Early in the forenoon of the following day a postchaise, travelling
along the road from M----, came to a halt at the entrance of the valley
where lay the Berkow works, the first outlying buildings of which were
already to be seen quite close at hand.
"Don't do it, my lady," said the driver, speaking to some one inside
the carriage.
"You had far better turn back with me as I begged you to do at the last
station; I heard of it there, and the peasants we just met on the road
told us of it again. There are battle and murder up on the works
to-day. Quite early this morning the men were pouring in from all the
villages around, and there is the devil to pay now out yonder. With the
best will in the world, I can't take you up to the house. I should be
risking my horses and the chaise too. When these fellows are once in
revolt, they spare neither friend nor foe. Must you go up there just
to-day? Could you not wait until to-morrow?"
The young lady, who was the sole occupant of the carriage, made no
reply, but opened the door and stepped out.
"I cannot wait," said she gravely, "but I will not endanger you or your
property. It is not more than a mile, I can easily go there on foot.
You can turn back."
The driver renewed his warnings and remonstrances. It seemed very
strange to him that this unknown and elegant lady, who had paid him so
liberally, urging him at the same time to use the utmost speed, should
now venture alone into the tumult. He obtained nothing from her,
however, by his entreaties. She impatiently signed to him to turn back,
and at last, shrugging his shoulders at her persistency, he made up his
mind to obey.
Eugenie took a footpath which did not lead direct to the works, but ran
across the meadows towards the upper entrance to the park, and where
she would in all probability be safe. If it came to the worst, she
would, at all events, find protection and an escort in one of the
officials' dwelling-houses, which lay in that direction. How necessary
both might be, she certainly had not known when, yielding to a sudden
impulse, she had set out on this journey alone, and even now she did
not understand the full extent of the peril to which her present
expedition exposed her.
It was not the possibility of danger which brought that heightened
colour to her cheeks, that restless sparkle to her eye, which made her
heart beat so violently that she was forced to stop every now and then
to take breath. It was the fear she felt of the coming decision. That
heavy dream-like feeling, which had come upon her on leaving her
husband's home, had hung about her during all the weeks of the
separation.
Neither the old home, nor her people's love, nor the bright and happy
prospects opening out before them all, had sufficed to rouse her. That
dreamy sense of unreality had clung to her with painful oppressiveness
and with many a vague longing. Now the awakening had come, and all her
thoughts were bent on the one question.
"How would he receive her?"
She had just reached a small solitary house, forming, as it were, the
extreme outposts of the works, when she saw a man hurrying towards her.
He started with a look of terror as he recognised her.
"My lady! For Heaven's sake, how did you come here, and to-day of all
days?"
"Oh, Manager Hartmann, is it you?" said Eugenie, going up to him.
"Thank God I have met you! Troubles have broken out on the works, I
hear. I had to leave my carriage out yonder, the driver dared not bring
me on. I am going on foot up to the house."
The Manager shook his head, and replied hastily:
"You cannot, my lady, you cannot go up now. To-morrow perhaps, or
perhaps towards evening, but not now."
"Why not?" cried Eugenie, turning very pale. "Is our house threatened?
Is my husband" ...
"No, no, Herr Berkow is not mixed up in it today. He is up at the house
with all the officials. This time the trouble is among themselves.
Some of the men wanted to take to their work again this morning, and my
son" ....
Here the old man's face worked with agitation.
"Well! you must know it before long! My son was furious about it. He
and his party have driven them back, and set a guard round the shafts.
The others won't put up with that, and now they are banding themselves
together. The whole works are in revolt, every man against his
neighbour. Merciful goodness! what will happen next?" cried the
Manager, as, in spite of the distance, rumours of the wild clamour and
uproar were borne distinctly over to them.
"But I intended to avoid the works," urged Eugenie. "I was going to try
and gain the park by the path across the meadows, and so on to" ....
"For Heaven's sake, don't go there!" interrupted the old man. "Ulric
and all his followers are holding a meeting out in the meadow yonder. I
was on my way to try once more if I could not make him listen to
reason, and induce him, at all events, to set the shafts free. We are
going against our own flesh and blood now, but he has neither eyes nor
ears for anything in his fury. Not that way, my lady, it is the most
dangerous of all."
"I must go up to the house," Eugenie declared resolutely. "I must go,
cost what it may. Come with me, Hartmann, only as far as the houses. In
case of the worst, I can stay there until the road is clear again. At
your side I shall be secure at least from open violence."
The old man shook his head sadly.
