“A fortnight!” she exclaimed, with a painful remembrance of their last interview.
“He left the day after the soirée at the time of Clara’s marriage.”
“That evening,” she said with emotion, “he spoke of an abyss into which my hand would prevent him from falling. O God!” she continued with the greatest agitation, “could I really have saved him by consenting? Would the sacrifice of my life have prevented this terrible disaster?”
“No; the great stake he made that night was his sole resource against ruin. Why did he talk to you in such a manner? Was it through madness or perversity? It must have been madness, the unfortunate fellow loved you without doubt. I pity him, but—” Clement hesitated and then rapidly continued: “Listen to me, Gabrielle. I am going to tell you something it might be better to keep to myself, but I must justify myself and reassure you, and it cannot injure him now. I regarded Felix with contempt because,” and for a moment there was a flash in Clement’s eye—“because he wished to make me as despicable as himself, and once played the vile rôle of a tempter to me who was then but a boy—because he would, if he could, have drawn me after him into the path which to-day has ended so fatally. Therefore, cousin,” he continued with still more emotion, “had he succeeded in winning your hand, I should have felt it my duty to have warned you of his unworthiness, of which I was too well aware, for I have never forgotten you called me your brother. But I was reluctant to denounce him, and glad, oh! so glad, that evening, not to be obliged to do so—glad you were saved by your own self! And if I tell you all this now, it is to put an end to the fears you have just expressed.”
“And I am grateful to you for banishing them. But, Clement, tell me once more—here, in the presence of God, have I nothing to reproach myself with?”
“Nothing, on my honor, Gabrielle, believe me!”
Clement, as we have remarked, possessed great firmness of character, and a kind of premature wisdom which gave him great ascendency over others. When this trait is natural, it is manifest at an early age, and a day often suffices for its complete development. That day had arrived for Clement, and henceforth no one would ever dream of calling him a boy.
X.
Ruin!—a word at once positive and yet extremely vague—very plain in itself, and yet conveying the idea of a multitude of undefined consequences, often more alarming than actual misfortune, and sometimes suggesting chimerical hopes. And it has a deeper signification when it happens to a person unaccustomed to the calculations of material life, given up to thought and study, and moreover delivered from the necessity of exertion through long years of prosperous ease.
Such was the nature, and hitherto such the position, of Professor Ludwig Dornthal. Of all the misfortunes in the world, that which had now befallen him was the last he would have dreamed of, and he was less capable of comprehending it than of supporting it courageously. Besides, the word ruin may also be taken in a relative sense which mitigates its severity, and this was the way the professor regarded it. With only a faint idea of the extent of the catastrophe, he remained inactively expectant of something to partially remedy what merely related to his finances, being more preoccupied about his nephew’s shameful flight and its fatal consequence—the death of his brother.