instantly, expecting that he had killed Hilda, but he had ended his
suffering in another way."
Friedrich's head sank, and Carl again laid a hand upon his knee in
awkward sympathy.
"Of course, the whole thing came out," he continued. "The servants knew
everything, as they always do, and I had to tell my story at the
inquest. The Baroness braved public opinion for a time, first playing
the innocent and then the martyr; but one day Graf von Hatfeldt called
upon her, and told her a few home truths, and that very night she left
the Schloss. Nobody knows where she went to, unless it's Stapfer. If he
does, he has kept her secret."
Friedrich preserved a silence that disturbed von Sternburg. Carl
crossed his knees uneasily and lighted a cigarette, glancing
occasionally at his friend. Just how deeply this would cut him he had
no means of knowing.
At last von Rittenheim, looking worn but not unhappy, lifted his head.
He rose and walked to the edge of the veranda, and stretched himself as
if to shake off some trammel of thought.
"After we have had luncheon, will you do me a great kindness, Carl?" he
asked. "Will you drive home with me into the country, and spend the
night?"
"My dear fellow, I shall be delighted to do so," cried von Sternburg,
surprised and relieved at this unexpected turn of the conversation.
XXVI
Surrender
Uncle Jimmy lighted the room and took away the tea-equipage, while Mrs.
Carroll established herself with a book before the fire. Hilda and John
arranged the chess-board on a little table near the lamp. The red shade
cast a warm glow over the girl's fairness and gave a look of physical
vigor to her delicate charm. John made his moves with unthinking
swiftness, happy in the sight of her beauty and in the chance touch of
her hand.
In a large chair Sydney lay back languidly, her hands idle upon her
lap. The shock of Bob's death had exhausted her, and she found herself
spent, physically and emotionally. A book lay open upon her knees, but
her eyes closed wearily, or stared unseeing into space. She was
thinking of all that Bob's life had meant to her of companionship and
affection; of the pain that his weakness had brought her, and the pride
that had watched his redemption. She had yearned over him in maternal
tenderness. Yet she knew that she could but have brushed the edges of
his future; that his death at this time saved him from inevitable
sorrow. She sighed as she thought that perhaps he knew now, dear old
Bob, how completely she was able to sympathize with him in the
bitterness of his longing. Involuntarily she glanced at Hilda, and
admired her beauty. Hilda caught her look and smiled in return.
"_Armes Kind_," she cried, tossing her a kiss from her finger-tips,
"you are so tired."
It was astonishing to Sydney that she felt no jealousy or envy of
Hilda. It seemed to her that it was not natural that she should feel so
kindly disposed towards the woman who had taken her lover from her. Yet
it was true. Although she could not help an occasional wince at some
look or word, yet she had no hard feeling. She did not attribute this
lack to any excellence of her own character. It seemed to her but
simple justice that a woman who had made so sad a mistake, and who had
expiated it so rudely, should have her reward; whereas, what had
_she_ done to deserve recompense? Did happiness come at any one's
whistle?
But how she wished it would.
Mrs. Carroll laid down her book and sighed in disgust.
"I do wish," she said, "that there was some one here old enough for me
to talk to."
"Try me," said John, as the oldest of the company addressed, while the
girls laughed.
"I grow so impatient with it," went on the old lady, pursuing aloud her
train of thought. "It seems as if the whole body of French fiction
writers was in a conspiracy against one's illusions. They are clever
enough to see the value of them, you would suppose, yet almost every
book you take up teaches that honor is a thing of the external life,
and not a part of the very essence of one's being."
"Do you call that an illusion?" asked Sydney.
"_I_ call it a truth, and belief in it an article of faith," said Mrs.
Carroll, stoutly, "but these people"--she tapped the book she had laid
down--"posit it as an illusion, and then demolish it by all sorts of
examples that could occur nowhere outside of Gaul!"
"Do you forget the books that are 'crowned'?" asked John.
"When a Frenchman attempts to be spiritual, it is an unfortunate fact
that he becomes insipid," asserted Mrs. Carroll, with a finality that
made them laugh again.
"You keep to this day your illusions!" said Hilda, softly admiring.