"I cannot help you, my lady. Now that we are all in arms, one against
the other, my own life is hardly safe in the midst of this strife and
turmoil, and if once they get to know who you are, my being at your
side would be of very little use. There is only one man now they feel
any respect for, who can make himself obeyed in case of need, and that
is my Ulric. But he hates Herr Berkow mortally, and he hates you too
because you are the master's wife. Good God!" broke off the old man
suddenly, "here he comes! There has been mischief doing again, I can
see it in his face. Go out of his sight just for the present, I implore
you."
He pushed her through the half-opened door of the little cottage, and
he had hardly done so, when steps and loud voices were heard
approaching. Ulric was coming up the road followed by Lawrence and
several other miners. His face was crimson, and on his brow lay a
thunder-cloud ready at any moment to explode. He was talking excitedly
as he came along, and he did not notice his father's presence.
"If they are our mates and our brothers, no matter! Down with them
directly they turn traitors to us. We gave our word to stand by each
other, and now they crawl up to the old collar like cowards and desert
us and our cause. They shall be made to pay for it. Are the shafts well
guarded?"
"Yes, but" ...
"I'll have no buts," cried the leader imperiously to the man who would
have ventured to hazard an objection. "That was about the one thing
wanting, treason in our own camp, just as we are on the eve of victory.
They shall be driven back by force, I tell you, if they make the least
attempt to go below. We will teach them their duty and their proper
place, if they have to learn it at the cost of a few broken heads."
"But there are two hundred of them," said Lawrence gravely, "and
to-morrow there may be four--and, if once the master steps in and
begins to talk to them--you know how that tells! We have seen it often
enough of late."
"If there were four hundred," shouted Ulric, "if half our people were
on their side, we would fight them with the other half and beat them
too. I'll see if I can't make myself obeyed! But now, forward, lads.
Karl, you go over to the works and bring me word if Berkow is meddling
in the matter and talking to the men in that cursed way of his, getting
hundreds to desert from us again. You others, back to the shafts. See
that the way to them is thoroughly blocked, I will come myself
presently. Off with you!"
His command was at once obeyed. The miners hurried off in the
prescribed directions, and Ulric, seeing now for the first time that
his father was standing by, hurried up to him and said,
"You here, father? Why, you ought to be"----all at once he stopped,
rooted to the ground; his face grew deadly white, every drop of blood
slowly receding from it, and his eyes were fixed and dilated as though
he had seen a ghost. Eugenie had come out of the house and was standing
before him.
A sudden thought had flashed into the young wife's mind, and instantly
she acted on it without staying to reflect on the boldness and the
peril of her venture. She was bent on going to her husband at any cost,
and now she must overcome the horror with which this man had inspired
her ever since she had discovered the true reason of her power over
him. She had often put this power to the proof; now the time had come
to turn it to account.
"It is I, Hartmann," said she, mastering an involuntary shudder and
appearing before him calm and composed. "Your father was just warning
me not to go on my way alone, and yet I must go on."
At the sound of her voice, Ulric seemed first to realise that it was
actually Eugenie Berkow who stood before him, and no mere vision of his
heated fancy. He would have rushed up to her, but that look and tone
still kept their old influence over him. As he listened, a calmer and
milder expression came over his face.
"What are you doing here, my lady?" he asked uneasily, his rough
imperious manner softening into one that was almost gentle. "There is
ill work among us to-day, which is not for women to see, least of all
for you. You must not stay here."
"I want to go to my husband," said Eugenie quickly.
Formerly she had almost invariably spoken of Arthur as "Heir Berkow;"
now she called him her husband, in a tone which seemed to make Ulric
understand all that was implied in that one word.
In the first moment of his surprise he had not reflected how or why she
had come there so suddenly; now he glanced quickly, first at her
travelling dress, and then around, as though in quest of her carriage
and attendants.
"I am alone," said Eugenie, catching this glance, "and it is that which
prevents my going on. I am not afraid of any actual danger, but of the
insults I might be exposed to. You offered me your escort and
protection once, Hartmann, when I did not need them. Now I mean to make
a claim on both. Lead me over to the house. You can, if you will."
The Manager had stood by, anxiously looking on, expecting that at any
moment his son might attack the wife of a master he so hated, and ready
to rush in between them. He could not understand Eugenie's tone of
quiet assurance towards a man whom she, like every one else, must know
to be the real instigator of the whole rebellion. Now as she made this
request wishing to entrust herself to the rebel leader's safe keeping,
the old man's bewilderment knew no bounds. He looked at her in
horrified amazement.
As to Ulric, he was roused to violent anger by the demand made upon
him. That milder gleam had vanished, and the old imperious defiance had
come back to him.
"I am to lead you over?" he said in a low hoarse voice. "And you ask
that of me, my lady, of me?"
