The papers included a certificate of marriage between Prince William of Prussia and Vera Savanoff, signed by the officiating priest, but without witnesses' signatures. Another certificate showed when Anna Schnieder had come into the world. But the most important documents were two letters from the Crown Prince of Germany couched in intimate terms. One of them contained the sentence, "I am sorry Father treated you so badly. Surely he must know it was not your fault."
The letters completely convinced the count of the genuineness of the fair damsel's amazing and romantic story. He knew the handwriting of the Crown Prince of Germany very well, for he had lately been in correspondence on the subject of the treatment of Polish conscripts in the Prussian Army. The prince, who was then doing all he could to gain popularity, and so weaken his father's position, had planned to win the sympathies of the Poles by a pretence of affection for them, and Count Renenski, as an influential aristocrat, had been selected by him as the person most likely to further his objects.
When he had once more reaffirmed his promise not to reveal what she had told him, Anna consented to accompany him to his residence. She hastily dried her eyes, and her recovery was marvellously quick, for she was all smiles five minutes later as they were leaving the park. She had insisted upon the count taking care of the papers for her.
"I am only a weak girl," she said with delightful humility, "and when the Kaiser learns that I know who I am he will set his agents to work to try to get hold of my papers. But I am so happy now that I have found a brave friend."
The count owned a magnificent castle in Posen, where, as he was a bachelor, his widowed sister kept house for him. The lady received Anna graciously, and Anna on her part was relieved to find that the count's relative was a small, inoffensive creature, who evidently thought that her brother could do no wrong. When she saw him pay the utmost deference to the young lady he regarded as a princess, she followed suit, and Anna became a sort of uncrowned queen of the mansion.
It was not surprising that the count, who was over sixty, should soon begin to feel tenderly disposed towards his protegé. She was heart and soul a Pole, she told him.
"I want to vindicate my mother's fair name," she cried, "and she was a daughter of Poland, the land I love."
When the count asked her to marry him she gave a tearful consent, but only on the condition that when she had the right to call him husband he would help her to prove to the world that she was the legitimate daughter of the German Emperor. Count Renenski willingly agreed, because he saw in the affair a chance to discredit the Kaiser.
It was arranged that the count should settle a sum equivalent to fifty thousand pounds on his bride, and he instructed his lawyers accordingly. He also gave her jewellery worth thousands of pounds, much of it family heirlooms, and he placed a thousand pounds to her credit at a bank in Posen. He declared that the most fascinating of sights was Anna in the act of drawing a cheque, for she revelled in the unusual luxury, and her joy was childlike and beautifully innocent and infectious.
The wedding was fixed for the tenth of July, 1910, and a week before Anna went to stay with a female cousin of the count's at a house twenty miles from Posen. It was arranged that they were not to meet again until she arrived in the state carriage belonging to the family at the ancient church where the ceremony was to be performed.