"I am most glad to say that I do. They are worn, but serviceable
still," replied Mrs. Carroll, smiling. "Even at my age, I still believe
that most husbands cherish their wives, and that most wives love their
husbands, and wear their names worthily."
"Checkmate."
"Oh, Mr. Vendell!"
Hilda was so adorably regretful, and her lack of mastery of her was
so captivating, that John was desperately sorry that he had taken
advantage of her preoccupation.
"It was Mrs. Car-roll who beat me, not you," she said. "I was listening
to her and not thinking."
"Of me? You never do," he whispered.
She was resetting the board, and giving John delicious little thrills
from her finger-tips, when Uncle Jimmy threw open the door.
"Baron von Rittenheim," he announced.
Sydney rose in greeting, and Mrs. Carroll gave an exclamation of
pleasure at the coming of her favorite, but both were startled into
silence by Hilda's cry. The chess-board emptied its burden upon the
floor with many tinkling crashes, and she was on her feet, one hand
pressed against her head, and the other turned palm outward as if to
avert a blow. A grayness like the livery of death came over her face,
but now so vitally warm. The red lamp-light behind increased her
ghastliness. Her eyes were fixed on the man who had followed von
Rittenheim into the room.
"You, you!" she whispered, hoarsely.
Von Sternburg gave a cry of amazement.
"The Baroness--_here_! Why didn't you tell me, Friedrich?" he demanded,
while his mind quickly reviewed the possible relations between von
Rittenheim and his sister-in-law, and considered the effect upon them
of his frank disclosures of the morning.
Friedrich, whose gaze had been searching keenly first one face and then
the other, gave a nod, and without replying to his friend, introduced
him to Mrs. Carroll and Sydney. Von Sternburg bent over each hand and
then approached Hilda. She was regaining her control, though she
trembled so violently as to justify in his precaution Wendell, who had
sprung to her, fearing that she would fall.
"This is an unexpected meeting, Baroness," von Sternburg said, in
English.
"Why have you come?" she asked, in the same hoarse but articulate
whisper.
"As I told Fr-riedrich, Baedeker brought me. I had no idea that I was
to have the pleasure of seeing him again among these mountains, much
less, you."
"You two men must have had an enormous amount to say to each other,"
said Mrs. Carroll. "John, give Hilda that large chair. The surprise of
seeing Baron von Sternburg has been too much for her."
Hilda sank into the offered seat, and von Sternburg placed himself
beside her. He fitted his clothes to the cracking-point, and he had the
lack of impressiveness that goes with rotundity. Yet it was clear that
he felt himself to have the whip-hand of the situation, and Hilda's
manner acknowledged it.
Across the room the others were talking together, though von Rittenheim
was not without preoccupation.
"You don't seem glad to see me," von Sternburg said, in German.
Hilda ignored his opening.
"I suppose you have told Friedrich everything," she said at once, in a
tone dull with the chagrin of defeated hope.
"Yes," replied von Sternburg, "I think I have."
"Then I hate you!"
She sat erect, and an angry flush colored her cheeks.
"No doubt."
"You have destroyed the only chance of happiness I ever expect to
have."
"Do you deserve happiness?"
"Won't you grant me that mercy?"
"Have you ever shown mercy?"
As her regret over the failure of her plans had been swallowed up in
resentment at the doer of the mischief, so her passion was swept away
by a wave of self-pity. She turned to him with fierce reproach.
"You think I am so heartless as to be outside of the needs of other
women, don't you?"
"I must confess that you are the only one of your kind in my
experience."
Hilda was maddened at his irony.
"Can you not believe that I am eager to be happy in the way that other
women are? That I _long_ to feel the love that comes to every one but
me?"
"No,--pardon me,--I cannot believe that."
"Insolent! I don't know why I try to justify myself to you. But listen.
Can you imagine what it is to be without a heart? To make men love you
for the sport of it, and not to care when they kill themselves for your
sake,--truly _not to care_? And at the same time to have another part
of yourself wanting to care,--yearning to feel pity?"
"Is that dual nature yours?"
