And that one sacrifice which she could not make was not her honor: no, of that she now thought but little in the whirlwind of her impetuous, ardent, heated imagination. But, madly as she loved Fernand Wagner—that is, loved him after the fashion of her own strange and sensual heart—she loved her brother still more; and this attachment was at least a pure, a holy sentiment, and a gloriously redeeming trait in the character of this wondrous woman, of a mind so darkly terrible.
And for her brother’s sake it was that there was one sacrifice—a sacrifice of a tremendous, but painfully persevered-in project—which she would not make even to her love for Fernand Wagner! No, rather would she renounce him forever—rather would she perish, consumed by the raging fires of her own ungratified passions, than sacrifice one tittle of what she deemed to be her brother’s welfare to any selfish feeling of her own!
Wherefore do we dwell on this subject now?
Because such was the resolution which Nisida vowed within her own heart, as she stood alone in her chamber, and fixed her eyes upon a document, bearing the ducal seal that lay upon the table.
That document contained the decision of his highness in respect to the memorial which she had privately forwarded to him in accordance with the advice given her a few days previously by Dr. Duras. The duke lost no time in vouchsafing a reply; and this reply was unfavorable to the hopes of Nisida. His highness refused to interfere with the provisions of the late count’s will; and this decision was represented to be final.
Therefore it was that Nisida solemnly vowed within herself to persevere in a course so long ago adopted, and ever faithfully, steadily, sternly adhered to since the day of its commencement; and, as if to confirm herself in the strength of this resolution, she turned her eyes with adoring, worshiping look toward the portrait of her maternal parent, those eloquent, speaking orbs seeming almost to proclaim the words which her lips could not utter, “Yes, mother—sainted mother! thou shalt be obeyed!”
Then she hastily secured the ducal missive in an iron box where she was in the habit of keeping her own private papers, and which opened with a secret spring.
But did she, then, mean to renounce her love for Wagner? Did she contemplate the terrible alternative of abandoning him in his misfortune, in his dungeon?
No—far from that! She would save him if she could; she would secure him to herself, if such were possible; but she would not sacrifice to these objects the one grand scheme of her life, that scheme which had formed her character as we now find it, and which made her stand alone, as it were, among the millions of her own sex!
And it was to put into execution the plan which she had devised to effect Wagner’s freedom, that she was now arming herself with all the resolution, all the magnanimity, all the firmness with which her masculine soul was capable.