'I know,' said Oswald slowly. 'There are two subjects on which you feel seriously and deeply--the point of honour and--your mother.'
'The two are one,' retorted Edmund sharply.
'He who offends her by even the shadow of a suspicion rouses all the spirit in me, and makes me desperate.'
He sprang up as he spoke, and stood before his cousin, drawn up to his full height. The habitual gay, careless expression had vanished from his features, giving place to one of set, stern gravity, and his eyes flashed in his passionate excitement.
Oswald was silent. He was standing by the writing-table, and had already grasped the papers, ready to push them aside and draw forth the picture, but as the young Count's last words fell on his ear he paused involuntarily. Why must such a discussion have arisen at this precise moment?
'It never occurred to me that any such interpretation could be placed on that will,' went on Edmund; 'or I should at once, at the time of my uncle's death, have refused the bequest, and never should have allowed the suit to be instituted. If Hedwig and I had remained strangers, and the court had awarded Dornau to me, I believe the calumny would have thriven and prospered, until they had made me out to be the accomplice of a fraud.'
'It is possible to be the victim of a fraud,' said Oswald in a low tone.
'The victim?' repeated the young Count, stepping quickly up to his cousin. 'What do you mean by that?'
Oswald's hand rested heavily on the papers which overlay his great secret, but there was nothing to indicate the emotion within him. His voice was cold and unmoved, as he replied:
'Nothing. I am not alluding to Dornau. We know perfectly well that my uncle acted in accordance with his own will and judgment--but the instrument was drawn up in favour of a nephew, passing over the daughter and her rights. Calumny, of course, takes advantage of the scope afforded it, and hints at undue influence. In such a case, it would, no doubt, be considered only natural that a mother should lay aside any scruples, and act in the interest of her son.'