Oswald said not another word. He left the old man standing where he was, and without further consideration or delay hurried across to his aunt's apartments. The Countess still watched at the window, though the cortége had long disappeared from sight. She knew nothing of the scene that had taken place that morning in her son's room; yet she seemed to have some foreboding sense, some vague dread upon her, for her hands were folded in mute anguish, and the face she turned towards the new-comer was perfectly ashy in its extreme pallor.
She started violently as Oswald came in thus, unexpected and unannounced. For the first time since he had left his old home at Ettersberg they met alone, and face to face.
On the preceding evening and that morning they had seen each other only in the presence of strangers, and their intercourse had been limited to a few formal words of greeting. The Countess looked for no mercy from the man whom she estimated as her bitterest enemy, and who certainly had ample cause to be so.
Though by an impulse of generosity he had parted with the weapon which would have proved most dangerous, its strength was known to him, and the knowledge gave him power enough over his aunt. But it was not this lady's habit to show herself weak, save only where her son was concerned, and now she at once roused her energies, and assumed a resolute attitude of defence. She stood cold and immovable, determined not to yield an inch, prepared for anything that might come.
But no syllable of that she feared and expected came from Oswald's lips. He only approached her quickly, and said, in a low and eager voice:
'What has happened to Edmund?'
'To Edmund? I do not understand you.'
'He is frightfully changed. Something must have occurred since I left. There is some trouble on his mind which harasses him, and at times seems almost to shake his reason. I thought at first I had guessed the cause of it, but I find now I was utterly mistaken. What has happened, aunt?'
Not a word passed the mother's set lips. Better than anyone she knew the piteous change which had come over her son, but to this man she could not, would not, confess it.
'Forgive me if I put a painful question,' went on Oswald. 'We have to fear, to guard against the worst; in such a case, all other considerations vanish. Before I left, I gave into your brother's charge a small packet. I told him expressly that it was to be delivered to you alone, that Edmund was not to know its contents. Can it be that, in spite of this ... can he have learned----'