"You may go, Franz!" he said shortly and sharply. "I am not at home to anybody."
"And should Dr. Berger?"
"Berger?" He shook his head decidedly. Then he seemed to remember some one else. "I will see him," he said, drawing a deep breath.
The old man went out hesitatingly: Sendlingen was alone. But after a few minutes the voice of his friend was audible in the lobby, and Berger entered with a formidable bundle of doc.u.ments under his arm.
"Well, how goes it now?" cried the portly man, still standing in the doorway. "Better, certainly, as you are going to preside to-morrow.
Here are the papers."
He laid the bundle on the table and grasped Sendlingen"s outstretched hand. "A mill-stone was rolled from my neck when the messenger came. In the first place, I knew you were better again, and secondly the chief object of my visit at noon to-day was attained without my own intervention."
"Did you come on that account?"
"Yes, Victor,--and not merely to greet you." The advocate"s broad, open face grew very serious. "I wanted to draw your attention to to-morrow"s trial, not only from motives of pity for the unfortunate girl, but also in the interests of Justice. Old Werner, who gets more and more impressed with the idea that he is combating the Revolution in every case of child-murder, is not the right Judge for this girl. "There are cases," once wrote an authority on criminal law, "where a sentence of death accords with the letter of the law, but almost amounts to judicial murder." I hope you will let this authority weigh with you, though you yourself are he. Now then, if Werner is put in a position to-morrow to carry out the practice to which he has accustomed himself in the last few weeks, we shall have one of these frightful cases."
Sendlingen made no reply. His limbs seemed to grow rigid and the beating of his heart threatened to stop. "How--how does the case stand?" he at length blurted out hoa.r.s.ely and with great effort.
"Your voice is hoa.r.s.e," remarked Berger innocently. "You must have caught cold on the journey. Well, as to the case." He settled himself comfortably in his chair. "It is only one of the usual, sad stories, but it moved me profoundly after I had seen and spoken to the poor wretch. Victorine Lippert is herself an illegitimate child and has never found out who her father was; even after her mother"s death no hint of it was found among her possessions. As she was born in Radautz, a small town in the Bukowina, and as her mother was governess in the house of a Boyar, it is probable that she was seduced by one of these half-savages or perhaps even a victim to violence. I incline to the latter belief, because Hermine Lippert"s subsequent mode of life and touching care for her child, are against the surmise that she was of thoughtless disposition. She settled in a small town in Styria and made a scanty living by music lessons. Forced by necessity, she hazarded the pious fraud of pa.s.sing as a widow,--otherwise she and her child must have starved. After eight years a mere chance disclosed the deception and put an end to her life in the town. She was obliged to leave, but obtained a situation as companion to a kind-hearted lady in Buda-Pesth, and being now no longer able to keep her little daughter with her, she had her brought up at a school in Gratz. Mother and child saw one another only once a year, but kept up a most affectionate correspondence. Victorine was diligent in her studies, grave and accomplished beyond her years, and justified the hope that she would one day earn a livelihood by her abilities. This sad necessity came soon enough. She lost her mother when she was barely fifteen: the Hungarian lady paid her school fees for a short time, and then the orphan had to help herself. Her excellent testimonials procured her the post of governess in the family of the widowed Countess Riesner-Graskowitz at Graskowitz near Golotz. She had the charge of two small nieces of the Countess and was patient in her duties, in spite of the hardness of a harsh and utterly avaricious woman. In June of last year, her only son, Count Henry, came home for a lengthy visit."
Sendlingen sighed deeply and raised his hand.
"You divine the rest?" asked Berger. "And indeed it is not difficult to do so! The young man had just concluded his initiation into the diplomatic service at our Emba.s.sy in Paris, and was to have gone on to Munich in September as attache. Naturally he felt bored in the lonely castle, and just as naturally he sought to banish his boredom by trying to seduce the wondrously beautiful, girlish governess.
He heaped upon her letters full of glowing protestations--I mean to read some specimens to-morrow, and amongst them a valid promise of marriage--and the girl of seventeen was easily fooled. She liked the handsome, well-dressed fellow, believed in his love as a divine revelation and trusted in his oaths. You will spare me details, I fancy; this sort of thing has often happened."
"Often happened!" repeated Sendlingen mechanically, pa.s.sing his hand over his eyes and forehead.
"Well to be brief! When the n.o.ble Count Henry saw that the girl was going to become a mother before she herself had any suspicion of it, he determined to entirely avoid any unpleasantness with his formidable mother, and had himself sent to St. Petersburg. Meantime a good-natured servant girl had explained her condition to the poor wretch and had faithfully comforted her in her boundless anguish of mind, and helped her to avoid discovery. Her piteous prayers to her lover remained unanswered. At length there came a letter--and this, too, I shall read to-morrow--in which the scoundrel forbade any further molestation and even threatened the law. And now picture the girl"s despair when, almost at the same time, the countess discovered her secret,--whether by chance or by a letter of the brave count, is still uncertain.
Certainly less from moral indignation than from fear of the expense, this n.o.ble lady was now guilty of the shocking brutality of having the poor creature driven out into the night by the men-servants of the house! It was a dark, cold, wet night in April: shaken with fever and weary to death, the poor wretch dragged herself towards the nearest village. She did not reach it; halfway, in a wood, some peasants from Graskowitz found her the next morning, unconscious. Beside her lay her dead, her murdered child."
Sendlingen groaned and buried his face in his hands.
"Her fate moves you?" asked Berger. "It is certainly piteous enough!
The men brought her to the village and informed the police at Golotz.
