Felix, however, was content to have driven off his most dangerous rival, and did not pursue his advantage for the present. The whole affair had become too serious for his taste for one thing, and then another business was just now claiming his whole attention. His health had become so much worse during the last days that even his frivolity could no longer make him blind to the imminence of actual danger. The wounds, but half healed, opened once more; a slow fever undermined his nervous system by day and by night, and he had hardly fallen asleep when a hacking cough waked him from dreams so fearful that even sleeplessness seemed a benefit in comparison. The anxiety about his health was increased by other cares which he had formerly treated very lightly, but which now had a sad effect upon his hypochondriac temper, and confused and troubled him sorely. People would crowd into his bed-chamber who would not be refused admittance by his servants--people with odd faces and remarkably soiled linen, who had no sooner succeeded in making their way to his bed-side than they opened large pocketbooks and presented the baron with a little bit of a note "for two hundred or three hundred dollars--a mere trifle for the baron."
Perhaps the baron would have been able to redeem these ominous papers if he had been what he had hoped to be when he adorned them with his signature: the acknowledged affianced of Helen, and the son-in-law of the richest landowner of the province. But unfortunately he was neither the one nor the other, had no prospect of becoming such, and could therefore not be very much astonished if the baroness was less gracious every time she met one of these suspicious personages. It had been different a few weeks ago, when the sun of his invincible power of charming was still in the zenith. Felix knew perfectly well that his aunt was so liberal only, in spite of her natural disposition, because she knew him to be in possession of a grave family secret. But even this last tie, which could be replaced by no other, was hanging on a single thread.
For he could not doubt that it was only the fear of "the stupid honesty of the baron"--the identical words of his amiable wife--which kept her from bringing matters to a crisis in her conflict with Albert Timm, and Felix was by no means quite sure whether even this fear was likely to induce her to assent to the bargain which he had made with Albert in her name. He had, therefore, not dared yet to tell her the full amount for which he had purchased Albert's silence.
His timidity in the whole business had a very good motive in his critical situation. He had to keep his aunt in the best possible humor in order to obtain from her the sums he required for his personal wants. It would be time enough hereafter to enlighten her on the subject of Timm's demand. Felix hated Oswald intensely, and it would have been intolerable to him to see the hated man obtain possession of the large fortune with Albert's aid, and perhaps after awhile also of Helen's hand; but all that had to give way for the present to the imperative necessities of his position.
This was the condition of things when the baroness came on the morning after the party, where Felix of course had not been able to be present, to pay the patient a visit, after having been ceremoniously announced. Felix was wrapped up in a large dressing gown, and sat shivering close to the stove. His big eyes, once so supercilious, and now glassy and staring, and the sickly, well-defined red spot on his lean cheeks, bore witness to the rapid progress which the disease had made during the last days. Somewhat astonished at such a visit at so unusual an hour, he half rose from his chair, and offered his aunt his thin feverish hand.
"Bon jour, ma tante! must I say, so early or so late? for you have been dancing till very recently. I heard the bass viol all the way down to my room here: brm! brm! brm! until it nearly made me crazy; and if you had not cured me of cursing, my dear aunt, I could have wished the accursed creature who made all the tantrum down to the deepest place in----"
"I hope your health is not worse to-day than your cursing," said Anna Maria, smiling. She settled down in an arm-chair before the patient, and took out some work as an evidence that she intended to pay a long visit. "But seriously speaking, dear Felix, I have been sorry for you, and I have come to ask your pardon for the interruption."
"Why, you are prodigiously gracious to-day, ma tante?"
"I thought I always was so," replied Anna Maria; "only there are people who will never be persuaded of it."
"I am not one of them, dear aunt."