"I think it is a question which of us has suffered most under the crime. Your youth may have been bitter--mine was terrible. My mother died a few months after the dreadful deed, the year after my father followed. No one was able to understand how it was that he treated his only son and heir with an open hatred, though he at the same time obstinately refused to be separated from him for a single hour. No one knew that he guarded in him a witness of his guilt, and trembled hourly at the thought that his dreadful secret hung upon the silence of a mere child. Perhaps you can imagine what a lot that child's was! Had not my grandmother at times stood protectingly between us, I know not what terrible misfortune might have occurred. She it was who at that time interfered with all her influence and wealth to avert threatening ruin, which would have inevitably been followed by a discovery of the truth, and who later, after the death of my father, and during her ten years of guardianship, gradually managed to bring our affairs into order again, so that I may now call myself a rich man. Need I tell you, Gertrud, what a curse these riches have been to me? I could not give back the embezzled sum without arresting suspicion, but I hoped in some indirect way to make it up to those left behind. Since my majority I have never ceased to try and find trace of you, have taken all possible steps--in vain. I looked for Brand's widow and child, and never imagined how near to me the latter was. Gertrud! Fate has led us together strangely--did it really happen, in order that we might combat life and death together?"
At the last words his voice once more sank to those soft, deep tones, which she had already once heard from his lips, and the girl's whole being trembled before it, as it had done then, but she knew the danger now, and fled from it.
"Not this tone, Count Arnau,--I beg you--let us keep to the subject."
He silently bowed in assent.
"At the time my father paid out the sum, he received a receipt from his chief, Count Arnau. Did you know of it?"
"No. But my father himself undertook the seizure of the steward's papers. He will have destroyed it."
"It was not destroyed. A chance allowed it to lie hidden for years. It is in my hands!"
In speechless consternation Hermann drew back, the same moment the portière was torn open, and the Präsidentin stood before them.
"You must be mistaken, mademoiselle! It is impossible, it cannot be!"
Gertrud had turned round surprised, but not frightened, and met the old lady's threatening glance firmly--