"I was flattering myself you were here to see us."
"Well, of course and very glad to see you, too; but I'm come in part as your governor's messenger."
Valérie saw him look up quickly, a flush on his face. "My father?"
"Yes, that rascal—(you know I always said he was good for nothing, a fool that couldn't smoke a Queen without being sick)—I mean, your brother Maximillian—was at the bottom of the Count's row with you. Last week I was dining at old Fitz's, and your father and sisters were there, and when the women were gone I asked him when he'd last heard of you; of course he looked tempestuous, and said, 'Never.' Happily, I'm not easily shut up, so I told him it was a pity, then, for if he did he'd hear you were jollier than ever, and I said your wife was—— Well, I won't say what, for fear we spoil this young lady, and make her vain of herself. The old boy turned pale, and said nothing; but two days after I got a line from him, saying he wasn't quite well; would I go down and speak to him. I found him chained with the gout, and he began to talk about you. I like that old man, Waldemar, I do, uncommonly. He said he'd been too hasty, but that it was a family failing, and that Max had brought him such—well, such confounded lies—about Valérie, that he would have shot you rather than see you give her your name; now he wants to have you back. I'd nothing to do, so I said I'd come and ask you to forgive the poor old boy, and come and see him, for he isn't well. I know you will, Falkenstein, because you never did bear malice."
"Oh yes, he will," murmured Valérie, tears in her eyes. "I separated you, Waldemar; you will let me see you reconciled?"
"My darling, yes! Poor old governor!" And Falkenstein stopped and smoked vigorously, for kindness always touched him to the heart.
Bevan looked at him and was silent. "I say," he whispered, when he was a moment alone with Valérie. "I didn't tell Waldemar, because I thought you'd break it to him less blunderingly than I should, but the old Count's breaking fast. I doubt if he'll live another week."
Bevan was right. In another week Falkenstein stood by the death-bed of his father. He had a long interview with him alone, in which the old Count detailed to him the fabricated slanders with which his brother had blackened Valérie's name. With all his old passion he disowned the son capable of such baseness, and constituted Waldemar his sole heir, save the legacies left his daughters. He died in Waldemar's arms the night they arrived in England, with his last word to him and Valérie, whom, despite Virginia's opposition, he insisted on seeing. Falkenstein's sorrow for his father was deep and unfeigned, like his character; but his guardian angel, as he used to call her, was there to console him, and, under the light of her smile, sorrow could not long pursue him.
On his brother, always his own enemy, and now the traducer of the woman he loved, Waldemar's wrath fell heavily, and would, to a certainty, have found some means of wreaking itself, but for the last wishes of his father. As it was, he took a nobler, yet a more complete revenge. The day of the funeral, when they were assembled for the reading of the will, Maximilian, unconscious of his doom, came with his gentle face, and tender melancholy air, to inherit, as he believed, Fairlie, and all the personal property.
Stunned as by a spent ball, horror-struck, disbelieving his senses, he heard his younger brother proclaimed the heir. It was a serious thing to him, moreover, for—for a man of large expenses and great ostentation—his own means were small. To secure every shilling he had schemed, and planned, and lied; and now every shilling was taken from him. Like the dog of Æsopian memory, trying to catch two pieces of meat, he had lost his own!