Twelve hours later she gave premature birth to a male child, dead. Once
in those hours when her physical agony lulled for a moment and her
consciousness returned, she said to her physician:
'Tell him to send for Egon. Egon betrays no one.'
They were the first words she had spoken. Greswold understood nothing;
but he saw that some great calamity had fallen on those he loved
and honoured, and that her lord never came nigh her chamber, but
only pacing to and fro the corridors and passages of the house, with
restless, ceaseless steps, paused ever and again to whisper--'Does she
live?'
'Come to her,' said the old man once; but Sabran shuddered and turned
aside.
'I dare not,' he answered, 'I dare not. If she die, it is I who shall
have killed her.'
Greswold did not venture to ask what had happened; he knew it must
be some disaster of which the Countess Brancka was the origin or the
messenger.
'My lady has spoken a few words,' he said later to his master. 'She
bade me tell you to send for Prince Vàsàrhely. She said he would betray
no one. I could ask nothing, for her agony returned.'
Sabran was silent; the thought came to him for the first time that it
might be possible Olga Brancka had used the name of her brother-in-law
falsely.
'Send for him yourself,' he said wearily; 'What she wishes must be
done. Nothing matters to me.'
'I think the Prince is in Vienna,' said Greswold; and he sent an
urgent message thither, entreating Vàsàrhely's immediate presence at
Hohenszalras, in the name of his cousin.
Olga Brancka remained in her own apartments, uncertain what to do.
'If Wanda die,' she thought, 'it will all have been of no use; he
will be neither divorced nor disgraced. Perhaps one might plead the
marriage invalid, and disinherit the children; but one would want so
much proof, and I have none. If he had not been so stunned and taken
off his guard, he might easily have defied me. Egon may know more, but
if Wanda dies he will not move. He would care for nothing on earth. He
will forget the children were Sabran's. He will only remember they were
hers!'
No one who loved her could have been more anxious for Wanda von Szalras
to live than was this cruellest of her enemies, who passed the time
in a perpetual agitation, and, as her women brought her tidings from
hour to hour, testified so much genuine alternation of hope and terror,
that they were amazed to see so much feeling in one so indifferent
usually to all woes not her own. She was miserably dull; she had no one
to speak to; she had no lover, friend, rival, or foe to give her the
stimulant to life that was indispensable to her. Even she did not dare
to approach the man whose happiness she had ruined, any more than she
would have dared to touch a lion wounded to the death. Yet she could
not tear herself away from the scene of her vengeance.
The whole house was hushed like a grave; the servants were full of
grief at the danger of a mistress they adored; even the young children,
understanding that their mother was in peril, did not play or laugh;
but sat unhappy and silent over their books, or wandered aimlessly
along the leafless gardens. They knew that there was something
terrible, though they knew not what.
'What is death?' said Lili to her brothers.
'It is to go and live with God, they _say_,' answered Bela, doubtfully.
'But how can God be happy Himself,' said Gela, 'when He causes so much
sorrow?'
'Our mother will never go away from us,' said the little Lili, who
listened. 'They may call her from heaven ever--ever so much; she will
not leave _us_.'
Bela sighed; he had a heavy, hopeless impression of death as a thing
that was stronger than himself.
'Pride can do naught against death, my little lord,' one of the
foresters had once said to him. 'You will find your master there one
day.'
A day and a night passed; puerperal convulsions succeeded to the birth
of the dead boy, and Wanda was unconscious alike of her bodily and her
mental torture. The physicians, whom Greswold had summoned instantly,
were around her bed, grave and anxious. The only chance for her lay in
the magnificent health and strength with which nature had dowered her.
Her constitution might, they said, enable her to resist what weaker
women would have gone down under like boats in an ocean storm.
It was towards dawn on the second day when Egon Vàsàrhely arrived.
'She lives?' he said, as he entered.
'That is all,' said Greswold, with tears in his voice.
'Can I see her?'
'It would be useless. She would not know your Excellency.'
Sabran came forward from the further end of the Rittersaal, where the
lights were burning with a yellow glare as the grey light of the dawn
was stealing through the unshuttered windows.
'Allow me the honour of a word with you, Prince;' he said. 'I
understand; you have come at her summons--not at mine.'
Greswold withdrew and left them alone. Vàsàrhely was still wrapped in
the furs in which he had travelled. He stood erect and listened; his
face was very stern.
'Did you give up my secret to your brother's wife?' said Sabran,
abruptly.
'Can you ask that?' said Vàsàrhely. 'You had my word.'
'Madame Brancka knows all that you know. She said that you had
betrayed me to her. She would have told Wanda. I chose sooner to tell
her myself. The shock has killed the child. It may kill her. Your
sister-in-law is here. If she used your name falsely it is for you to
avenge it.'
'Tell me what passed between you,' said Prince Egon. His face was dark
as night.
Sabran hesitated a moment. Even now he could not bring himself to
disclose the passion which his enemy had conceived for him. It was one
of those women's secrets which no gentleman can surrender to another.
'You are aware,' he replied, 'that Madame Brancka has been always
envious of your cousin; always willing to hurt her. When she got
possession of the story of my past she used it without mercy. She
would have told my wife with brutality; I told her myself, hoping to
spare her something by my own confession. Madame Brancka affirmed to
me, twice or thrice over, that you had given her all the information
against me.'
'How could you believe her? You had had my promise.'
'How could I doubt her?'
'It is natural you should know nothing of honour!' thought Vàsàrhely,
but he did not utter what he thought. He saw that, dark as had been the
crimes of Sabran against those of his race, the chastisement of them
was as great.
He said simply:
'You might sooner have doubted anything than have believed that I
should entrust the Countess Brancka with such a secret, and have given
her such a power to injure my cousin. How can she have learned your
history? Have you betrayed yourself?'
'Never! Since she had it not from you, I cannot conceive how or where
she learned it. Not a soul lives that knows me as----'
He paused; he could not bring himself to say the name he bore from
birth.
'My brother is unfortunate,! said Vàsàrhely, curtly. 'He has wedded a
vile woman. Leave her to me.'
He saluted Sabran with cold but careful ceremony, and went, to his
own apartments. Sabran passed to the corridor which led to his wife's
rooms, and there resumed his miserable restless walk to and fro before
her door. He dared not enter. In her conscious hours she had not asked
for him. He had ever present before his eyes that movement of horror,
of repulsion, with which she had drawn the hem of her gown from his
grasp.
Now and again, when her attendants came in and out, he saw through
the opening of the door the bed on which she lay and the outline of
her form in the pale light of the lamp. He could not rest. He could
not even sit down or break a mouthful of bread. If she died, his sin
against her would have slain her as surely as though his hand had taken
her life. It was about six of the clock in the chilly dawn of the
autumnal day.