A Bride of the Plains

by Baroness Emmuska Orczy Orczy

"He was a brute to you, Elsa," he affirmed with all the strength of his manhood, the power of his love, which, in spite of all, would not believe in its own misery; "he would have made you wretchedly unhappy . . . he . . ."

"You did do it, then?" she broke in quietly.

"I did it because of you, Elsa," he cried, and his own firm voice was now half-choked with sobs. "He made you unhappy even though you were not yet bound to him by marriage. Once you were his wife he would have made you miserable . . . he would have bullied you . . . beaten you, perhaps. I heard him out under the verandah speaking to you like the sneering brute that he was. . . . And then he kissed you . . . and I . . . But even then I didn't give him the key. . . . Klara lied when she said that. I didn't urge him to take it, even—I did not speak about the key. It was lying on the table where I had put it—he took it up—I did not give it him."

"But you let him take it. You knew that he meant to visit Klara, and that Leopold was on the watch outside. Yet you let him go. . . ."

"I let him go. . . . I was nearly mad then with rage at the way he had treated you all day. . . . His taking that key was a last insult put upon you on the eve of your wedding day. . . . The thought of it got into my blood like fire, when I saw his cruel leer and heard his sneers. . . . Later on, I thought better of it . . . calmer thoughts had got into my brain . . . reason, sober sense. . . . I had gone back to the presbytery, and meant to go to bed—I went out, I swear it by God that I went out prepared to warn him, to help him if I could. The whole village was deserted, it was the hour of supper at the barn. I heard the church clock strike the half-hour after ten. I worked my way round to the back of Goldstein's house and in the yard I saw Béla lying—dead."

"And you might have raised a finger to save him at first . . . and you didn't do it."

"Not at first . . . and after that it was too late. . . ."

"You have done a big, big wrong, Andor," she said slowly.

"Wrong?" he cried, whilst once more the old spirit of defiance fired him—the burning love in him, the wrath at seeing her unhappy. "Wrong? Because I did not prevent one miserable brute being put out of the way of doing further harm? By the living God, Elsa, I do not believe that it was wrong. I didn't send him to his death, I did not see or speak to Leopold Hirsch, I merely let Fate or God Himself work His way with him. I did not say a word to him that might have induced him to take that key. He picked it up from the table, and every evil thought came into his head then and there. He didn't even care about Klara and a silly, swaggering flirtation with her, he only wanted to insult you, to shame you, to show you that he was the master—and meant to have his way in all things. . . . And this he did because—bar his pride in your beauty—he really hated you and meant to treat you ill. He meant to harm you, Elsa—my own dear dove . . . my angel from heaven . . . for whom I would have died, and would die to-day, if my death could bring you happiness. . . . I let him go and Leopold Hirsch killed him . . . if he had lived, he would have made your life one long misery. . . . Was it my fault that Leopold Hirsch killed him?—killed him at the moment when he was trying to do you as great harm as he could? By God, Elsa, I swear that I don't believe it was my fault . . . it was the will of God—God would not punish me for not interfering with His will. . . . Why, it wouldn't be justice, Elsa . . . it wouldn't be justice."

His voice broke in one agonized sob. He had put all his heart, all his feelings into that passionate appeal. He did not believe that he had done wrong, he had not on his soul the sense of the brand of Cain. Rough, untutored, a son of the soil, he saw no harm in sweeping out of the way a noisome creature who spreads evil and misery. And Elsa's was also a simple and untutored soul, even though in her calmer temperament the wilder passions of men had found no echo. True and steadfast in love, her mind was too simple to grasp at sophistry, to argue about right or wrong; her feelings were her guide, and even while Andor—burning with love and impatience—argued and clung desperately to his own point of view, she felt only the desire to comfort and to succour—above all, to love—she was just a girl—Andor's sweetheart and not his judge. God alone was that! God would punish if He so desired—indeed, He had punished already, for never had such sorrow descended in Andor's heart before, of that she felt quite sure.