In a low voice, made the more impressive by its gentleness, the Count spoke:
“Forgive my vehemence—my insistence. I must employ every means at hand. I have not told you all; I have not told you the full depth of my despair. With the Princess Marie Louise is my little daughter—my only child. The child of my love—my pride, my only reward in this world—the child of my beloved wife! Here is a letter of hers, written but a few weeks before the awful events. A letter full of love and happiness—she did not then dream of the fearful days that were to come! When I left Holstein to follow my prince to a new and promising life, I had the plighted word of a beautiful girl to join me whenever I called her. In time my beloved came to me. We lived in a strange country, among strange people and stranger gods; but we lived in joy and love, making a heaven for us in this new land! When, after some years, our child came, our lovely little girl, my dear wife had heart and love for us both. She brought up this child of our affection, the only child God gave us, as only love can! Her own goodness is reproduced in the child—her beauty of heart and mind, her loving ways—all live again in her daughter! Five years ago she—died, leaving our child to my care. And now, here I am, a man with one foot in the grave—feeble and useless—thousands of miles away from my child—her child. My God! what——”
The old diplomat’s head fell upon his arms, amongst his papers, his shoulders heaving with his inarticulate sobbings. His hand had grasped a photograph from among the scattered documents and he was convulsively caressing it. Raising his head he looked at it with an agonized look and murmured brokenly, “Mein Kindchen—Mein Kindchen.”
It was more than Morton could bear. His lethargy dropped from him; the spell was broken, his energy returned. A second time he had been shown the hideousness of life. He knew not what to say. Then through his thoughts came the words of his own father’s cable: “Am not very well, better hurry, boy!” It was impossible for him to engage in what, after all, was but a romantic adventure.
What right had this old scion of a decayed aristocracy to appeal to him—to him, who had duties of his own, just as urgent, to perform? What right had anybody to tell him these hideous things, that grip the mind and distress the heart? What was this young woman or this princess to him that he should wait a moment before deciding? A refusal, prompt and emphatic—surely that was the only proper answer to make! Was the old man acting in good faith or was he, perhaps, staging this whole business, in order to entangle him into a foolhardy enterprise! What would his father say? What would mother think? What would his little sister—ah! his little sister, a girl like this girl! His throat felt dry and contracted, as if a cord had been tightened about his neck.
Good God! And if he declined—would he ever get rid of the awful thought that these girls might have been helped—and he had failed them? Could he ever look any woman in the face without thinking of the fate of these two gently reared women? A cold perspiration beaded his forehead and face. With an effort he rose from his seat and strode toward the old man, who sat now staring before him with glassy eyes.
All this had taken but a few moments, a few heart beats of agony and resentment.
The proposition was absurd—unheard of! He had better leave this raving lunatic alone—tell him most emphatically that he refused. At that moment his eye caught sight of the photograph on the desk. In the benumbed state of his mind he unconsciously looked and made out some writing across the lower part of the card——
“Meinem lieben Papa als Gruss. Seine Helène.”
Immediately before his agitated mind there rose the vision of Bonn, and the old days of his “Burschenschaft.” The happy voices and songs of his student years came back to him and with them the poetry of the German sentimentalist—the lovely sunshine and the cheer of youth.