"I ask it of you." Eugenie kept her eyes steadily fixed on his face,
feeling that so her power over him would be greater. It seemed now,
however, to have reached its limits. He burst out like a madman.
"Never, never! I would rather see the house stormed, see it pulled to
the ground, than take you there again. What? he up yonder is to have
you at his side again, so that he shall take courage and resist to the
last? He is to have the triumph of knowing that you have come away from
the city by yourself and made your way through the whole place in
revolt, just that he should not be left alone? But you may look for
another guide for that, and if you find one"--with a threatening look
at his father--"he shall not go far with you, I'll take care of that."
"Ulric, control yourself, you are speaking to a lady!" cried the
Manager, stepping between them in mortal fear. He naturally saw nothing
in this scene but an outbreak of that unrestrained enmity which his son
had long cherished towards the whole Berkow family, and he took up a
position before his master's wife, determined, come what might, to
protect and shield her. She pressed by him, however, gently but
resolutely.
"So you will not go with me, Hartmann?"
"No, a hundred times, no."
"Well then, I shall go alone."
She turned away in the direction of the park, but with two strides
Ulric reached her and placed himself before her, barring the road.
"Back, my lady, you can't get through, I tell you, least of all, this
way where my men are. Lady or not, it is all the same to them now. Your
name is Berkow, and that is enough. As soon as they find out who you
are, you will have them all upon you. You cannot and shall not go over
there now. Stay here where you are."
These last words were spoken imperatively and in a tone of menace, but
Eugenie was not accustomed to submit to orders, and the almost
delirious violence with which he was striving to keep her from Arthur
called up in her a vague anxiety and dread lest things should be worse
with him than she had been led to believe.
"I shall go to my husband," she repeated very resolutely, "and I shall
see whether on my way to him any one dares stop me by force. Let your
friends assault a woman, give the signal for it yourself, if you care
to take the credit of the heroic deed. I shall go."
And she went; darting by him and taking the path which led across the
fields.
Hartmann stood gazing after her with eyes which glowed again, paying no
heed to his father's prayers and remonstrances. He understood better
than the old man what she intended by this venture, what she wished to
compel him to. But this time he would not yield to her. She might
perish on the threshold of her own house, in sight of her husband,
before he would take her back to the arms of a man he hated, before
he ...
At this moment a troop of miners made their appearance, excited and
uproarious, coming from the place of meeting to rejoin their leader.
The foremost of them was only some hundred paces off. They had already
noticed the solitary female figure before them; in another minute she
would be recognised, and he himself had, but half-an-hour ago, been
goading on these men to blind fury against all that bore the name of
Berkow.
Eugenie went forward to meet the danger, not attempting even to conceal
her face. In his desperation Ulric stamped on the ground; then he tore
himself free from his father, and in an instant was at her side.
"Put down your veil," he said, and grasped her hand with an iron grasp.
Eugenie obeyed, drawing a deep breath of relief. She was safe now; she
knew he would not loose his hold on her hand again, if all the men on
the works were to attack them at once. She had gone on deliberately to
meet the danger, with full consciousness of what she was doing, but
also with the conviction that nothing short of her visible and imminent
peril would win for her that protection which had been refused.
They now came up to the troop of insurgents, who at once attempted to
throng round their leader so as to place him in their midst, but he
briefly and emphatically bade them make way, and ordered them over to
the shafts without loss of time. They obeyed at once as their comrades
had done previously, and Ulric, who had not halted for so much as a
second, drew his companion on more rapidly than ever. She began to see
plainly how impossible it would have been for her to force a passage
through by herself, and how idle any other protection would have proved
than that which was at her side.
This stretch of meadow-land, usually so peaceful, was to-day the scene
of busy surging tumult, although the actual strife was confined to the
neighbourhood of the shafts. Knots of miners were trooping about, or
standing closely grouped together in noisy conference. Everywhere angry
faces and threatening gestures were to be seen, everywhere turmoil and
confusion reigned paramount, an object only seemed wanting for them to
give vent to their wild excitement by some deed of violence.
Happily, the footpath skirted the edge of the fields where the tumult
was relatively less, but even here Ulric no sooner showed himself than
he became the centre of observation, and was greeted everywhere with
loud shouts, in which there mingled a certain note of surprise. A host
of astonished, distrustful, suspicious glances were levelled at the
female figure by his side. No one guessed that, attired in that dark
travelling-dress and thick veil, the master's wife was passing through
their midst. Had any one fancied he recognised her gait and bearing,
such a notion would have been scouted by the others.
Ulric Hartmann was protecting her, and he would most surely never have
accorded his protection to any one connected with the house of Berkow;
still it was a lady who was walking with him, the Manager's rough,
uncourteous son, though he cared nothing for women generally, not even
for Martha Ewers, who was cared for, in some degree, by almost every
unmarried man in the place.