"You are sneering. You always have thought of me as rejoicing in
cruelty, I suppose."
"Certainly as indifferent to suffering."
"You have believed that I thought myself normal; that I was unconscious
of my want of feeling."
"I never observed any recognition of your temperament evidenced in your
conduct."
"But it is true, Baron. I swear to you that I know my need so well, so
painfully well, that on the chance of Friedrich's saving me from all
that it means, I was willing to force him to poverty, and to separate
him from all that he held dear."
"I don't doubt it, though I don't see how you expected that to help
you."
"I thought that, if I could have him near me always, perhaps my heart
might wake within me. I do not love him, but he is the only man I ever
met whose every thought I honor."
"Yet you were willing to sacrifice him!"
"I needed him."
Von Sternburg looked at her in abhorrence.
"I suppose you don't know what an abomination of selfishness you are."
She did not seem to hear him, but added, bitterly,--
"Now you have come, my hope is gone."
Von Sternburg looked across the room. Friedrich was leaning over
Sydney's chair.
"It is still in the family, I should say. It merely has changed its
abiding-place."
A spasm which was the recognition of defeat, not the anguish of loss,
went over Hilda's face. She crossed the room to Mrs. Carroll, von
Sternburg following slowly after.
"Dear Mrs. Car-roll," she said, in English, "Baron von Sternburg has
brought news that compels me to leave Oakwood soon--yes, to-morrow. I
hope you know how gr-rateful I am to you for your hospitality. Your
kindness alvays vill be a br-right spot in my life!"
She looked charmingly young and very lovely as she stooped and kissed
the old lady's cheek.
"To-morrow? Oh, surely not to-morrow!" cried Sydney, in hospitable
reproach.
"Sydney dear, you are vonderful! I r-really believe you mean it after
everything." And she tapped the taller girl's cheek with her tiny hand.
She was entirely self-possessed now, much less agitated than the two
men who knew her secret, or than Wendell, who had been stricken at the
news of her departure; or than Sydney, who was overcome by
embarrassment as she came to appreciate the meaning of her guest's
speech.
"I expect never to see you again, Friedrich; I should pr-refer not; so
I vant to make my confession to you now. Oh, any one may hear," she
said, in answer to a gesture of Friedrich's. "I am quite
indifferent--now. Did the Baron tell you that Max shot himself because
I r-refused to give up a flirtation? It is quite tr-rue. I lied to you,
Friedrich, and I did an injustice to a man who had conquered the
follies of his life. Ah, Mrs. Car-roll, I did not love my husband or
vear his name vorthily. I am one of the lost illusions."
She looked from one to another in quick observance of their emotion.
"Then, my scar," she went on, lightly, "that vas another lie. I've had
it ever since I vas a child. And here is something that Baron von
Sternburg could not have disclosed. You see I am r-revealing
everything. I am sure he told you that I am rich? Yes? But he vas not
avare that _I knew_ from Herr Stapfer that you vere depr-riving
yourself for me."
"Oh, Hilda," cried Mrs. Carroll, in quick censure of the non-restitution
that might have averted a life-time's self-reproach from Friedrich, "How
could you keep it!"
"The money itself vas nothing to me, but I hoped that through
Friedrich's poverty I might gain some power over him, and make him do
vhat I vanted. I shall see that it is r-restored to you at once,
Friedrich."
She turned to Wendell, and her face changed subtly. She became the
tempting woman, alluring in the innocence of her child-like beauty.
"Do you still mean vhat you said to me yesterday, Mr. Vendell?"
She leaned towards him a trifle--the merest trifle. Wendell stood
silent.
"Do you still vant to marry me--John?" The name was but a breath.
He stared at her as if fascinated by the spell of her glowing eyes.
With an effort he looked away from her to von Rittenheim.
"Tell me," he said, huskily, "I don't understand. Her husband? Is----?"
"She will not dishonor you," answered Friedrich to the unspoken
question.
"She'll merely br-reak your heart," completed von Sternburg, brutally.
Wendell turned to Hilda in relief, to find her drawn haughtily erect
before him. She did not notice his extended hands.
