"Better you had never borne me than this!"
The powerful man trembled as if violent fever were shaking him; a groan broke from his breast which resounded fearfully through the gorgeous apartment.
"By all the saints, Raimund, hear me, I beseech you! I will tell you all!"
"I need not hear any more. I know too much already. The count called me a bastard! I thought he was mad! He called me by my right name."
He put his hand to his side--he had laid aside his sword in the ante-room. His eyes looked searchingly around as if looking for a weapon. His mother understood him.
"Raimund, Raimund, what are you going to do?"
"Make an end of it as soon as possible!"
"No man will ever know----"
"Will know? Who does not know it? Nadeska! the count! this man! Are my rank, my honor, my fortune to depend on the whim of a chambermaid, the discretion of a heartless roué, and the silence of a rope-dancer?
"Am I to wait till the people in the street----"