"Perhaps Madame will believe this," he said quietly.
Mrs. Vanderlyn gave an ecstatic little cry after her first glance at the imposing document.
"The Imperial Seal!" she exclaimed. "A letter from the Emperor himself!
"But, what is this?" she continued, as she read farther. "He speaks about a pardon. What have you done, Herr Kreutzer?"
"It is very simple, Madame," he replied. "Now that I have this, now I can tell all. It had been necessary, as I have explained, that my marriage to my dear Anna's mother be kept secret. When, after one short year, she died, as I have already told you, all came to light.
"I was an officer in His Majesty's Imperial guards. One day a fellow officer, an enemy who had always hated me, insulted me because of my marriage—insulted the memory of my dead wife. There was a duel. He fell, as I thought, mortally wounded. The law was strict against participants in duels, and because I could not be parted from my little Anna I took her in my arms and we left Prussia—I believed forever. But at last the Emperor has relented and has pardoned me. He calls me back to Prussia! Ah, it is like him! He has not forgotten!"
"Were you such friends?" asked Mrs. Vanderlyn with awe.
"We were schoolmates at the College in Bonn," he answered. "We have drunk the hoffbrau together—in a beer garden."
Gone was all the scorn of Mrs. Vanderlyn. Quite forgotten, to all outward seeming, were her apprehensions lest the old musician's daughter might be unworthy of her son, her fears lest the old man, himself, should prove to be a handicap upon her social aspirations. She was still running through the papers, and, it must be said, with real intelligence and understanding, and her face was beaming with delight. It was as if from the beginning she had favored him and Anna and was now delighted to find confirmation of the confidence which she had felt in them.
"How absolutely splendid!" she exclaimed. "John, it is really true. I know my Almanach de Gotha—all the titles." Turning, now, to Kreutzer, she beamed upon him with a cordial smile which plainly took no count of all the frowns which, in the past few minutes, she had sent in his direction. "But Lichtenstahl is a magnificent estate. How does it happen that you—"