"You doubted me," she flung at him, arrogantly. "I demand from those
who love me, all--or nothing."
She swept from the room, small, proud, forceful; while John threw
himself upon a chair and buried his head in his hands.
XXVII
Dixie
Gray Eagle was trotting briskly along the road over which another hand
had guided him so often,--the Oakwood carriage-way. On his back sat
Friedrich, erectly vigorous, singing for the trees' benefit,--
"Oh, I wees' I was in Deexie,
Look away, look away!
In Deexie Land I take my stand,
To live and die in Deexie."
The aspen fluttered its yellow leaves in applause, and the sourwood
threw at him by the breeze's hand a cluster of its scarlet foliage. The
mouse-gray goldenrod nodded approval of his mood, and the oak-trees
swung their yet green boughs in sympathy with his light-hearted onward
rush.
The air was cool and warm, and bright and mellow, and all the
contradictions that make October the month of the year's mature
perfection; that middle age of the seasons, when the blossoms of folly
are past, and the fruits of the will are ripened, and the chill of bare
winter is still in the future.
Occasionally, in sheer exuberance, von Rittenheim rose high in his
stirrups and gave a whoop of gladness that made Gray Eagle skip in
sympathetic deviation from his usual long stride.
It was during one of these upstandings, when his head was brought above
its customary level, that Friedrich saw a girl running away from the
carriage-road down the lane that led to the sheep-farm. The sunshine
burned on her brilliant head, and Gray Eagle found his glad career
brought to a sudden close, and his amusement abruptly reduced to the
occupation of nibbling the stem of the young tree to which he was tied.
He watched his rider's long legs vault over the gate, and pondered
wisely on the similarity of interests of his two masters, for he, too,
now descried a flash of color in the distance.
Sydney's race ended beneath a huge oak, against which she leaned,
breathless and laughing, and faced her pursuer, who was close upon her.
The musical ring of his rowelled spurs ceased as he grasped her hands.
"_Unartiges Maedchen!_ Do you intend never to let me see you again? Tell
me what you mean by it."
Not a word said Sydney--only laughed at him provokingly.
"I am of a mind to punish you," he cried, drawing her towards him, and
leaning over her. He looked determined, and Sydney surrendered her
silence with dignified haste.
"No, no, don't," she said, in reply to his gesture rather than his
words. "I'll tell you anything. What do you want to know?"
"First, wherefore you were r-running down here."
"To escape from you."
"Tr-ruly?"
He dropped her hands and looked cut to the heart; so hurt that Sydney
hastened to apply ointment to the wound.
"But I was walking on the carriage-road to meet you."
"You were?" Friedrich's gloomy face was alive again. "Then why did you
r-run?"
"I don't know. For the same reason a kitten won't come when she's
called, I suppose."
"Even though she wants to?"
"Who knows what a kitten wants?"
"It would give me the gr-reatest of pleasure, Miss Car-roll, to shake
you!"
"I don't doubt it."
"It is such a hard blow to my vanity that you r-ran. See, I tr-ry to
comfort myself in this question: Perhaps you did not know it was I
whose horse you heard?"
"Of course I knew it was you."
"Oh, Sydney, dear Sydney, did your heart tell you that your lover was
on the r-road?"
The girl blushed hotly at this bold speech, but she declined to be
sentimental.
"Not at all," she said. "There was other evidence. Who else could sing
like you, 'Oh, I wees' I was in Deexie'?"
Her mimicry of his pronunciation was so good, and at the same time so
absurd, that they both laughed joyously.
They walked slowly towards the gate, behind which Gray Eagle was
waiting with what patience he might.
"Tell me, my pr-rincess, why have you not allowed me to see you since
that evening, though I have come every day?"
"That terrible evening! Oh, Friedrich----"
"Say that again!"
"What? Friedrich?"
"Yes. Now just one time more."
"How absurd you are, Friedrich!"
"I thank you. Now tell me."
"Why, for the first day or two there was so much to do in getting them
away in their different directions--Hilda and John. Grandmother has had
a letter from John, from Palm Beach. He has joined Baron von Sternburg
there. And then--oh, Friedrich, perhaps it was foolish, but I could not
feel as if we ought to be happy, you and I, so soon after _that_."
