"The P---- decoys thee; she loves thee. With _éclat_ she will send in
the next place the M---- back, in order to give bold relief to her
virtue, and produce an imposing effect upon thee. Shun her! I love
thee, but differently and eternally.
"_Nous nous verrons un jour, mon frère_."
Who wrote it? Not even as to the admission-ticket of this cartel could
the servant make any deposition. Who wrote it? Julienne; to this point,
at least, all roads of probability converged; only in that case
mysteries lay round about him. Significant was the French subscription,
which stood in like manner exactly under the picture of his sister,
which his father had given him on Isola Bella;[38] but that might
be a coincidence. He investigated now these new silver-veins of his
Diana-[39] and family-tree by the touchstone of his whole history. His
mother and Julienne's had gone to Italy with his father in one and the
same year; both had been uncommon women and mutual friends, and his
father the friend of both. There was the possibility of a false step on
the part of his father, which had been concealed. Quite as easily might
the traces of this error have been shown to Julienne. Then, further,
the hypothesis of her sisterly love would throw light on her whole
previous winding course; her affectionate interest in Albano; her
love-race with the Princess; her correspondence with his father; her
enlisting of the Count's affection for Romeiro, which, as it seemed,
heated her quite as much against the Princess as it chilled her toward
Liana; above all, the singularity of her love for him, which never
unfolded itself further and more openly;--all this gave ground to
suspect that it might be only a sister's kindred blood which blazed so
often on her round cheeks, when she had unconsciously gazed at him too
long. After this step he made forthwith the leap; he now suspected,
also, that she alone had sought to dazzle and delude him into the love
of her Linda with the magic mirror of spiritual existences.
As respects the relation of the Princess to the Minister, every word
upon that subject was to him a lie. He was quite as reluctant to let
himself part with a good opinion of others as a bad one. Ordinary men
readily give the good opinion away and hold the bad one fast; weaker
ones are easily reconciled, and hardly parted. He was unlike either.
Hitherto he had so easily ascribed in his own mind the Princess's
friendship for the Minister, her visitation journeys with him through
the land, and the like, to her manly prudence and foresight, which
would fain at once keep watch over the future hereditary land of her
brother and hold the key to it; and to this probability, as the
Minister accommodated himself equally well to the related parts of a
cicerone and an overseer, he still adhered.
The following week brought along a circumstance, which seemed to throw
a greater light into the dark billet.