“I dare say,” cried Gerard. “You are the lord of the Horst, and the larger the property is, the pleasanter for you!”
“Gerard, you may accuse me of the most sordid—”
“I accuse you of nothing. Pray let us have no recriminations; we do not understand each other well enough for anything of that kind. All I say is this, and I shall stick to it—I must have my share in ready money. Can’t you see I must? If I were to go to the other fellow—the fellow that won—and say, ‘My father won’t have any of the land sold,’ he’d think I was shirking, after all these years. Imagine that! He’d think I was shirking! The time would have come for me to decide between ‘paying or shooting.’ Otto, if father were alive, he’d understand that better than you do. Oh, I wish I could explain it to him; he’d want only half a word. He’d be the first to say, ‘Settle the matter at once.’” The young man was violently agitated. He tried vainly to steady his features. He had loved his father with ready, easy affection. It was a cruel wound to him to bear the appearance of showing less filial piety than Otto!
“Ninety thousand florins,” repeated the elder brother, as if not heeding the other’s passion. “You were mad. You never could have raised the money till father’s death. What a speculation!”
“Who knows,” replied Gerard, stung to the quick. “At this moment, but for you, the sum might have seemed to me a trifle. Do not you, of all persons, reproach me with my poverty. I should have been a rich man at this moment but for you.”
“But for me?” exclaimed Otto, in blank amazement.
“Yes, but for you,” Gerard continued, wildly. “It was you who told Ursula about Adeline, as if any man ever betrayed another, even his enemy, to a woman! But your ideas about honor and dishonor, which you bring forward so frequently, are certainly not mine.” Gerard stopped, eying his brother curiously. “Is it possible you don’t know,” he said, “that Ursula told Helena?”
“As you allude to the disgraceful story yourself,” replied Otto, in a dull voice, “I may as well assure you that I have never spoken of it to any one. Ursula knows nothing about it. Nor am I to blame if Helena does.”
However Gerard might have misunderstood his brother, he implicitly believed him. All his anger turned against the woman who had ruined his matrimonial prospects, while herself grabbing, by any means, even including advertisement, at the first husband she could catch.