As befitted a man with a highly developed conscience, Pestel had definitely laid his plans for the future. When he returned at the end of six months, ways and means were to be found for Letitia’s divorce from Stephen and her remarriage to him. He thought of flight only as an extreme measure.
He told her that he was poor. Only a very small capital was deposited in his name in Stuttgart. He was a Suabian—simple-hearted, sober, and accurate.
“Ah,” Letitia sighed again, half-astonished and half-saddened. “It doesn’t matter,” she said with determination. “I’m rich. I own a great tract of forest land. My aunt, the Countess Brainitz, gave it to me as a wedding present.”
“A forest? Where?” Pestel asked, and smiled.
“In Germany. Near Heiligenkreuz in the Rhön region. It’s as big as a city, and when it’s sold it will bring a lot of money. I’ve never been there, but I’ve been told that it contains large deposits of some ore. That would have to be found and exploited. Then I’d be even richer than if I sold the forest.” These facts had grown in Letitia’s imagination; they were the children of the dreams and wishes she had harboured since her slavery in this strange land. She was not lying; she had quite forgotten that she had invented it all. She wished this thing to be so, and it had taken on reality in her mind.
“It’s too good, altogether too good to be true,” Pestel commented thoughtfully.
His words moved Letitia. She began to sob and threw herself on his breast. Her young life seemed hard to her and ugly and surrounded by dangers. Nothing she had hoped for had become reality. All her pretty soap-bubbles had burst in the wind. Her tears sprang from her deep realization of this fact and out of her fear of men and of her fate. She yearned for a pair of strong arms to give her protection and security.
Pestel was also moved. He put his arms about her and ventured to kiss her forehead. She sobbed more pitifully, and so he kissed her mouth. Then she smiled. He said that he would love her until he died, that no woman had ever inspired such feelings in him.
She confessed to him that she was with child by the unloved husband to whom she was chained. Pestel pressed her to his bosom, and said: “The child is blood of your blood, and I shall regard it as my own.”
The time was speeding dangerously. Holding each other’s hands they went down the stairs. They parted with the promise to write each other daily.