"You have done nothing of the kind," replied Bertram. "I should rather say, that now a new life was beginning for you; a life of purpose, sobriety, energy, independence, however strange the last word may sound to you. Until this day you were not living an independent life; nothing but a sham existence, in slavish subjection to the caprices of your wife, to whom you sacrificed your fortune, and, worse than that, your own better judgment. Now, having come to see this, you are enabled, by means of some a.s.sistance, to re-conquer your fortune, or at least the greater part of it; and this surely is no alms, but a mere loan, for which you are responsible in every respect; and, perhaps, in addition, you may conquer what you never possessed before--I mean, the love, or, at the very least, the respect of your wife, which she only denied to the husband who had no will of his own, but which she will not refuse to grant to the husband who is strong, determined, and who respects himself."

"Yes, yes," Said Otto; "it all sounds very well, and I surely mean to try to atone for my miserable shortcomings; but this I know already to-day, it will not do. I mean, I shall not have the energy you speak of, nay, I shall look upon myself as a downright scamp, and I shall not dare look my wife or any one else in the face, far less confront them energetically, as long as I see no chance of paying off my whole stupendous debt to you. Not to the uttermost farthing, that may perhaps be made possible--but in my heart. I do not know how to express it aright, but you will understand my meaning--by giving you in exchange something that no one else could give you."

He lifted his eyes to Bertram in anxious inquiry. Bertram shook his head.

"I thought we were not to mention it again," he said.

"Nor should I, to be sure, have done so," replied Otto; "however fond one may be of a man, and however indebted to him, one's only child is of course one's only child; and just now, above all, to have to give her up, to live in the big house alone with--but I cannot give up the thought that now, after all, nothing is to come of it, after they, Lydia and my wife, have tried to prove to me in writing--in black and white, don't you know--that you loved each other, and that at least Erna ..."

"I hardly know what you are talking about," Bertram impatiently interrupted his friend; "and what do you mean by 'in black and white'?"

"A stupid story," Otto made answer, embarra.s.sed, "in which those women have got me involved, and which; yesterday, I did not wish to refer to, as I was desirous of sparing Hildegard. But now let the whole thing come out; it may as well. Listen, then!"

So he told him of the letter which Erna had written to Agatha, and which Lydia had purloined for a few hours. Hildegard had read the letter to him, and his excellent memory enabled him to reproduce it now, if not literally, at least in its general bearings. He also had remembered well the pa.s.sage referring to some _liaison_ which Erna would seem to have had, and to which the ladies had not attributed any special significance.

"Now," he concluded his report, "you see why my wife, who was so bent upon having Lotter for a son-in-law, was so annoyed with you during the last few days; nor do I know what would have come of it all, if the Princess had not yesterday brought, her round to reason: how she managed it is a riddle to me, but it is a fact, there, is an end of Lotter, for good and all. This morning Hildegard went the length of saying that it had been I who had favoured Lotter, and--for I may as well tell you all now--you suddenly appeared to her not only as an acceptable husband for Erna, but rather she saw in your union the only possibility--if my carelessness had really wrought our ruin--to save Erna at least, and to preserve for her such a position in society as she was born for. Well, old man, it's off my mind at last, and for all that, and, all that, it would be the grandest day in my whole life if you were able to say to me: 'Well, better late than never!'"

"It is too late!" Bertram replied.

He had e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed those words, in intensest excitement, bounding from his chair as he did so, and now he was, with uneven step, pacing up and down beneath the chestnut-trees. But presently he returned to Otto, who, frightened, had not stirred from his seat, and said in his usual calm tone--

"It would be too late, even if everything were--as it is not. I did not mean to speak about it, because I am not commissioned to do so, and because, therefore, those interested might have had good reason to be annoyed, if I told you before they themselves thought the time had come for doing so. I meant to rest satisfied with paving the way, so that there should be no obstacle to the fulfilment of their wishes. But now, since you seem unable to rid yourself of the curious idea of an alliance between Erna and myself; since, oddly enough, your wife finds pleasure therein; and since now, perhaps the fact of my making Erna my heiress, might seem to both of you an indirect confirmation of your opinion, I had better tell you this. I know that Erna has already given away her heart, that for more than a year she has loved Lieutenant Ringberg, and has been loved by him. It is my most earnest wish that the union of the lovers may meet with no obstacle, and I firmly believe that this marriage will lead to Erna's supreme happiness. And now let me confess one thing more, so that I may have nothing whatever on my conscience with regard to you. It was not for nothing that I have thus hastened to put order into my own, and, I trust, into your affairs, and to secure Erna's future. In the very next hour I have to go forth on an errand from which, in all human probability, I shall not return with my limbs whole, and where, very possibly, I may lose my life."

Then he briefly told his friend of his quarrel with the Baron last night and of its consequences. The true reason he did not refer to any more than he had to Kurt.

Otto was quite beside himself when he heard of it.

"It must not be, it shall not be!" he cried again and again. "It is sheer madness. How can you go and fight a duel with pistols when you scarcely know how to fire one? And with Lotter, of all men, who hits an ace at twenty paces. This is no duel, it is downright murder. I will not allow it!"

"Please do not speak so loud, anyhow," said Bertram; "they can hear you in the office."

"All the better!" cried Otto; "every one may hear that you cannot fight the fellow. Why, Ringberg is far more sensible than you, for he pretended last night not to notice the fellow's impertinence, and left the card table without replying a word."

"Who told you that?" cried Bertram, terrified.

"The forest-ranger," replied Otto, "He came over to breakfast this morning. Yesterday's events were discussed; I did not pay much attention to the talk, for the scene which I expected to have with Hildegard was weighing upon my mind; but I remember now. The ladies were discussing, whether Ringberg had done right in ignoring Lotter's impertinence. Lydia thought yes, but the Princess declared that it could not be thus, because ... I cannot remember why not; it had no interest for me. If I had been able to divine that Ringberg and Erna--that you ..."

