Adelaide caught the lady's hand, and kissed it; and gently releasing herself from her husband's embrace, the Countess of Ehrenstein approached his brother, and said, in a low tone, "You are free, my lord; you had better, perhaps, retire, and for a time betake you to some place of seclusion till my lord and husband has forgotten some of the past events, or has time to think more gently of them."
The unhappy man bowed his head low, and with pale cheek, turned away. The crowd drew back to let him pass; but ere he could take two steps from the spot where this scene had passed, Adelaide sprang forward and knelt before him. He had not noticed--he had not seemed to see her before; but now she raised her beautiful face towards him, with the rich brown hair falling back, and the torch-light streaming on her brow; and, in a tone of musical melancholy, she said, "Forgive me, my father! Oh! forgive me, and let me go with you to comfort you. What I have done, was done only in the hope of saving you, not from undutiful disobedience. I learned that these events were coming, only under the most solemn vow of secrecy, and even then but vaguely. I was told enough, however, to know, or at least to believe, that the only means of rescuing my father from destruction, was by giving my hand to one whose voice might be most powerful with my uncle. I trust I hope that the love, which I own I felt, had no weight in my resolve; but, at all events, you are saved, my father; and my first duty now is, to beseech your forgiveness, and to try to soothe and to console you."
For an instant, as she spoke, her father eyed her with a stern and angry glance. Old passions revived; he forgot how he had fallen: pride, and the lingerings of a vengeful spirit, made themselves felt again; but as he raised his eyes, all that he saw around brought back the bitter and humiliating present. He felt that he was crushed down to the very earth,--nay, more, he felt that his own crimes crushed him. His heart was humbled--the first step to true repentance--and that better feeling threw open the gates of the breast to others: parental love returned; ay, and even a sense of gratitude for that which his child had done. He saw, he understood the motives on which she had acted; and listening, softened, to the last words she spoke, he put his arms around her, and leaning down his head, for the first time, he wept.
"I will go with you,--I will go with you," murmured Adelaide.
"Nay, my child, it must not be," replied her father. "I do believe you have acted for the best; but now you are bound in duty to another. Stay with your husband. I have done him wrong; but he loves you deeply, I am sure; and you shall teach him, by your gentle tenderness, to forget your father's faults.--Adieu, my child! May God bless and protect you!"
As he spoke, the Count of Ehrenstein strode forward, and took him by both the hands. "William," he said, "William, do you repent of what you have done?"
"From my heart and soul, Ferdinand," replied his brother. "Nay, more, I have ever repented bitterly. I have found that one crime, besides its own remorse, brings a thousand others to be repented of. The things I have done have haunted me by day and night: they have embittered life; and I have learned, too late, that though crime may purchase a moment's joy, it is sure to be followed by an existence of misery. But you know not--oh! you know not, you who have lived in one course of integrity and honour, how entanglements and temptations crowd upon one, how they interweave a net, from which the heart, were it as strong as a lion, could not break forth, when once we have plunged into a course of wrong,--how the evil wish begets the evil act,--how the evil act calls to the lie to conceal it,--how the lie, in its shame, has recourse to a new crime to cover it. None can know, none can tell, what are the difficulties, the agonies--what are the struggles, the writhings, of those who go on in doing what is wrong, with some sense of right remaining. Oh! the longing for deliverance; the eager thirst to obliterate the past; the tender thoughts of youth and infancy, and innocence and peace; the fearful looking forward to the future day, when Satan will claim his tribute of fresh wickedness to purchase a brief immunity from the penalty of the soul's dark bond; the effort for firmness, even in the course we have taken; the feeling that there is no real strength but in virtue, no fortitude but in honesty! It is inexpressible, it cannot be described or told: but I call God to witness that I speak the truth, when I say, that I even I, for the last twenty years--though I seemed to have gained all that ambition could desire--though wealth, power, luxury, enjoyment, were all at my command--have suffered tortures that hell itself can hardly equal, and which might well expiate a life of sin. I know now, I know bitterly, what is the meaning of 'the worm that never dies, and the fire that can never be quenched.' And what has this strife made me?--how changed a thing from what I was before! If I look back but for a few short years, I can see myself a different being. Do you remember, Ferdinand, when we were boys together at Würzburg, and this good lord here of Leiningen was our gay companion, how cheerfully the days passed, how light the hours seemed? Time had no weight: existence was a blessing. The free, sunshiny air came with its wings loaded with enjoyment; the breath of the spring flowers was like the balm of Eden, the singing of the birds an angels' choir. I enjoyed all, in those days; I loved you all well. My heart was open as the Heaven to every human creature. The whole universe had nothing but delight, except when sometimes I thought, with a regretful sullenness, that you were destined to the busy scenes in which I longed to mingle, and I to a cloister's gloom, and the separation of a hard vow from all my fellow men. But that was nothing: a light cloud upon a summer's sky, in a moment borne away, and all was sunshine again, and cheerfulness.--Do you remember, Ferdinand? It seems to me but yesterday."
His face lighted up, as if the sunshine of early days shone forth on his countenance; and as he spoke, he laid his hand forgetfully upon his brother's arm, and gazed upon him with a look of tender memory. The Count, too, gave way to the soft influences of those early days: they came back upon him, as his brother spoke. One harsh feeling after another faded away, like darkness giving place to light: he leaned his arm upon Count William's shoulder; and, bending down his head, while a tear trickled from his eye, he said, "I do remember, William; I do remember all right well."
"And what am I now?" asked his brother, suddenly withdrawing from him, as if he felt that he was not worthy of that kind familiar touch; "a wretch, an outcast, hated by all, abhorrent to myself. But that is nothing--all nothing to the past. I am happier now than heretofore; for the effect of that dark struggle in my heart was strange and terrible; from kind, I had become fierce and cruel; from gentle and patient, angry and proud. Powerless to enjoy, I hated the sight of enjoyment; and with a chain of adamant about my heart, the sight of a free spirit in another was bitterness to me. Only, indeed, in the case of this youth and this dear girl did I ever witness the pure and simple pleasures of happy innocence, without hating what I witnessed for the reproof it bore me. But it was not so with them.--He knows it was not.--In his wild energies and soaring fancy, in his free spirit and his bold heart, he would often call back the brother of my youth, vaguely but sweetly, and in the regrets I felt there might mingle melancholy, but no pain. It was too indistinct to wound. It was as a sight or a sound that we have known in childhood, coming back upon the ear of age, and cheating it with a misty dream of early joy.
"Oh, it was sweet to mark him; and, though sometimes--provoked to sudden frenzy, as if a demon whispered, he had wrongs to avenge upon me--I would be fierce and wayward with him, like a tyrant as I was, yet Heaven can testify that I loved him better than any being on earth, except this my child."