Falkenried rose with a start and paced the room once, then he stood before his friend's wife, and said in an angry tone:
"And in your deadly anxiety, naturally you believed him?"
"Do you mean that it was not so?" questioned Adelheid.
He shrugged his shoulders as he answered:
"Possibly. I understand little of diplomatic considerations, but I know that Wallmoden showed himself a greater diplomat than ever in this hour. What answer did you give him?"
"I begged for time, it had all come on me so suddenly. But I knew not a moment was to be lost, so the same evening I gave Herbert the right to rescue his brother-in-law."
"Naturally," muttered Falkenried with keen contempt. "Wise Herbert."
"He left for Rome at once," continued Baroness von Wallmoden, "and returned eight days later with my brother. He had succeeded in getting Eugen off without making him conspicuous; his name was not even mentioned in the papers as connected with the affair. How Herbert did it I never knew. He spent money like water, and he told me later that he pledged half his fortune to cover the gambling debts."
"That was very magnanimous, when he was about to gain a million by the sacrifice. And what did Eugen say to this--transaction?"
"He did not know of it at the time, for he returned at once to Germany, as had been arranged before. Herbert came to the house now, daily, and my father grew to like him, and when Herbert finally proposed to him for my hand, I was thankful that the affair had taken the turn it had, and my father imagined he had been paying court to me all this time. But Eugen was not to be deceived. As soon as he heard of our betrothal, his suspicions were aroused, and he wrung the truth from me. Since then he has reproached himself continually, and has a hatred for Herbert, notwithstanding my repeated assurances that I was not coerced, and have had no cause to regret my marriage, and that I find in Herbert an attentive, considerate husband."
Falkenried looked searchingly in her face as if he would read her inmost thoughts.
"Are you happy?" he asked at last, slowly.
"That is much in this life; we are not born to be happy. I have done you an injustice, Ada. I thought that the glitter of court life, the opportunity to marry a baron and an ambassador had tempted you to become Frau von Wallmoden, but I find instead--I am sorry, Ada, that I did you an injustice."
