On the morning of the third day after the explosion, the old lady suddenly opened the door of Flora's study and tottered across the threshold, holding in her hand a newspaper. Flora was busy writing tickets for her various trunks and packages; she arose, with a foreboding of what was to come, and approached her grandmother, who had sunk into an armchair.
"My four thousand thalers!" she moaned. "Child, child, I have been robbed by scoundrels of my little all, the miserable pittance left me by my grandfather! My four thousand thalers which I guarded like the apple of my eye——"
"No, grandmamma, tell the truth,—your four thousand thalers which you foolishly risked!" Flora interrupted her, harshly. "I warned you, but I was laughed at and scorned because I would not invest my bonds and securities in the same way. The company in which you took stock has failed, I suppose."
"Disgracefully! wickedly! Read that! I shall have hardly fifty thalers to call my own," the Frau President cried, with a failing voice, covering her face with her hands. "But there is one thing I cannot understand," she said, starting up again as Flora was hastily perusing the article in question: "the paper refers to earlier statements; the crash must have come four or five days ago; and Moritz knew nothing of it,—impossible!"
"Might it not have something to do with your not receiving your newspaper a few days since?"
"Ah! you think, then, that our poor Moritz wished to spare me the shock during the marriage festivities, and suppressed the paper? Oh, yes,—of course! And he would have made good the loss to me, I am sure; he himself persuaded me to do as I did. There is consolation in that thought at least, for if necessary I can swear that Moritz assumed the responsibility of my investment; and surely I may hope to be repaid my four thousand thalers from his estate."
Flora tossed the paper upon the table. Regardless as she was wont to be of the feelings of others, in this case she scarcely knew in what words to dispel the illusion under which her grandmother laboured. She had been silent upon this point until now, in hopes that some one of their dear friends from town would undertake the task of enlightening the Frau President; but the dear friends had absented themselves; on the previous day not one had been near the villa, and now she must speak herself. She could not permit her grandmother to expose herself to ridicule by this inconceivable want of all suspicion of the truth.
"Grandmamma," she said, in an under-tone, laying her hand upon the old lady's arm, "the first thing to be considered is the possible value of the estate to which you allude."
"Oh, my child, only look out of the window and you will acknowledge that the payment of my poor four thousand would scarcely be felt by the heir, whoever it may be. Even if the enormous capital employed by Moritz in his business operations be lost in consequence of the destruction of his books and papers, the real estate and personal property which he owned will amount to a handsome fortune." She sighed sadly,—"I should be thankful indeed if I were his acknowledged heir."
Flora shrugged her shoulders. "You might never come into possession——"