any mental trouble, but thought it only proceeded from some derangement of his physical health.
On returning from his travels, Baron Mundy had stopped in Prague to see Jenny. Her fate touched his heart more deeply than he himself could have thought possible, after the severe rebuff and defeat he had suffered at her hands for the way he had acted in the beginning of March, and which was only cursorily mentioned in Jenny’s letter to her friend Cvok, as we already know.
It had happened in this way. Some days after Jenny’s baby had first seen the light, Baron Edmund came to visit the young mother. Though he loved her deeply, he was still very much disturbed and cast down by the event. He had not merely promised Jenny that she, and only she, should be his wife; he had really meant it, and fully intended to keep his promise faithfully, like an honourable man; and Jenny herself believed him, and placed implicit confidence in his truth and given word.
But giving a promise and keeping it, is very often like to theory and practice; the former goes swiftly like the wind, while the latter toils slowly after like a heavy cart, and is generally left far behind.
Now when the decisive moment approached, the baron felt that he had undertaken a hard and difficult task, which it was impossible for him even to think of just at that time. He felt that he was by no means the energetic, reckless character he had considered himself to be when he beguiled Jenny’s heart, which, from being filled to overflowing with love for him, had lost the safeguard of common sense she generally possessed. Though he loved Jenny with his whole heart and soul, still he had neither the strength nor the energy in him to break through the wall of difficulties and conventional obstacles