"Was Erna present?"

"Erna? No. That is to say, I do not know--I was very absent--she went out riding afterwards with the Princess, who sent me word that I had better drive to town alone. Confound the fellow! Picking quarrels with everybody! And we are to blame; good Heaven, it is my fault that you ... I thought the worst had already come, but this is far worse than anything. But I cannot allow it, and I will not. Never! When did you say it was to come off? And where?"

"I shall tell you nothing more, and I am sorry I told you anything at all."

Bertram rose swiftly, Otto sprang up too, exclaiming as he did so--

"I shall go with you."

"You are about to leave, gentlemen?" a thin voice behind them was asking.

In their excitement neither had noticed that the lawyer and the Herr Oberhofmarshal had entered the garden, and had already approached within a few yards of them.

"Will you very kindly introduce me to the Herr Doctor?" said the Marshal, after he had courteously tendered his hand to Otto.

The introduction was made.

"It is not quite right," said the Marshal, "that only now I have the honour ... I hear you have been for more than a week at Rinstedt, and yet you have not had a minute to spare for us! Not for our theatre, our school of art, our museum! Not to mention my humble self, although I have for years been accustomed to no stranger of distinction pa.s.sing my threshold. You must make up for this yet, you really must."

Bertram answered the old gentleman in a few courteous words, looking at the same time entreatingly at the lawyer.

"Your Excellency will excuse me," said the lawyer, "if, considering how pressed the Herr Doctor is for time, I venture ..."

"Quite right, quite right," said the old gentleman. "Indeed, I already noticed myself that the gentlemen were leaving. Let us come to the point--a very, very disagreeable point, in reference to which, acting on the advice of our common legal friend, with whom I originally intended only to discuss the judicial bearings of the case, I should now like to be allowed to claim also your a.s.sistance, my dear Mr.

Bermer."

"In that case," said Bertram, who in his impatience almost felt the ground burn beneath his feet, and who also thought this a splendid opportunity for getting rid of Otto Bermer, "you will perhaps allow me to take my departure."

"Pray remain, Herr Doctor, I entreat you!" exclaimed the Marshal eagerly. "Quite apart from the painful interest which the matter will have on psychological grounds for such a profound student of human nature, I feel a moral necessity to have an affair, which it is desirable to withdraw from the cognisance of the judge, adjudicated upon by a forum of men of enlightened intelligence and honourable character--adjudicated upon and,--alas, alas!--condemned. The case is this ..."

"If your Excellency will allow me?" said the lawyer, in response to another still more entreating glance of Bertram's.

"Please, please," replied, the Marshal, conveying the pinch of snuff, which he had just, taken from his box, somewhat abruptly to his nose.

"The case is this," the lawyer went on, without heeding the old gentleman's annoyance: "your friend Baron Lotter, my dear Burner, has been guilty of an action which amounts to fraud and forgery. He had been commissioned to, buy a couple of race-horses for the Court during the summer, somewhere in Bavaria, and had drawn the money for them--three thousand thalers--from the Grand Duke's privy purse, upon an order signed by His Excellency; but he appears not to have paid the money, but to have given a bill of exchange instead, with the forged signature of His Excellency, as representing the Marshal's office."

"Is not this monstrous?" cried the old gentleman, "as if the Upper Court Marshal's office ever paid, with bills of exchange!"

"The daring of the deed is indeed tremendous," continued the lawyer, "considering the fact which His Excellency has stated just now, and which was also known to the Herr Baron. And indeed he had taken the precaution to inform the clerk of the privy purse--into whose hands the bill of exchange would necessarily come first--when presented for payment, that the affair was all right; that he would hand him the money a week before it was due; the little service would not remain without its reward, as soon as the Baron had got his foot in the stirrup, in other words, as soon as he was Chamberlain. The poor fellow was weak enough ..."

"It is incredible!" murmured the Oberhofmarshal; "quite incredible!"

"To be sure, your Excellency," said the lawyer; "nevertheless, he was weak enough to consent to what was evidently a fraud, until to-day, two days before the bill was due, and when the money promised by the Baron had not appeared, his terror compelled him to make a clean breast of it to His Excellency. Meanwhile the bill had, yesterday, been sent to a local banker for collection. This banker, who, of course, had never seen anything of the kind occur in business, thought it advisable to make private and confidential inquiries of His Excellency as to the state of affairs, just before the clerk made his confession, and now His Excellency has the proof in his own hands."

The little old gentleman, who accompanied the lawyer's report with many a nod and with eager play of features, was opening his mouth, but the lawyer continued swiftly--

"His Excellency at once went to His Highness ..."

"I beg your pardon!" cried the Marshal. "I struggled for an hour as to whether I could not spare His Highness this grief. Moreover the young man's father was my dear old friend, who would turn in his grave if he could hear that a Lotter, his own son--it is terrible! And be a.s.sured, gentlemen, if I were a rich man--every one knows I am not--I ..."

"Your Excellency would in that case not have gone to Serenissimus," the lawyer went on; "but it was not to be avoided. His Highness, with his customary generosity, resolved at once ..."

"That is," the Marshal interrupted him, "in consequence of my report and recommendation."

"Of course, in consequence of His Excellency's report and recommendation, resolved at once that the bill was to be paid as if everything were in perfect order, under the condition that the Herr Baron should never show his face at Court again, and depart straightway. This latter point, the Grand Duke declared with very natural anger ..."

"I really must beg ..." objected the Marshal.

"Declared with considerable emphasis to be the _conditio sine qua non_, if he were to show a merciful forbearance, in lieu of allowing the law to take its course. And now we come to the point when ..."