"Impossible! you are dreaming!"
"No, I am sure of what I say,--sure. If you doubt it ask Heydeck's best friend, Herr von Herwarth, who will confirm my words."
"Did Herr von Herwarth give you this extraordinary piece of intelligence?"
"No; I learned it from another source quite as trustworthy. I am not at liberty to say more with regard to it, but I am in a most embarrassing position. I have mortally insulted a man whose principles forbid his avenging the insult, which will consequently ruin his future career. He will be forced to leave the service in disgrace, and he has no fortune. In spite of his strange ideas Heydeck is an excellent officer. I cannot reconcile it to my conscience that I have been the means of driving so good an officer from the army. Advise me, my dear Count, what to do in this case."
Count Waldheim listened with increasing surprise to Bertram's words. "I advise you?" he replied. "I am utterly confused by the contradictory statements you make. Heydeck is an excellent officer and no coward, and yet his principles require him to prefer disgrace to duelling. This is incredible--a contradiction in terms. And then your sudden regret, this tender consideration for the man whom, saving your presence, you wilfully and grossly insulted to serve your own purpose. I cannot understand you nor advise you."
"I feared so, for unfortunately the whole matter is so strange that my regret must seem incomprehensible. Who can advise me if you, who saw the whole affair, cannot? I cannot be the ruin of this unfortunate man. He is capable of putting a bullet through his brains in his despair, and if by my fault he should do so I never should forgive myself. If you will not and cannot advise me, I must follow the dictates of my conscience. I must retract my offensive expressions to Heydeck in the presence of witnesses and ask his pardon."
"This then is what you wished to lead up to by the extraordinary story you have been telling me, Herr von Bertram," the Count said, with undisguised contempt in voice and look. He arose and buckled the belt of his sabre. "Do what you think best, or, as you are pleased to express it, 'follow the dictates of your conscience,' but pray do not require me or your other comrades to believe that Herr von Heydeck's unerring aim with a pistol has no share in your magnanimous resolve!"
Casting a last contemptuous glance at Bertram, the Count was about to leave him, but the dragoon detained him. "You must not leave me thus, Count Waldheim," he said, "with a suspicion in your mind of my courage and integrity. The disgraceful doubt which you have expressed gives me a claim upon your honour to see that justice is done me. I now request you to see Herr von Heydeck and learn from his own lips the confirmation of what I told you. If he announces his intention of calling me out for insulting him, I entirely resign all thought of begging his pardon. I shall gladly accept his challenge, and rely upon the fulfilment of your promise to act as my second. If, on the other hand, he confirms what I told you, and will not send me a challenge because his principles will not allow of his doing so, you will tell him from me that I shall await him at Büchner's to retract my words in the presence of witnesses. Only by fulfilling this my request, Count Waldheim, can you atone for the shameful suspicion which you have expressed of an old friend and comrade."
Bertram had his voice and countenance under perfect control, and was moreover, as we have said, an excellent actor. His simulated indignation would have deceived a much keener observer than honest Count Waldheim, and it produced the effect he had intended. Waldheim felt ashamed of his hasty judgment; he acknowledged that he had sinned against friendship for a comrade, and, in his regret for having done so, he consented to do as Bertram requested, which in any other case he would hardly have done. He promised to find Heydeck, and either to bring him to Büchner's or to return to Bertram with the intelligence that he might expect a challenge.
With a pressure of the hand, which the Count returned but half cordially, Bertram bade him farewell, and took a long and roundabout way to Büchner's, where the momentous interview was to take place.