Edmund recoiled, and the feverish glow which had overspread his features gave way to a livid pallor.
'Oswald has always been your mother's enemy,' continued Heideck. 'He has always hated her, and she has never deceived herself as to his sentiments. Will you really go to him--to him of all people, with a tale which will ruin her? What a triumph for him to see at length the woman he hates in the dust before him, to hear her own son----'
'Uncle, no more,' broke in Edmund, with a wild cry. 'I cannot bear it.'
'I should not have supposed you could hesitate a moment between your mother and Oswald,' said the Baron, frowning. 'But here there is really no alternative. You must yield to necessity.'
Edmund had thrown himself on to a chair, and hidden his face in his hands. A low groan escaped his overcharged breast.
'Do you think it has been a light thing for me to keep silence, and to aid and abet that which you call fraud?' asked his uncle, after a short pause. 'But I repeat, you have here no choice. The entailed estates are not transferable; they cannot be alienated from you. You must either remain Master of Ettersberg, or proclaim your secret to the world--in which case the honour of two houses, of Heideck as of Ettersberg, will be irretrievably lost. There is no other issue. I set this distinctly before my sister in years gone by, when she was on the point of owning all to her husband; now again I must call upon you to recognise it. You must be silent. If Oswald's future is sacrificed through our silence, we cannot help that. The family honour stands higher than his right.'
He spoke with iron firmness and composure, but this only lent more power to his words, and Edmund felt the truth that was in them. A desperate struggle was going on in the young man's breast, a struggle between his sense of justice and the stern necessity which was so forcibly demonstrated to him.
Oswald's query recurred to his mind. 'Suppose silence was imposed on you for the sake of the family honour?'
He was, indeed, far from attributing to his cousin's words any deeper significance, or from divining his knowledge of the truth. That conversation had come about most naturally. The young Count remembered in this hour how he had been fired with indignation at the bare notion that anyone could impute to his mother interested motives. How proudly and disdainfully had he declared that no shadow, no slur should attach itself to his life, that he must ever bear himself before the world with a clear conscience and unsullied brow! Two days ago he had held that language, and now....
Baron Heideck lost not a moment in pursuing his advantage. He had recourse to the last and most effectual weapon in his armoury.