Mrs. Bernauer trembled. Her head sank on her breast. Muller waited a moment more and then he said quietly: "Then it is true.""Yes, it is true," came the answer in a low hoarse tone.
Again there was silence for an appreciable interval.
"If you had been faithful to your mistress as well, if you had not spied upon her and betrayed her to her husband, all this might not have happened," continued the detective pitilessly, adding with a bitter smile: "And it was not even a case of sinful love. Your mistress had no such relations with this Winkler as you - I say this to excuse you - seemed to believe."Adele Bernauer sprang up. "I do not need this excuse," she cried, trembling in excitement. "I do not need any excuse. What I have done I did after due consideration and in the realisation that it was absolutely necessary to do it. Never for one moment did Ibelieve that my mistress was untrue to her husband. Never for one moment could I believe such an evil thing of her, for I knew her to be an angel of goodness. A woman who is deceiving her husband is not as unhappy as this poor lady has been for months. A woman does not write to a successful lover with so much sorrow, with so many tears. I had long suspected these meetings before I discovered them, but I knew that these meetings had nothing whatever to do with love. Because I knew this, and only because I knew it, did Itell my master about them. I wanted him to protect his wife, to free her from the wretch who had obtained some power over her, Iknew not how."
"Ah! then that was it?" exclaimed Muller, and his eyes softened as he looked at the sobbing woman who had sunk back into her chair.
He laid his hand on her cold fingers and continued gently: "Then you have really done right, you have done only what was your duty.
I pity you deeply that you - "
"That I have brought suspicion upon my master by my own foolishness?"she finished the sentence with a pitifully sad smile. "If I could have controlled myself, could have kept calm, nobody would have had a thought or a suspicion that he - my pet, my darling - that it was he who was forced, through some terrible circumstance of which I do not know, to free his wife, in this manner, from the wretch who persecuted her."Mrs. Bernauer wrung her hands and gazed with despairing eyes at the man who sat before her, himself deeply moved.
Again there was a long silence. Muller could not find a word to comfort the weeping woman. There was no longer anger in his heart, nothing but the deepest pity. He took out his handkerchief and wiped away the drops that were dimming his own eyes.
"You know that I will have to go to Venice?" he asked.
Mrs. Bernauer sprang up. "Officially?" she gasped, pale to her lips.
He nodded. "Yes, officially of course. I must make a report at once to headquarters about what I have learned. You can imagine yourself what the next steps will be."Her deep sigh showed him that she knew as well as he. In the same second, however, a thought shot through her brain, changing her whole king. Her pale face glowed, her dulled eyes shot fire, and the fingers with which she held Muller's hand tightly clasped, were suddenly feverishly hot.
"And you - you are still the only person who knows the truth?" she gasped in his ear.
The detective nodded. "And you thought you might silence me?" he asked calmly. "That will not be easy - for you can imagine that Idid not come unarmed."
Adele Bernauer smiled sadly. "I would take even this way to save Herbert Thorne from disgrace, if I thought that it could be successful, and if I had not thought of a milder way to silence a man who cannot be a millionaire. I have served in this house for thirty-two years, I have been treated with such generosity that Ihave been able to save almost every cent of my wages for my old age. With the interest that has rolled up, my little fortune must amount to nearly eight thousand gulden. I will gladly give it to you, if you will but keep silence, if you will not tell what you have discovered." She spoke gaspingly and sank down on her knees before she had finished.
