The Freiherr stared at Sorr in blank amazement. "Good God, sir! what do you mean? Are you mad?" he exclaimed. "Fräulein Müller a wife, and your wife!"
"Ask your son, Herr Baron," Sorr replied; "he will confirm my words."
"Herr von Sorr speaks but the truth, father; it is my duty to attest this. Frau von Sorr has seen fit to undertake to fill the position of Celia's governess under a feigned name. I had, of course, no idea of this when I engaged her through Frau von Adelung. I learned her true name only lately and by chance, and I felt it my duty to acquaint Herr von Sorr with her place of abode."
When the first shock of his surprise had passed, the old Freiherr looked from Werner to Sorr and from Sorr to Werner in a kind of fury. He had no suspicion as to the truth of Sorr's story; he remembered that, by Count Styrum's desire, no allusion was ever made to Fräulein Müller's past; there could be no doubt that Anna was Sorr's unfortunate wife, forced by a sad fate to fly from her husband. What the Freiherr did doubt, what, indeed, utterly discredited, was the man's assertion of an altered course of life. One glance at his bloated features, at his watery, crimson-lidded eyes, proclaimed the fact that Sorr was deeply plunged in debauchery and drunkenness. This man had never aroused himself to a life of honest toil. It was no affection for his wife that impelled him to seek her out.
The Freiherr's mind was filled with vague suspicion as to the man's motives, suspicion that attached in a degree also to Werner, to whose last words he sharply rejoined, saying,--
"So you have been playing the spy here that you might betray the poor thing's confidence?"
"As Frau von Sorr never honoured me with her confidence I could not possibly betray it," Werner replied coolly to his father's reproach. "When I saw how great was her husband's misery, and how sincere his resolution to amend, I judged it my duty to acquaint him with his wife's retreat."
"I owe the Finanzrath an eternal debt of gratitude for bringing me hither," Sorr interposed, "and for promising to set the crown upon his kindness by doing all that lies in his power to induce my beloved Lucie to fulfil the duty that she owes to an unfortunate husband."