The preliminary examination took place the next day. It could only establish that the child had been strangled; it was impossible to take the depositions of the murderess: she was in the wildest delirium, and the prison-doctor expected her to die. But Fate," Berger rose and his voice trembled--"Fate was not so merciful. She recovered, and was sent first to Golotz and then brought here. She admitted that in the solitude of that dreadful night, overcome by her pains, forsaken of G.o.d and man, she formed the resolve to kill herself and the child--when and how she did the deed she could not say. I am persuaded that this is no lie, and I believe her affirmation that it was only unconsciousness that prevented her suicide. Doesn"t that appear probable to you too?"
Sendlingen did not answer. "Probable," he at length muttered, "highly probable!"
Berger nodded. "Thus much," he continued, "is recorded in the judicial doc.u.ments, and as all this is certainly enough to arouse sympathy, I went to see her as soon as the defence was allotted to me. Since that I have learnt more. I have learnt that a true and n.o.ble nature has been wrecked by the baseness of man. She must have been not only fascinatingly beautiful, but a character of unusual depth and purity.
One can still see it, just as fragments of china enable us to guess the former beauty of a work of art. For this vessel is broken in pieces, and her one prayer to me was: not to hinder the sentence of death!...
But I cannot grant this prayer," he concluded. "She must not die, were it only for Justice"s sake! And a load is taken off my heart to think that a human being is to preside at the trial to-morrow, and not a rhetoric machine!"
He had spoken with increasing warmth, and with a conviction of spirit which this quiet, and indeed temperate man, seldom evinced.
His own emotion prevented him from noticing how peculiar was his friend"s demeanour. Sendlingen sat there for a while motionless, his face still covered with his hands, and when he at length let them fall, he bowed his head so low that his forehead rested on the edge of the writing-table. In this position he at last blurted forth:
"I cannot preside to-morrow."
"Why not?" asked Berger in astonishment. "Are you really ill?" And as he gently raised his friend"s head and looked into his worn face he cried out anxiously: "Why of course--you are in a fever."
Sendlingen shook his head. "I am quite well, George! But even if it cost me my life, I would not hand over this girl to the tender mercies of others, if only I dared. But I dare not!"
"You _dare_ not!"
"The law forbids it!"
"The law? You are raving!"
"No! no!" cried the unhappy man springing up. "I would that I were either mad or dead, but such is not my good fortune! The law forbids it, for a father----"
"Victor!"
"Everything tallies, everything! The mother"s name--the place--the year of birth--and her name is Victorine."
"Oh my G.o.d! She is your----"
"My daughter," cried the unfortunate wretch in piercing tones and then quite broke down.
Berger stood still for an instant as if paralysed by pity and amazement! Then he hurried to his friend, raised him and placed him in his arm-chair. "Keep calm!" he murmured. "Oh! it is frightful!... Take courage!... The poor child!" He was himself as if crushed by the weight of this terrible discovery.
Breathing heavily, Sendlingen lay there, his breast heaving convulsively; then he began to sob gently; far more piteously than words or tears, did these despairing, painfully subdued groans betray how exceedingly he suffered. Berger stood before him helplessly; he could think of no fitting words of comfort, and he knew that whatever he could say would be said in vain.
The door was suddenly opened loudly and noisily; old Franz had heard the bitter lamenting and could no longer rest in the lobby. "My Lord!"
he screamed, darting to the sufferer. "My dear good master."
"Begone!" Sendlingen raised himself hastily. "Go, Franz--I beg!" he repeated, more gently.
But Franz did not budge. "We are in pain," he muttered, "and Fraulein Brigitta may not come in and I am sent away! What else is Franz in the world for?" He did not go until Berger by entreaties and gentle force pushed him out of the door.
Sendlingen nodded gratefully to his friend.
"Sit here," he said, pointing to a chair near his own. "Closer still--so! You must know all, if only for her sake! You shall have no shred of doubt as to whom you are defending to-morrow, and perhaps you may discover the expedient for which I have racked my brain in vain.
And indeed I desire it on my own account. Since the moment I discovered it I feel as if I had lost everything. Everything--even myself! You are one of the most upright men I know; you shall judge me, George, and in the same way that you will defend this poor girl, with your n.o.ble heart and clear head. Perhaps you will decide that some other course is opened to me beside----"
He stopped and cast a timid glance at a small neat case that lay on his writing-table. Berger knew that it contained a revolver.
"Victor!" he cried angrily and almost revolted.
"Oh, if you knew what I suffer! But you are right, it would be contemptible. I dare not think of myself. I dare not slink out of the world. I have a duty to my child. I have neglected it long enough,--I must hold on now and pay my debt. Ah! how I felt only this morning, and now everything lies around me shivered to atoms. Forgive me, my poor brain can still form no clear thought! But--I will--I must. Listen, I will tell you, as if you were the Eternal Judge Himself, how everything came about."
CHAPTER IV.
After a pause he began: "I must first of all speak of myself and what I was like in those days. You have only known me for ten years: of my parents, of my childhood, you know scarcely anything. Mine was a frightful childhood, more full of venom and misery than a man can often have been condemned to endure. My parents" marriage--it was h.e.l.l upon earth, George! In our profession we get to know many fearful things, but I have hardly since come across anything like it. How they came to be married, you know,--all the world knows. I am convinced that they never loved one another; her beauty pleased his senses, and his condescension may have flattered her. No matter! from the moment that they were indissolubly bound, they hated one another. It is difficult to decide with whom the fault began; perhaps it lay first of all at my father"s door. Perhaps the common, low-born woman would have been grateful to him for having made her a Baroness and raised her to a higher rank in life, if only he had vouchsafed her a little patience and love. But he could not do that, he hated her as the cause of his misfortune, and she repaid him ten-fold in insult and abuse, and in holding him up, humbled enough already, to the derision and gossip of the little town.