“All that I know is known to many.”
“I must speak! If you have time, if you can listen for half an hour to a miserable being, it would be a consolation to me. I should die with ease if I thought that Lady Madeleine could believe me innocent of that first great offence.”
“Your Excellency may address anything to me, if it be your wish, even at this hour of the night. It may be better; after what has passed, we neither of us can sleep, and this business must be arranged at once.”
“My object is, that Lady Madeleine should receive from me at this moment, at a time when I can have no interest to deceive, an account of the particulars of her cousin’s and my friend’s death. I sent it written after the horrid event; but she was ill, and Trevor, who was very bitter against me, returned the letters unopened. For four years I have never travelled without these rejected letters; this year I have them not. But you could convey to Lady Madeleine my story as now given to you; to you at this terrible moment.”
“Speak on!”
“I must say one word of my connection with the family to enable you fully to understand the horrid event, of which, if, as I believe, you only know what all know, you can form but a most imperfect conception. When I was Minister at the Court of London I became acquainted; became, indeed, intimate, with Mr. Trevor, then in office, the husband of Lady Madeleine. She was just married. Of myself at that time, I may say that, though depraved, I was not heartless, and that there were moments when I panted to be excellent. Lady Madeleine and myself became friends; she found in me a companion who not only respected her talents and delighted in her conversation, but one who in return was capable of instructing, and was overjoyed to amuse her. I loved her; but when I loved her I ceased to be a libertine. At first I thought that nothing in the world could have tempted me to have allowed her for an instant to imagine that I dared to look upon her in any other light than as a friend; but the negligence, the coldness of Trevor, the overpowering mastery of my own passions, drove me one day past the line, and I wrote that which I dared not utter. It never entered into my mind for an instant to insult such a woman with the commonplace sophistry of a ribald. No! I loved her with all my spirit’s strength. I would have sacrificed all my views in life, my ambition, my family, my fortune, my country, to have gained her; and I told her this in terms of respectful adoration. I worshipped the divinity, even while I attempted to profane the altar. When I had sent this letter I was in despair. Conviction of the insanity of my conduct flashed across my mind. I expected never to see her again. There came an answer; I opened it with the greatest agitation; to my surprise, an appointment. Why trouble you with a detail of my feelings, my mad hope, my dark despair! The moment for the interview arrived. I was received neither with affection nor anger. In sorrow she spoke. I listened in despair. I was more madly in love with her than ever. That very love made me give her such evidences of a contrite spirit that I was pardoned. I rose with a resolution to be virtuous, with a determination to be her friend: then I made the fatal promise which you know of, to be doubly the friend of a man whose friend I already was. It was then that I pledged myself to Lady Madeleine to be the guardian spirit of her cousin.” Here the Baron, overpowered by his emotions, leant back in his chair, and ceased to speak. In a few minutes he resumed.
“I did my duty; by all that’s sacred, I did my duty! Night and day I was with young Fane. A hundred times he was on the brink of ruin; a hundred times I saved him. One day, one never-to-be-forgotten day, one most dark and damnable day, I called on him, and found him on the point of joining a coterie of desperate character. I remonstrated with him, I entreated, I supplicated him not to go, in vain. At last he agreed to forego his engagement on condition that I dined with him. There were important reasons that day for my not staying with him; yet every consideration vanished when I thought of her for whom I was exerting myself. He was frantic this day; and, imagining that there was no chance of his leaving his home, I did not refuse to drink freely, to drink deeply. My doing so was the only way to keep him at home. As we were passing down Pall Mall we met two foreigners of distinction and a noble of your country; they were men of whom we both knew little. I had myself introduced Fane to the foreigners a few days before, being aware that they were men of high rank. After some conversation they asked us to join them at supper at the house of their English friend. I declined; but nothing could induce Fane to refuse them, and I finally accompanied them. Play was introduced after supper: I made an ineffectual struggle to get Fane home, but I was too full of wine to be energetic. After losing a small sum I got up from the table, and, staggering to a sofa, fell fast asleep. Even as I passed Fane’s chair in this condition, my master thought was evident, and I pulled him by the shoulder: all was useless; I woke to madness!” It was terrible to witness the anguish of Von Konigstein.
“Could you not clear yourself?” asked Vivian, for he felt it necessary to speak.
“Clear myself! Everything told against me. The villains were my friends, not the sufferer’s; I was not injured. My dining with him was part of the conspiracy; he was intoxicated previous to his ruin. Conscious of my innocence, quite desperate, but confiding in my character, I accused the guilty trio; they recriminated and answered, and without clearing themselves convinced the public that I was their dissatisfied and disappointed tool. I can speak no more.”
It is awful to witness sudden death; but, oh! how much more awful it is to witness in a moment the moral fall of a fellow-creature! How tremendous is the quick succession of mastering passions! The firm, the terrifically firm, the madly resolute denial of guilt; that eagerness of protestation which is a sure sign of crime, then the agonising suspense before the threatened proof is produced, the hell of detection, the audible anguish of sorrow, the curses of remorse, the silence of despair! Few of us, unfortunately, have passed through life without having beheld some instance of this instantaneous degradation of human nature. But, oh! how terrible is it when the confessed criminal has been but a moment before our friend! What a contrast to the laugh of joyous companionship is the quivering tear of an agonised frame! how terrible to be prayed to by those whose wishes a moment before we lived only to anticipate!