“Bremenhof is a devil for cunning. He was not deceived; and he saw at once that his hold over Volna was her fear for her mother. So he wormed and moled and got a case against the mother; and now he swears that if the marriage does not take place at once—to-day or at latest to-morrow—he will have the mother arrested, and Volna, too.”
“You know of my affair with him?”
“Volna told me you struck him. He took her there to satisfy himself privately that she had been at Bratinsk; and have that to hold over her.”
“Why have you let her stay at Warsaw?”
“Count Peter was bringing her to Cracow to be married to me.”
“Married to you! I don’t understand. Were you secretly betrothed?”
“No, no. She had no thought of it, until Count Peter told her at Bratinsk. But she knows how I love her; and we should have won her to consent.”
I remembered her statement to me at Bratinsk; that she had meant to escape and return to Warsaw. But I kept this to myself.
“And now?”
“She is changed. It is you who have changed her. She can scarcely be kept from breaking with Bremenhof. I don’t know what to do. My God, I don’t know what to do.”