And the baroness threw herself into a chair as if she were broken-hearted, and commenced weeping bitterly.
Helen had never seen her mother weep. The unusual sight touched her deeply. She knelt down by her, and tried to console her with kind, soothing words. But it was all in vain.
"It is not that alone, though that is bad enough," sobbed Anna Maria; "but we also are threatened with a similar exposure," and under the pressure of a moment, yielding to the natural impulse of all helpless sufferers to cling to others at any hazard, she told Helen in a few words all about Oswald's claims on her fortune, and that if these claims should be legally established she and her daughter alike would be beggars.
Helen had listened to her in breathless excitement. Her color came and went continually, her eyes were fixed on her mother, her hand held her mother's hands with a firm grasp.
"Beggars! you say? Better so and a clear conscience than in abundance and fainting with anxiety! Come, mamma, I am not afraid of poverty! You have often told me how poor you were before you were married to papa. Why should I be better off? I do not see that being rich has made you happy, or papa; he told me so in his last hour. I have seen it with my own eyes how much happier people are who have nothing but their affection, who rely on nothing but their own strength. I have strength; I can and will work for you, if it must be so. But now let us go away from here. You are sick and weary; your hand is icy cold, and your forehead is burning; stay, do not get up. I will pack your things; you need not trouble yourself; I shall be down in five minutes."
"No," said the baroness, "let me do that. Mary can help me. You can do something else for me. We cannot well leave without writing a few words of farewell to the princess, as she is too unwell to see us, and we are in such a hurry. Sit down and write a few lines, kindly and politely, but neither more nor less than what is indispensable."
"I will do so," said Helen, sitting down at her escritoire, while her mother went into the adjoining room.
Helen had just taken up her pen when she heard a noise behind her which made her look up. In the middle of the room stood Oswald, deadly pale, his large eyes, brilliant with fever, fixed upon her. Helen was so terrified that she could not speak nor move. She thought for a moment it was an apparition.
Oswald seemed to guess so.
"It is really I!" he said. "Pardon me for my abrupt appearance. I asked for the baroness; they showed me in here."