'I will come there,' he said; and though he was well used to her strong self-control and forbearance, he felt amazed at the force of these now, and was moved to a passionate gratitude. 'Any other woman,' he thought, 'would have torn me asunder to know what there has been between me and her guest. She does not even speak; and yet God knows how she loves me! She trusts me, and she will not weary me, nor importune me, nor seem to suspect me with doubt. Who shall be worthy of that? How can I rid her house of this insult? The other shall go; she shall go if I put her out with public shame before my servants. Would to heaven that to kill such as she is were no more murder than to slay a vicious beast or a poisonous worm!'
He followed his wife into the octagon-room, where all her private papers were. There were details of a mine in Galicia which were disquieting and troublesome; on the previous day they had agreed together what to do, but before she had answered her inspector, fresh details had come in by the post-bag, whilst he had been chamois-hunting. She sat down and handed him these fresh reports.
'I do not think there is anything that will alter your decisions,' she said. 'But read them, and tell me, and I will then write.'
He drew the documents from her, and began to peruse them, but his hand shook a little as he held the papers; his eyes were not clear, his mind was not free. He laid them down and looked at her; she was seated near him. She was paler than usual and her face was grave, but she seemed quite absorbed in what she did, as she added figures together, and made a quick précis of the reports she had received. Her left hand lay on the table as she wrote; on the great diamond of the bague d'alliance, the only gift which he had presumed to offer her on their marriage, the light was sparkling; it looked like a cluster of dewdrops on a lily. He took that hand on a sudden impulse of infinite reverence, and raised it to his lips.
She looked at him, and a mist of tears came into her eyes which were tears of pleasure, of relief, of restrained emotion comforted; the gesture gave her all the reassurance that she cared, to have; she was sure then that Olga Brancka had never made him false to his honour and hers. She said nothing to him of what was foremost in the minds of both. She held the value of silence high. She thought that there were things of which merely to speak seemed a species of dishonour. A single word ill-said is so often the 'little rift within the lute which makes the music dumb.'
She went to rest content; but he was none the less ill at ease, disturbed, offended, and violently offended, at the presence of his temptress under the roof of Hohenszalras. It was an outrage to all he loved and respected; an outrage to which he was determined to put an end. The only possible way to do so was to see his guest himself alone. He could not visit her in her apartments; he could not summon her to his; if he waited for chance, he might wait for days. The insolence which had brought her here would probably, he reasoned, keep her here some time, and he was resolved that she should not pass another night in the same house with his wife and his children.
Long after Wanda had gone to sleep he sat alone, thinking and perplexing himself with many a scheme, each of which he dismissed as impracticable and likely to draw that attention from his household which he most desired to avoid. He slept ill, scarcely at all, and rose before daybreak. When he was dressed he sent his man to ask Greswold to come to him. The old physician, who usually got up before the sun, soon obeyed his summons, and anxiously inquired what need there was of him.
'Dear Professor,' said Sabran, with that gracious kindliness which always won his listener's heart, 'you were my earliest friend here; you are the tutor of my sons; you are an old man, a wise man, and a prudent man. I want you to understand something without my explaining it; I do not desire or intend the Countess Brancka to be the guest of my wife for another day.'
Greswold looked up quickly: he knew the character of Stefan Brancka's wife, he guessed the rest.
'What can I do?' he said simply. 'Pray command me.'