'It would be difficult, but you would be justified. She endeavoured to draw your husband into an intrigue.'
'Are we sure? Let us be charitable.'
'My dear Wanda, you are a truer Christian than I am.'
'Justice existed before Christianity, if you do not think me profane to say so. I try to be just.'
'Justice is blind,' said the Princess, drily. 'I never understood very well how, being so, she can see her own scales.'
Wanda made no reply. She had not been blind, but she would have never said to any living being all that she had suffered in those weeks when he had stayed behind her in Paris. That he had returned to her blameless she was certain; she had put far behind her for ever the remembrance of those the only hours of anxiety and pain which he had given her since their marriage.
The Princess, communing with herself, wrote a letter to the Countess Brancka, chill and austere, in which she conveyed in delicate, but sufficiently clear, language, her sense that the same roof should not shelter her and Sabran, especially when the roof was that of Hohenszalras. She sent it because she believed it to be her duty to do so, but she had little faith in its efficacy. She would have written also to Stefan Brancka, but she knew him to be a weak, indulgent, careless man, still young, who had been lenient to his wife's follies and frailties, and who was only kept from ruin by the strong hand of his brother. If she told him what was after all mere conjecture, he might only laugh; if he did not laugh he might kill Sabran in a duel, were his Magyar blood fired by suspicion. No one could be ever sure what Count Stefan would or would not do; the only thing sure was that he would be never wise. To his wife herself he was absolutely indifferent, but this did not prevent him from having occasional moods of furious resentment against her. He was too unstable and too perilous a person to resort to in any difficulty.
In a few days she received her answer, though Sabran received none. It was brief and playful and pathetic.
'Beloved and reverend Mother,—You never like me, you always lecture me, but I am glad that you honour me by remembrance, even if it be to upbraid. I know not of what mysterious crime you suspect me, nor do I understand your allusions to M. de Sabran. I have always found him charming, and I think if he had not married so rich a woman he would have been eminent in some way; but content slays ambition. Salute Wanda lovingly and the pretty children. How is your little Ottilie? My Mila and Marie are grown out of knowledge. We shall soon have to be thinking of their dots—alas! where will these come from? Stefan and I have been the prey of unjust stewards and extortionate tradesfolk till scarce anything is left except the mine at Schermnitz. Pity me a little, and pray for me much.
'Your ever devoted
'OLGA.'
Princess Ottilie was a holy woman, and knew that rage was a sin against herself and heaven, but when she had read this note she tore it in a hundred pieces, and stamped her small foot upon it, trembling with passion the while.