'What you will. I have no other intention than to ride about the country for a couple of hours. Perhaps I shall be better then.'
With these words Edmund hurried away, his uncle making no further effort to stop him. He saw that neither persuasion nor soothing words of comfort could avail at present. Perhaps it would be well to let the storm spend itself.
Hour after hour passed. Noon came, then gradually dusk drew on, and still the young Count did not appear. At the castle the anxiety produced by his protracted absence grew with every minute. Baron Heideck reproached himself most bitterly for having allowed his nephew to leave him in so excited a frame of mind, but he was obliged to conceal his fears. He had to be strong, to think and act for his sister, whose brain seemed well-nigh to reel beneath the weight of dread and suspense. She wandered from room to room, from window to window, rejecting all her brother's attempts at encouragement with a mute, despairing gesture. Better than he, than anyone, she knew her son, and knew therefore what was to be feared.
'It really is useless for us to send messengers, Constance,' said Heideck, as he stood near her at the window. 'We have not even an approximate idea of the road Edmund took, and it only causes the servants to shake their heads and gossip more persistently. The young madman must have tired himself out by this time. Now that it is growing dark he is sure to turn homewards.'
'If he has not started on his journey after all,' whispered the Countess, whose eyes never once swerved from the avenue leading up to the castle.
'No,' replied Heideck decidedly. 'I made it evident to him that his confession would involve another, and who that other would be; we have nothing to fear on that score. He has certainly not gone to Oswald, but----'
He forebore to finish his speech, out of consideration to the Countess, but a great dread had seized upon him. Might not his nephew, by some despairing act, have sought a solution which would be worse, more cruel even than the threatened avowal to Oswald?
Another troubled pause ensued, another interval of painful silence, such as had frequently occurred that afternoon. Suddenly the Countess started up with a cry, and bent forward, far out of the window. Heideck, following her example, could discern nothing, but the mother's eye had already recognised the figure of her son, in spite of mist and gathering darkness. There he was--still distant, however--at the farther end of the avenue. The Countess's self-control now utterly forsook her. She did not remember that a plea of illness had been advanced for her to the servants: did not stay to consider how Edmund might receive her. She only wanted to see him; to have him with her again, and she rushed to meet him, so swiftly and impetuously that her brother could hardly follow her.
Outside in the vestibule they had a few minutes to wait, for the young Count, who had set off from home at a furious gallop, was returning at a snail's pace. The horse, fairly bathed in sweat, trembled in every limb; at length it halted before the door. The animal was evidently completely spent, and its rider seemed to be in the same condition. He, who usually would swing himself so lightly from the saddle, dismounted now slowly, almost laboriously, and it cost him a visible effort to ascend the few steps leading up to the entrance-hall.
The Countess stood on the very spot where some months before she had received her son on his return from his foreign travels. Then, radiant with the happiness of meeting her, he had rushed impetuously into her arms. Today he did not even notice that his mother was there. His clothes were saturated with rain, his damp hair clung to his brow, and he moved slowly forward, never looking round, but walking straight in towards the staircase.