I.

"Why have you roused me, Konski?"

"You were lying on your left side again, sir," the servant, who held

his master clasped by the shoulder, replied, as he completed the task

of restoring him to a sitting posture on the sofa; "and you have been

drinking champagne at dinner, more than a bottle, John says, and that

surely is ..."

Konski broke off abruptly, and turned again to the travelling boxes,

one of which was already unlocked; he commenced to arrange its contents

in the chest of drawers, and went on, apparently talking to himself

rather than to his master--

"I am merely doing what the doctor has insisted upon. Only last night,

in Berlin, as I was showing him to the door, he said: 'Konski, when

your master is lying on his left side and begins then to moan, rouse

him, rouse him at once, be it day or night. I take the responsibility.

And, Konski, no champagne; not for the next six weeks, anyhow, and best

not at all. And when you have once got into Italy, then plenty of water

to be mixed with the wine, Konski, and ...'"

"And now oblige me by holding your tongue."

Bertram had remained sitting on the sofa, his hand pressed to his brow;

he now rose rapidly and strode impatiently about the room, casting

every now and then an angry glance at his valet. Then he stepped to one

of the windows. The sun must be setting now. The high wooded hills

yonder still shone forth in sunny splendour, but the terrace gardens

sloping towards the valley, and the valley itself, with the village

within, lay already in deepest shadow. The picturesque view, the

graceful charm of which he was wont to appreciate so heartily, had no

charm to-day for his dulled brain. Konski was quite right; the

champagne which he had to-day taken for the first time since his

illness, in direct defiance of the doctors injunctions, had not agreed

with him. Well, he had taken champagne because his throat had got

unbearably dry from much talking, and he had talked so much because the

frequent pauses in the dinner conversation were making him nervous. The

whole thing had been a positive bore; the genial host, the fair hostess

had surely fallen off, changed sadly for the worse during the last

three years. Or ... could he possibly have changed himself? Did he

really begin to grow old? If you get seriously ill at fifty, you are

apt to go downhill with startling rapidity!

This had been the second emphatic _memento mori_--after an interval of

twenty years! The first--the first had been her work. Aye, and she had

kissed him a thousand times, and had vowed deathless fidelity yonder on

the mountain-slope, where the giant oak still lifted its mighty crown

of foliage above the bronze-coloured leafy roof of the beeches. Why the

deuce did they always give him these rooms? He'd better ask Hildegard

this very evening for other rooms--at once, before that blockhead

Konski had unpacked everything.

"Leave these things alone," he exclaimed, turning round from the

window; "I do not intend to remain in these rooms. I do not intend to

stay here at all, I think. We shall probably be off to-morrow."

Konski, who was already deep in the recesses of box number two,

believed he had not heard aright. He lifted his head out of the box and

looked in amazement at his master.

"To-morrow, sir? I thought we were to stay a week at the least."

"Do what I bid you."

Konski replaced, the shirts which he was holding in the portmanteau and

rose hastily from his knees. His master was evidently in a very bad

temper; "but that kind of thing never lasts long with him," Konski was

saying to himself, "and then the champagne ..."

Aloud he said--

"You can be sure, sir, that there won't be much trouble about the

officers who are going to be quartered here. I know all about it from

Mamsell Christine. Only a colonel, a major, a couple of captains, and

some six lieutenants or so, and perhaps a surgeon-major. None of our

princes, and certainly none of theirs. A mere handful for a large place

like this; they'll be lost, like currants in a bun. And you can remain

in these rooms, where we always have been, and you'll see none of them,

for I don't suppose they'll have this blessed man[oe]vre in the garden

below."

"I do not know at, all what you want with your everlasting

man[oe]vres," Bertram exclaimed angrily.

He had gone back, to the open window, through which there came a strong

current of air. Konski went and closed the door of the adjoining room,

then stepped up to within a certain respectful distance of his master,

and said modestly, lowering his voice--

"I beg your pardon, sir, but what does it matter, after all, if Miss

really comes ..."

"What do you mean?" Bertram said without turning round. "What has that

to do with my going or staying? Why should the little one not come?"

Konski rubbed up his stiff black hair with a certain sly smile, and

said--

"Not Miss Erna; the other lady--who is never allowed to come when you

are here."

"Lydia? Fraeulein von Aschhof? Are you mad?"

Bertram turned round with the rapidity of lightning, and now uttered

these words in a rough tone, whilst his eyes, generally so gentle,

shone out in great anger. Konski was frightened; but his curiosity was

greater than his terror. He would gladly have at last learned the real

truth about the young lady who was not allowed to come when his master

came on a visit to Rinstedt, and whom he had therefore never yet seen,

although in the course of years he had accompanied his master half a

dozen times. But he was once more doomed to disappointment; his master

had suddenly become perfectly calm again, or at least preserved the

appearance of perfect calmness, and now asked in his usual voice--

"From whom have you got your information? Of course from Mamsell

Christine?"

"From Mamsell Christine, of course," Konski made answer.

"And she got it from My Lady?"

"From her Ladyship direct."

"And when is the lady expected to arrive?"

"This very evening, along with Miss Erna; and there will also come a

Baron Lutter or Lotter--I could not quite make the name out; they

pronounce things so queerly here in Thuringia."

"Well, well!"

Bertram now remembered that Hildegard, his hostess, had at table

mentioned more than once the name of the Baron von Lotter-Vippach. Of

Lydia, too, although he made it a point never to be drawn into

conversation about her, she had again and again commenced to speak;

clearly, as he perceived now, with the intention of preparing him to

some extent for the intended surprise. But My Lady had reckoned without

her host. This was a downright want of consideration; nay, worse, it

was a breach of good faith. There was no reason why he should put up

with it, and he did not mean to put up with it.

"Where's the master? and where is My Lady?" he asked aloud.

"The master has ridden over to the coal mines; her Ladyship has gone

into the village. They left word that they would be back before you

were awake again; and you had not lain down on your left ..."

"That'll do. Into the village, did you say? Give me my hat."

"Please take your overcoat too, sir," said Konski; "there's a nasty

mist rising from the valley, sir; and the doctor, he did say that if

you caught cold now, sir ..."

Bertram had put his hat on, and waived the proffered garment back. In

the doorway he turned, and said--

"Do not trouble about the boxes. We leave again in an hour. And one

thing more. If you say one word to Mamsell Christine, or to anybody in

the house, now or later--you understand me--and I hear of it--we

part--for all that."

He had left. Konski was now standing by the open window scratching his

head, and the very next minute he saw him striding swiftly down the

garden.

"Upon my word!" he murmured; "who'd think that six weeks ago he lay at

the point of death?--And off this evening again--an hour hence! Not if

I knows it. First, I must settle my little business with Christine, and

that is not to be done all at once. Christine says that at that time

the Fraeulein would have nothing to say to him. I can't make it out.

Twenty years ago he must have been a very handsome fellow; why, he is

so almost still. Nor was he a poor man even then, though, of course, he

has inherited lots since. I am devilish keen about seeing the old maid.

One thing is sure and certain, she will arrive this very evening."

Then he cast one dubious look at the boxes. Perhaps it was taking

needless pains to unpack them.

"But, but--he'll surely think better of it--he is not the one to run

away from any woman, even if she should number forty years or

thereabout; and--and ..."

And so the faithful Konski, after having given a most incredulous shake

of the head, set to work, and continued to unpack his master's

travelling boxes.