CHAPTER XI.
Sperver's pale face and glowing eyes announced that events were on theirway. Yet he was calm, and did not seem surprised at my presence inKnapwurst's room.
"Fritz," he said briefly, "I am come to fetch you." I rose withoutanswering and followed him. Scarcely were we out of the hut when he tookme by the arm and drew me on to the castle.
"Mademoiselle Odile wants to see you," he whispered.
"What! is she ill?"
"No, she is much better, but something or other that is strange is goingon. This morning about one o'clock, thinking that the count was nearlybreathing his last, I went to wake the countess; with my hand on the bellmy heart failed me. 'Why should I break her heart?' I said to myself,'She will learn her misfortune only too soon; and then to wake her up inthe middle of the night, weak and frail as she is, after such shocks,might kill her at a stroke.' I took a few minutes to consider, and then Iresolved I would take it all on myself. I returned to the count's room. Ilooked in--not a soul was there! Impossible! the man was in the lastagonies of death. I ran into the corridor like a madman. No one wasthere! Into the long gallery--no one! Then I lost my presence of mind,and rushing again into the young countess's room, I rang again. This timeshe appeared, crying out--'Is my father dead?' 'No.' 'Has hedisappeared?' 'Yes, madam. I had gone out for a minute--when I came inagain--' 'And Doctor Fritz, where is he?' 'In Hugh Lupus's tower.' 'In_that_ tower?' She started. She threw a dressing-gown around her, tookher lamp, and went out. I stayed behind. A quarter of an hour after shecame back, her feet covered with snow, and so pale and so cold! She sether lamp upon the chimney-piece, and looking at me fixedly, said--'Was ityou who put the doctor into that tower?' 'Yes, madam.' 'Unhappy man! youwill never know the extent of the harm you have done.' I was about toanswer, but she interrupted me--'No more; go and fasten every door andlie down. I will sit up. To-morrow morning you will find Doctor Fritz atKnapwurst's, and bring him to me. Make no noise, and mind, you have seennothing and know nothing!'"
"Is that all, Sperver?" I asked.
He nodded gravely.
"And about the count?"
"He is in again. He is better."
We had got to the antechamber. Gideon knocked at the door gently, then heopened it, announcing--"Doctor Fritz."
I took a pace forward, and stood in the presence of Odile. Sperver hadretired, closing the door.
A strange impression crossed my mind at the sight of the young countessstanding pale and still, leaning upon the back of an arm-chair, her eyesof feverish brightness, and robed in a long dress of rich black velvet.But she stood calm and firm.
"Doctor," she said, motioning me to a chair, "pray sit down; I have avery serious matter to speak to you about."
I obeyed in silence.
In her turn she sat down and seemed to be collecting her thoughts.
"Providence or an evil destiny, I know not which, has made you witness ofa mystery in which lies involved the honour of my family."
So she knew it all!
I sat confounded and astonished.
"Madam, believe me, it was but by chance--"
"It is useless," she interrupted; "I know it all, and it is frightful!"
Then, in a heartrending appealing voice, she cried--
"My father is not a guilty man!"
I shuddered, and with hands outstretched cried--
"Madam, I know it; I know that the life of your father has been one ofthe noblest and loveliest."
Odile had half-risen from her seat, as if to protest, by anticipation,against any supposition that might be injurious to her father. Hearing memyself taking up his defence, she sank back again, and covering her facewith her hands, the tears began to flow.
"God bless you, sir!" she exclaimed. "I should have died with the verythought that a breath of suspicion was harboured against him."
"Ah! madam, who could possibly attach any reality to the action of asomnambulist?"
"That is quite true, sir; I had had that thought myself, butappearances--pardon me--yet I feared--still I knew Doctor Fritz was a manof honour."
"Pray, madam, be calm."
"No," she cried, "let me weep on. It is such a relief; for ten years Ihave suffered in secret. Oh, how I suffered! That secret, so long shut upin my breast, was killing me. I should soon have died, like my dearmother. God has had pity upon me, and has sent you, and made you share itwith me. Let me tell you all, sir, do let me!"
She could speak no more. Sobs and tears broke her voice. So it alwaysis with proud and lofty natures. After having conquered grief, andimprisoned it, buried, and, as it were, crushed down in the secret depthsof the mind, they seem happy, or, at any rate, indifferent to the eyes ofthe uninformed around, and the eye of the most watchful observer might bemistaken; but let a sudden shock break the seal, an unexpected rending ofa portion of the veil, then, as with the crash of a thunderstorm, thetower in which the sufferer hid his sorrow falls in ruins to the ground.The conquered foe rises more fierce than before his defeat and captivity;he shakes with fury the prison doors, the frame trembles with longshudderings, sobs and sighs heave the breast, the tears, too longcontained within bounds, overflow their swollen banks, bounding andrushing as if after the heavy rain of a thunderstorm.
Such was Odile.