"What a dear, sensitive child you are! And you thought the time of
mourning was up to-day, did you?"
"No, but--you won't make fun of me if I tell you?"
"I have al-ways supposed that it was you who teased me."
"But you might think it was funny ever so many years from now!"
"Ah, now there are going to be _years_ in the future. Only a little
while ago the future was made up of thousands and thousands and
thousands of inter-rminable days."
"I know."
"You felt it so, too?"
"Yes. That's the reason why--you won't ever laugh at me, will you?--I
wanted the years to begin to-day. I couldn't wait another twenty-four
hours."
"My dar-rling!"
They stopped, and Friedrich drew her gently into his arms.
"Will you let me kiss you?"
She lifted her face trustfully to his, and Gray Eagle watched them
gravely over the gate.
"I wees' I could make you know what you are to me, my pr-rincess, what
it means that you give yourself to me. It is not merely that I love
you, my dar-rling, with all the strength that has been gathering in me
while the years were adding themselves to my age. And it is not only
that I think you are per-rfect, so lovely in the char-racter, and so
clever, and so beautiful, my dear white r-rose. It means, besides those
things, that you have saved me from the sin of letting my poor powers
grow weaker; that you have changed me from a plaything of chance into a
man of will and action. I am bor-rn again, my heart's joy, into a world
of force and possibility, and you are the queen of the world, most
pr-recious."
She laid her bright head against his breast.
"Will you not say something to me, heart's dear-rest?"
"I am too happy, dear, to speak."
"And I am too happy to keep still!"
They released Gray Eagle from his bondage, and walked along the
carriage-road towards the house.
"After all, Friedrich, it was Bob who gave us to each other."
"Twice over, dear. He sent me to von Sternburg, and he saved my life
for--us."
"Poor Hilda!"
"Poor Bob!"
THE END
A DAUGHTER OF THE SNOWS.
By JACK LONDON.
A strong and extremely dramatic story. Its love interest intense. The
book is beautifully illustrated in colors from drawings by F. C. Yohn,
and is handsomely bound.
Illustrated in colors. 12mo. Decorated cloth, $1.50.
THE INEVITABLE.
By PHILIP VERRILL MIGHELS.
The hero of Mr. Mighels's book is an exceedingly interesting and
good-looking young fellow of twenty-four years, whose parentage is
shrouded in mystery.
With frontispiece in colors by John Wolcott Adams. 12mo. Decorated
cloth, $1.50.
WOVEN WITH THE SHIP.
By CYRUS TOWNSEND BRADY.
Mr. Brady's thousands of readers will derive fresh pleasure from his
new book. It has an intensely interesting plot and something happens on
every page. Illustrated with stunning drawings by Christy, Leyendecker,
Glackens, Parkhurst, and Crawford, and has a striking cover design in
colors.
Illustrated. 12mo. Decorated cloth, $1.50.
* * * * *
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA.
ADAM RUSH.
By LYNN ROBY MEEKINS.
A new and interesting figure in a love story with the charm of country
and village life in every chapter.
Frontispiece by Francis Day. 12mo. Decorated cloth, $1.50.
BREACHLEY--BLACK SHEEP.
By LOUIS BECKE.
Mr. Becke's work is stamped by vigor of expression and an intensely
dramatic imagination. Breachley is the most capable and in many
respects the most interesting of his books.
12mo. Decorated cloth, gilt top, $1.50.
A BLAZE OF GLORY.
By JOHN STRANGE WINTER.
A new novel by an author whose thousands of readers attest to her
continued popularity. This is one of her strongest and brightest
stories.
12mo. Cloth, $1.25.
GENTLEMAN GARNET.
By HARRY B. VOGEL.
A tale of old Tasmania by a popular novelist. _Lippincott's Series of
Select Novels._
Crown 8vo. Decorated cloth, $1.00; paper, 50 cents.
* * * * *
J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY, PHILADELPHIA.
End of Project Gutenberg's A Tar-Heel Baron, by Mabell Shippie Clarke Pelton