“I regret,” said he, bowing again, “that my enforced absence from home deprives me of so great a pleasure.”
His manner was becoming almost oppressive; indeed, I was relieved when I had closed the door between us. Nothing else had passed between the Baroness and me; it was evident, that she regarded the Count as an object of fear; indeed, it could hardly have been otherwise.
Time had slipped away, and the summer evening was advanced when I turned towards my hotel. As it promised to be a fine moonlight night, I, after some hesitation, determined to dine at once and ride out afterwards to Schönval. While waiting for dinner, I got into conversation with mine host, a bustling, talkative fellow. I was not much in the humour for the chatter of the man in the street, still, it was rather a relief after the strain of the afternoon’s critical fencing.
Presently I asked him, the matter being uppermost in my mind, about the drowning of Fräulein von Winterstein, and whether the body had been found.
“No,” he said, “although they are searching the river for miles. But the task is not so easy, mein Herr. There are known to be great rocks in that part of the river’s bed—the country is rocky there—and what so likely as that the poor lady, falling from that height, never rose again, but was swept by the strong current under one of those rocks, where she may lie till the Day of Judgment. Well, it is a mystery we cannot understand—the chances of life and death. A greatly admired lady, mein Herr, young, beautiful, with a long and happy life before her, as we might think, one hour, and in the next gone in a moment into Eternity, no trace left, as one might say, to show she had ever existed. It is a great enigma, mein Herr, and, if you please, your dinner is ready.”
The solution of the enigma which I thought I held was not calculated to add relish to the meal. I made a bad dinner; the bustle of the room only accentuating the contrast of the common-place life with its sinister background. I lighted a cigar, and ordered my horse to be brought round in ten minutes’ time. Then, and only then, for other thoughts had been all-absorbing, I remembered the letter I had left with the Consul. “What a fool I am!” I exclaimed. “In another minute I should have gone off and forgotten that, probably remembered it towards my journey’s end, and had to ride back for fear of complications.” So I sent word to have my horse kept in the stable against my return, and went off on foot to the Consul’s.
He seemed rather relieved to see me, or, perhaps at not having to act on my instructions. “You have called for your letter? I wondered how soon you would come back for it.” He unlocked the drawer and gave it me.
“I dare say you are glad to get rid of it. Don’t think me eccentric, only I fancied I might be going to run a certain risk this afternoon, and the fact that word of my whereabouts had been left with you might have been a trump card to play.”
Turnour gave me a look of comprehension. “Won’t you stay and smoke a cigar with me?”