had no mind for a hermit's life. The paltry fees which he received from his peasant patients but poorly sufficed for half his needs; he became deeply involved in debt, out of which he racked his brains in vain to find any means of extricating himself. Under these circumstances he thought it most fortunate that the wealthy Herr von Heydeck should buy Reifenstein, and that he should be sent for to visit the castle in his medical capacity. He took pains to recommend himself to the lord of the castle, whose love of scientific pursuits he humoured; and he succeeded. He became the confidant of Herr von Heydeck, who often bewailed to him the sorrow caused him by his unworthy wife, but never alluded to the past. It struck Putzer as very strange, this mystery enshrouding the past of Herr von Heydeck and his handsome wife. The husband lived in disgraceful dependence upon Madame von Heydeck's whims, never even venturing to remonstrate when Count Menotti publicly conducted himself as her declared lover.
The mystery was explained for the doctor when Herr von Heydeck, after his wife's death, came to Castle Reifenstein with his child. When Putzer was sent for to see the boy, a single glance at the child told the physician of the criminal deception that had here been practised upon the world. The newspapers three months before had announced the birth of a boy; but the child who had inherited his mother's property was at least a year and a half old, and must have been born before Herr von Heydeck's marriage, which had taken place not quite a year previously.
Herr von Heydeck, reading the doctor's thoughts in his face, could not refrain from giving him his entire confidence, especially since he needed his aid. He confessed to him that the infant was the child of the Count Menotti, and had been born some months before his own marriage. It was solely for the sake of bestowing an aristocratic name upon the child that its mother had consented to marry Heydeck, after he had promised in writing to acknowledge the child as his own within a year after their marriage. Within that time the intelligence of Frau von Heydeck's confinement was spread abroad in society, but the fruit of it, a boy, was pronounced so sickly and weak that no one except the nurse was allowed to see it.