And the letter was sent. After that still more hurried preparations were made for Yatsek's departure.
CHAPTER VIII
But Tachevski's friends did not foresee that the priest's letter would be in a certain sense useful to Pan Gideon, and serve his home policy. He did not indeed receive it without anger. Yatsek, who so far had been merely an obstacle, became thenceforth, though not the author of the letter, an object of hatred. That hatred in the stubborn old heart of Pan Gideon bloomed like a poison flower, but his ingenious mind determined to use the priest's letter. In view of this he restrained his fierce rage, his face assumed a look of contemptuous pity, and he went with the answer to Anulka.
"Thou hast paid toll, and art assaulted for doing so," said he. "I did not wish this, for I am a man of experience, and I know people; but when thou didst clasp thy hands and say that injustice had been done, that I had exceeded in sternness, and thou hadst been too severe to him, that he ought not to leave us in anger, I yielded. I sent him assistance in money. I sent him a horse. I wrote him a nice letter also. I thought he would come and bow down, give us thanks, take farewell as became a man who had spent so much time in this mansion; but see what he has sent me in answer!"
At these words he drew the priest's letter from his girdle and gave it to the young lady. She began to read, and soon her dark brows met in anger, but when she reached the place where the priest declared that Pan Gideon wished to humiliate Yatsek, thanks to the suggestions of another, her hands trembled, her face became scarlet, then grew as pale as linen, and remained pale.
Though Pan Gideon saw all this he feigned not to see it.
"May God forgive them for what they attribute to me," said he, after a moment of silence. "He alone knows whether my ancestors are much below the Tachevskis, of whose greatness more fables than truth are related. What I cannot forgive is this: that they pay thee, my poor dear, for thy kindness of an angel, with such ingratitude."
"It was not Pan Yatsek who wrote this, but Father Voynovski," answered Anulka, seizing, as it were, the last plank of salvation.
The old noble sighed.
"Dost thou believe, girl," inquired he, "that I love thee?"