7. VII.
Bruno at that instant appeared and received her from my
arms. The relief was necessary to me — I could not have
sustained her much longer. I was sick almost to exhaustion.
I felt unable to endure a sight to me so strange and
terrible, yet I strove in vain to turn my eyes away. They
were fixed as if by some fearful fascination. Hers, too,
were now riveted upon me. At first, when I transferred
her to the arms of Bruno, they were turned upon him; but,
in the next moment, as suddenly averted, with an expression
of loathsomeness and hate, which suffering had not softened, nor
the seeming approach of death diminished of any portion of intensity.
On me they bestowed a more protracted, but scarcely a
more kindly expression. Broken syllables, stifled and overcome
by the discharge of blood, struggled feebly from her lips; and,
fainting at last, she was borne to the chamber from which she
had emerged at the beginning of that scene, the purposes of
which seemed to me so inscrutable, and the progress of which
was in truth so terrible. Medical assistance was sent for, and
every succor bestowed in the power of skill and humanity. Need
I say that a deep interest in her fate affected my bosom. A
vague conjecture, dark and strange, which coupled the fate and
history of this noble but wretched lady with my own, had naturally
arisen in my mind, from the dialogue to which I had been
a listener. What was she to me? I shuddered with an apprehension
and painful terror whenever this question suggested itself
to my thoughts. What was she not? What had she not
been? and what had been her purposes — her baffled purposes?
Let me not fancy them lest I madden.
“It is no subject of regret, Herman,” were the first words of
Bruno, when, yielding the baroness up to her attendants, we retired
to another apartment. “God has interposed to save us
from a greater trial, and to save her from an exposure even more
humbling than this. The dawn of another day, the sight of
which she will now be spared, would have been worse than
death to a spirit such as hers.”
“But, will she die, Bruno? Can she not be saved? is it
certain?”
“It is; and I am glad of it for your sake, as well as hers.”
“For my sake?”
“Ay! the moment of her death puts you in possession of this
castle and all her estates.”
“Me!”
“You.”
“And I am”—
“Her heir — yet not her heir. You are the heir to a power
beyond hers, and which proved her destiny. Her death makes
atonement at once to the living and to the dead. She now, involuntarily,
compensates for a long career of injustice. But, inquire
no further; death, which will place you in possession of
your rights, will, at the same time, deprive you for ever of a
knowledge of certain secrets, which, had she lived till to-morrow's
noon, must have been revealed in order to compel that
justice which has been too long denied. It is fortunate that she
will perish thus — fortunate for her — for you — for —”
He paused, and with an impulse which I could not withstand,
I desperately concluded the sentence —
“And for yourself!”
“For me! Ha! — Can it be? — Herman, my son, what have
you done?”
“Followed you through the corridor, when, this evening, you
led the baroness away from my apartment.”
“And did you trace our footsteps — did you find us where we
were — did you hear what was spoken?”
“All! All!”
He covered his face with his hands, and groaned aloud in the
bitterness of an anguished and disappointed spirit.
“This pang,” he exclaimed at length, “I had hoped to spare
you. I have toiled for this at all seasons and hours, by night
and day, in crowds and solitudes. Unhappy boy! your curiosity
has won for you that partial knowledge of the truth which
must only bring delusion, doubt, and anxiety.”
“But why should it be partial, Bruno. I know from what
you have already said, that you know more, that you know all.
You will complete my knowledge, you will terminate my doubts.”
“Never! Never! If God has spared me, by his act this
night, that dire necessity from which he well knows I would
have shrunk, shall I now voluntarily seek it? No! No! The
fearful chronicle of shame is sealed up for ever in her death.
Blessed dispensation! Her lips can no longer declare her folly,
and mine shall be silent on her shame. You have heard all
that you can ever hear of these dreadful mysteries.”
“Nay, Bruno! Say not this, I implore you. Tell me, at
least, tell me, that this most fearful woman is not—”
I shrunk from naming the word, the word signifying the relationship
which I suspected to exist between us, which, indeed,
seemed now to be infinitely more than a doubt, a suspicion. I
looked to him to comprehend, to answer, without making necessary
the expression of my fear. But he was silent, and I forced
out the reluctant word:—
“Tell me, Bruno, tell me at least, that this fearful woman is
not — my mother.”
“And of what avail if I should tell you this? Would that
terminate your doubts — would that satisfy your curiosity?”
“It would — it would.”
“No, Herman, I know your nature better — to know this
would only lead to other and more annoying questions, questions
which, if answered, would take peace from your mind for ever.
You would know next—”
He now paused.
“Yes!” I exclaimed, “I would then seek to know — and I
now do — what was he, Bruno — my father — and what is the
secret of your power over her — and who are you?”
“Let it be a matter of thanks with you, Herman, in your
nightly prayers, that you can never know these things,” was the
hoarsely spoken reply. I threw myself at his feet, I clasped
his knees, I implored him in tears and supplications, but he was
immovable. He pressed me to his heart, he wept with me, but
he told me nothing.
