She tried to shake off these evil forebodings. All that she dreaded might never come to pass; surely she might succeed, by preserving a calm, circumspect demeanour, in slaying his doubt, in destroying his suspicion without recurring to a direct falsehood.
Poor woman! Upright to a rare degree as was her nature in its essence, it became distorted beneath the terrible burden weighing on her, and she was ready to resort to every petty artifice that could afford her any stay in her miserably false position! She had buried her sin deep, deep, and had reared above it a wondrous temple sacred to all that is fairest, noblest, and most unselfish in the world. So grand and firm was this temple towering aloft to the blue skies, that she dreamed it would endure forever. She trusted it would. Out of love for her child she had grown devout. For years she had prayed the same prayer every evening: "Oh God! I thank Thee for my dear, noble child--accept his excellence, as an atonement for my sin!"
She believed that God had heeded her prayer, nay, she even believed, in her boundless affection for her child, that God had wrought a miracle in her behalf! She forgot that the great mysterious Power that shapes our destinies never transgresses the laws that it has made, and that the consequences of our guilt inexorably pursue their way, until their natural expiation is fulfilled. In this case that expiation took a shape far different from any that a mother's tender heart could have devised.
The clock had struck eleven. Her anxiety increased although she could not have defined her dread. Her windows were open, she listened;--at last there was the sound of hoofs, the jingle of a bit and bridle. She breathed a sigh of relief.
A few moments elapsed, and then a weary, lagging step came along the corridor to her door;--why did that step instantly reveal to her that the decisive moment had come? There was a knock at her door,--Oswald entered. "Forgive me for disturbing you so late, mamma," he said in a tone lacking all animation, "I saw your light from below...."
"Late?--it is hardly eleven o'clock; you know that you never disturb me, dear child. Since when have you learned to knock at my door? The next thing you will send in your name."
The forced gayety of her tone did not escape him. "Oh, I did not know--I--" he murmured vaguely, dropping, without kissing, the hand which she extended to him; then he took a seat near her, but outside of the little oasis of light shed by the lamp on the table beside the Countess.
"You came home by the way of Rautschin?"
"Yes."
"Are they all well there?"