"I forgot to mention, that you need not come if you should repent of your resolution. I'll take my oath nobody shall ever learn from me where your tanya is; and all they can say is, that I'm a greater donkey than they thought I was, because I couldn't manage to find you. But, believe me, I don't care what they say. God bless you, my boy!"
Janosh did not wait for an answer. He hurried away; and after a few minutes, Viola heard the quick trotting of a horse. It was Janosh on his way back from the tanya.
"After all, my life will be good for something," muttered Viola. "I wanted to prove my gratitude to my benefactor, and all I did was to bring another misfortune upon him. At present I have it in my power to save his life by the sacrifice of my own! But what is to become of Susi?"
He sat lost in gloomy thoughts, with his head leaning on his hand, when his wife returned to the tanya. Her voice awoke him from his dreams. It struck her that he looked as if he had wept. But for the poor woman, who came from the grave of her children, there was nothing extraordinary in his tears.
CHAP. X.
Viola had many difficulties to encounter before he could carry his project into execution. His resolution was irrevocable; but what was his most plausible pretence for leaving the tanya without alarming the fears of his wife? Ever since their change of abode, Susi showed the greatest anxiety whenever her husband left her, though but for a few hours; and this anxiety, so natural to a woman in her position, had risen to a formidable height ever since the death of her children. Her husband was her all—her only treasure,—her sole comfort on this earth. And was he not always in danger of a discovery of his former character and pursuits? Her anxious care was, in the present instance, almost maddening to Viola. In the course of that day he attempted a hundred times at least to tell his wife that he must leave her for a few days; and a hundred times he felt that he wanted the strength to break the matter to her. At one time it struck him that Susi was more cheerful than usual, and he was loth to distress her at such a moment; another time he thought she looked sadder than she generally did, and he considered that frame of mind unfavourable to the reception of his communication. Indeed there is no saying how he could have executed his project if Susi had not been struck with his embarrassed manner, and the preparations he made for the journey. She questioned him, and he told her that his master had sent in the morning ordering him to fetch some cattle from a neighbouring county. Susi trembled; but there was no help for it. Viola was bound to obey his master's orders: he could not possibly refuse obedience by stating the reasons of his aversion to the journey; and the poor woman was reduced to snatch at the straws of comfort which lay in her husband's assurance that the place to which he was sent lay at a greater distance from the county of Takshony than their present abode did.
"Don't be afraid. Nobody can know me at that place; no Tissaret people come there!" said Viola; and Susi did her best to appear quiet and unconcerned.
Viola was conscious of the fate which awaited him. Whenever he looked at his wife he shuddered to think what her anguish would be when the true nature of his errand was revealed to her; and all his strength of mind could scarcely suppress his tears. He struggled hard to keep them down; and in the evening, when, after pressing Susi to his heart for the last time, he mounted his horse, she could not, by any outward signs, get a clue to the deep despair which ate into his heart. When his voice came to her with the last "God bless you!" she had no idea of the truth. It never struck her that she heard his voice for the last time.
Viola was inured to suffering. His grave aspect hid the anguish which convulsed his mind: but when his horse had borne him onwards to the deep forest, his grief leapt forth like a giant; and, shaking off the bonds of restraint, he bent his head low down on his horse's neck, and his powerful frame trembled with the convulsions of deep, hopeless, unmitigated grief.