At length she lifted her beautiful head; she wiped her tear-stainedcheeks, and with her arm on the elbow of her chair, her cheek restingon her hand, and her eyes tenderly fixed on a picture on the wall, sheresumed in slow and melancholy tones:--
"When I go back into the past, sir, when I return to my firstimpressions, my mother's is the picture before me. She was a tall, pale,and silent woman. She was still young at the period to which I amreferring. She was scarcely thirty, and yet you would have thought herfifty. Her brow was silvered round with hair white as snow; her thin,hollow cheeks, her sharp, clear profile--her lips ever closed togetherwith an expression of pain--gave to her features a strange character inwhich pride and pain seemed to contend for the mastery. There was nothingleft of the elasticity of youth in that aged woman of thirty--nothingbut her tall, upright figure, her brilliant eyes, and her voice, whichwas always as gentle and as sweet as a dream of childhood. She oftenwalked up and down for hours in this very room, with her head hangingdown, and I, an unthinking child, ran happily along by her side, neveraware that my mother was sad, never understanding the meaning of the deepmelancholy revealed by those furrows that traversed her fair brow. I knewnothing of the past, to me the present was joy and happiness, and oh! thefuture!--the dark, miserable future!--there was none! My only future wasto-morrow's play!"
Odile smiled bitterly and went on:--
"Sometimes I would happen, in my noisy play, to disturb my mother in hersilent walk; then she would stop, look down, and, seeing me at her feet,would slowly bend, kiss me with an absent smile, and then again resumeher interrupted walk and her sad gait. Since then, sir, whenever I havedesired to search back in my memory for remembrances of my early daysthat tall, pale woman has risen before me, the image of melancholy. Thereshe is," pointing to a picture on the wall--"there she is!--not such asillness made her as my father supposes, but that fatal and terriblesecret. See!"
I turned round, and as my eye dwelt upon the portrait the lady pointedto, I shuddered.
It was a long, pale, thin face, cold and rigid as death, and only luridlylighted up by two dark, deep-set eyes, fixed, burning, and of a terribleintensity.
There was a moment's silence.
"How much that woman must have suffered!" I said to myself with a painstriking at my heart.
"I know not how my mother made that terrible discovery," added Odile,"but she became aware of the mysterious attraction of the Black Pest andtheir meetings in Hugh Lupus's tower; she knew it all--all! She neversuspected my father--ah no!--but she perished away by slow degrees underthis consuming influence! and I myself am dying."
I bowed my head into my hands and wept in silence.
"One night," she went on, "one n
ight--I was only ten--and my mother, withthe remains of her superhuman energy, for she was near her end thatnight, came to me when I lay asleep. It was in winter; a stony cold handcaught me by the wrist. I looked up. Before me stood a tall woman; in onehand she held a flaming torch, with the other she held me by the arm.Her robe was sprinkled with snow. There was a convulsive movement in allher limbs and her eyes were fired with a gloomy light through the longlocks of white hair which hung in disorder round her face. It was mymother; and she said, 'Odile, my child, get up and dress! You must knowit all!' Then taking me to Hugh Lupus's tower she showed me the opensubterranean passage. 'Your father will come out that way,' she said,pointing to the tower; 'he will come out with the she-wolf; don't befrightened, he won't see you.' And presently my father, bearing hisfunereal burden, came out with the old woman. My mother took me in herarms and followed; she showed me the dismal scene on the Altenberg ofwhich you know. 'Look, my child,' she said; 'you must for I--am going todie soon. You will have to keep that secret. You alone are to sit upwith your father,' she said impressively--'you alone. The honour of yourfamily depends upon you!' And so we returned. A fortnight after my motherdied, leaving me her will to accomplish and her example to follow. I havescrupulously obeyed her injunctions as a sacred command, but oh, at whata sacrifice! You have seen it all. I have been obliged to disobey myfather and to rend his heart. If I had married I should have brought astranger into the house and betrayed the secret of our race. I resisted.No one in this castle knows of the somnambulism of my father, and but foryesterday's crisis, which broke down my strength completely and preventedme from sitting up with my father, I should still have been its soledepositary. God has decreed otherwise, and has placed the honour andreputation of my family in your keeping. I might demand of you, sir, asolemn promise never to reveal what you have seen to-night. I shouldhave a right to do so."
"Madam," I said, rising, "I am ready."
"No, sir," she replied with much dignity, "I will not put such an affrontupon you. Oaths fail to bind base men, and honour alone is a sufficientguarantee for the upright. You will keep that secret, sir, I know youwill keep it, because it is your duty to do so. But I expect more thanthis of you, much more, and this is why I consider myself obliged to tellyou all!"
She rose slowly from her seat.
"Doctor Fritz," she resumed in a voice which made every nerve within mequiver with deep emotion, "my strength is unequal to my burden; I bendbeneath it. I need a helper, a friend. Will you be that friend?"
"Madam," I replied, rising from my seat, "I gratefully accept your offerof friendship. I cannot tell you how proud I am of your confidence; butstill, allow me to unite with it one condition."
"Pray speak, sir."
"I mean that I will accept that title of friend with all the duties andobligations which it shall impose upon me."
"What duties do you mean?"
"There is a mystery overhanging your family; that mystery must bediscovered and solved at any cost. That Black Pest must be apprehended.We must find out where she comes from, what she is, and what she wants!"
"Oh, but that is impossible!" she said with a movement of despair.
"Who can tell that, madam? Perhaps Divine Providence may have had adesign connected with me in sending Sperver to fetch me here."
"You are right, sir. God never acts without consummate wisdom. Dowhatever you think right. I give my approval in advance."
I raised to my lips the hand which she tremblingly placed in mine, andwent out full of admiration for this frail and feeble woman, who was,nevertheless, so strong in the time of trial. Is anything grander thanduty nobly accomplished?