"That was what they told the world, the neighborhood, and you, the eight-year old child--I know better. Our estate had long been involved in debt, ruin was only a question of time, and when it actually came, father seized his pistol--and left us behind--beggars."
As unsparing as these words sounded, there was an undercurrent of dull grief in them, showing that the man still suffered at the recollection, after the lapse of twelve years.
Cecilia did not shriek, did not weep, her tears seeming suddenly to be stanched. She only asked dispiritedly: "And then?"
"Then the honor of our name was saved by the personal interposition of the king. He bought the estate and satisfied the creditors. Your mother obtained a pension from his bounty, and alms of residence in the place where she had been mistress, and I--well I went out into the wide world, to seek my fortune."
A momentary silence followed; Cecilia had dropped into a chair, and had clasped both hands before her face. Finally Wildenrod resumed: "That hits you hard, I well believe, but at the time it hit me yet harder. I had no suspicion of how it stood with us, and now to be snatched from supposed wealth, from a brilliant station in life, from a grand career, in order to be confronted by poverty and misery--you do not know what that means. They offered me this and that office, either in the postal service or as collector of taxes in some remote province, offered me, whose glowing ambition had dreamed of the highest aims, beggarly positions, in which body and soul would have been destroyed in the tread-mill of a wretched existence. I was not made for that. I cast everything behind me and forsook Germany, to at least save appearances, and produce the impression that the sale of property and my resignation of office had been voluntary."
Cecilia slowly let her hands drop, and straightened herself up. "And yet you maintained your position in society? We were regarded as rich the three years that I passed with you, and were surrounded by splendor and luxury."
Wildenrod had no answer to this timid and reproachful question; he avoided meeting his sister's eye.
"Let that be, Cecilia!" said he after a while. "It was a fierce, desperate struggle to maintain that station which I did not want to give up at any price, and many a thing happened in so doing that had better not be talked about. But I had no choice. In the struggle for existence it is either sink or swim. Never mind!" He took a long breath. "Now all that trouble is over, you are Eric's betrothed bride and I--have something delightful to communicate to you."
He did not, however, get the opportunity to make his communication at present, for at the door of the parlor a gentle knock was heard, and directly afterwards Eric's voice asked:
"May I come in at last?"