"What business is it all of mine? I am very sorry for the woman, but it is none the less true that she went wrong, and must now bear the consequences, which may perhaps ruin her, who knows? I cannot prevent it; and, indeed, when I remember everything, I cannot even excuse her. And yet----"
The carriage stopped at his hotel.
In his room he found a letter from Thea, describing the dance at Eichhof. He read it with thoughts elsewhere. It all seemed like child's play, whilst here in Berlin there might shortly be enacted one of those tragedies which now and then disturb the smooth surface of society. He saw before him the unsuspicious husband, from whose eyes the veil was suddenly torn; the guilty woman, who had vainly tried to atone for the sin of her youth; the vile betrayer--oh, here were the same parts played in so many dramas, but each of these performers wore a face familiar to Bernhard. This husband, the happiness of whose life was perhaps to be annihilated at a blow, had been his schoolmate; he had exchanged friendly words with this woman--no, he would not think of the wife, but of the deceived husband,--only of him; and for the sake of this companion of his boyhood--for the husband's sake--the thought of this drama filled him with horror. Must he not try to avert its fulfilment? He believed that he must do so, and for the husband's sake alone; and whenever through the night the image of the pale, golden-haired woman intruded upon his thoughts, he thrust it from him. She must be sacrificed to his sense of justice in his thoughts, if not in reality. "Not for her,--she does not deserve it,--but for her husband, I must try to see this Möhâzy once more, and in some way render him harmless. First, however, I must speak with her; I must clearly understand the matter, and consult with her as to the best measures for her protection."
With her! Yes; the indirect ways of the heart and of the devil are marvellous indeed. They led Count Bernhard Eichhof the next morning to Frau von Wronsky's boudoir!
CHAPTER XVI.
[REVELATIONS AND THEIR CONSEQUENCES.]
"I did not love him, but I consented to be his wife. I loved no one except my father, and even he was more of an abstraction than a reality to me, for I saw him but seldom, and scarcely ever talked with him. He was always away from home, and I was left alone with my French governess at the lonely country-house in Russian Poland. Nevertheless I loved the being that my fancy had created, to which I had lent my father's form and name, little as it really resembled him. It was, therefore, not at all difficult for me, in order to save him from ruin, to promise to be the wife of a handsome man who had presented me with a parure of diamonds. I was, besides, weary of my quiet life, and longed to see something of the world of which I read in books. They told me that for political reasons my future husband was obliged to preserve a certain incognito in Russia, and that therefore our marriage must take place shortly and privately.
"I thought this very romantic, and packed my trunk--which was but scantily furnished--and got into the travelling-carriage, full of happy dreams of the future. The marriage ceremony was performed in the chapel of a castle which was entirely unknown to me.
"Thus I became the wife of Josef von Möhâzy, and my father retrieved his fortune with the money paid him by my husband. I had been sold like a chattel, but I was such a perfect child that I saw nothing degrading in the transaction, but was glad to have been of use to my father.