I lost not an instant in writing out a telegram and dispatching it by a man on horseback to Lahnburg. I summoned Eugen briefly:
“Sigmund is ill. I am here. Come to us.”
I saw the man depart, and then I went and told the countess what I had done. She turned, if possible, a shade paler, then said:
“I am not responsible for it.”
Then I left the poor pale lady to still her beating heart and kill her deadly apprehensions in the embroidery of the lily of the field and the modest violet.
No change in the child’s condition. A lethargy had fallen upon him. That awful stupor, with the dark, flushed cheek and heavy breath, was to me more ominous than the restlessness of fever.
I sat down and calculated. My telegram might be in Eugen’s hand in the course of an hour.
When could he be here? Was it possible that he might arrive this night? I obtained the German equivalent for Bradshaw, and studied it till I thought I had made out that, supposing Eugen to receive the telegram in the shortest possible time, he might be here by half past eleven that night. It was now five in the afternoon. Six hours and a half—and at the end of that time his non-arrival might tell me he could not be here before the morrow.
I sat still, and now that the deed was done, gave myself up, with my usual enlightenment and discretion, to fears and apprehensions. The terrible look and tone of Graf von Rothenfels returned to my mind in full force. Clearly it was just the most dangerous thing in the world for Eugen to do—to put in an appearance at the present time. But another glance at Sigmund somewhat reassured me. In wondering whether girl had ever before been placed in such a bizarre situation as mine, darkness overtook me.
Sigmund moved restlessly and moaned, stretching out little hot hands, and saying “Father!” I caught those hands to my lips, and knew that I had done right.