Ulric, who, at a time like the present, looked upon and treated his
comrades' wives as an unnecessary burthen to be shaken off as much as
possible, Ulric was now playing the guide to this stranger, and there
was a look on his face as though he would strike down any one who
ventured a step too near her. That short walk, which lasted barely ten
minutes in all, was a bold experiment even for the young leader
himself, but he showed that here, at least, he was master, and that he
knew how to make use of his power.
Now, by a few imperious words, he dissolved a group which stood in his
way; now, again, he issued orders and instructions to a troop of miners
bearing down upon him, which took them off in another direction; to
those who would have pressed round with questions and reports of what
was going on he cried,
"By and by, I am coming back!" and all the time he never lost a moment,
but drew his companion swiftly on, so as to prevent discovery or delay.
At last they reached the park, closed at this spot by a wooden gate
only. Ulric pushed it open, and stepped inside with her under the
sheltering trees.
"That is enough," he said, letting go her hand. "The park is safe
still, and in five minutes you will be at the house."
Eugenie was still trembling at the danger they had passed through, and
her hand ached from the iron pressure of his. She put back her veil
slowly.
"Make haste," said he with bitter sarcasm. "I have honestly done my
part towards helping you back to your husband. You will not keep him
waiting now?"
Eugenie looked up at him. His face betrayed the torture she had
inflicted, by placing before him the alternative of witnessing an
attack upon her, or of himself leading her to her husband.
She had no courage to thank him, but she put out her hand in silence.
Ulric pushed it away.
"You asked much of me," he said. "So much that it was within a hair of
miscarrying. Now you have your will. Do not attempt to compel me again
as you did to-day, especially when _he_ is by; for, if you do, I swear
I will give you both up to your fate."
On the terrace before the house stood the two servants, Frank and
Anthony, gazing over in the direction of the works with anxious yet
curious looks. They started back no less affrighted than the old
Manager had been, for, without the sound of carriage wheels to announce
her coming, and unattended even by her maid, they suddenly saw standing
before them their mistress, whom they supposed to be far away in the
distant capital.
She could not possibly have come through the works, still less by
way of the park, for out on the meadows at the back things were even
worse--yet she was there! They were both so confounded, they could
hardly answer her hasty question, but she managed to find out that Herr
Berkow was at that moment at home, and hurried past them up the steps.
Frank, who followed her, had even more ground for astonishment, for she
hardly allowed him to take her hat and shawl, and, when he would have
hastened with the news of her arrival over to the wing occupied by his
master, she bade him stay, and said she would go and announce herself.
The man stood with the cloak in his hand, staring after her with open
mouth. It had all passed like a whirlwind. What could have happened in
the city?
Eugenie passed rapidly through the several rooms in succession, until
all at once she stopped. Arthur's study was near at hand, and from it
the sound of voices met her ear. She had so surely reckoned on finding
her husband alone, had wished to come to him thus unexpected,
unannounced, and now she found him in the company of a stranger!
Ah! she could not meet him in the presence of another! Eugenie stood
undecided whether to stand back or to remain. At last she stepped
noiselessly behind the heavy _portiere_, the folds of which almost hid
her from view.
"It is impossible, Herr Berkow," said the sharp clear voice of the
chief-engineer, "If you push forbearance further, you will do it to the
injury of those who are beginning to take to their work in an orderly
manner. They beat a retreat on this occasion, because they were the
weaker, but we shall have worse and bloodier scenes than what took
place this morning. That was only a hand-to-hand skirmish. Hartmann has
shown that he will not spare his own people if they rebel against his
system of terrorism. Friend and foe may suffer alike, but his
principles must be upheld."
Eugenie could see through the open door into the room. Just opposite
her at the open window stood Arthur, the full light falling upon his
face, which had grown so much more sombre since last she had seen it.
Even then the shadow of care had lain on his brow; at that time,
however, it had been new to him and had not marked itself there
indelibly, but now two deep furrows were graven which probably would
never again be effaced.
Each separate line in his face was sharper, more severely defined; the
look of energy, which then had but newly dawned and was only distinctly
visible in moments of excitement, had now become the dominant
expression of his countenance even when at rest, and had altogether
replaced the old dreamy air; his voice and manner were alike firm and
decided. It was evident that he had learned in a few weeks that which
it takes others years to acquire.
"I should certainly be the last to advise seeking help from without, if
it could be avoided, but I do think that now we, and you in particular,
have abstained from it long enough. There really can be no blame to us
if, at length, we have recourse to measures which were employed on the
neighbouring works long ago without any such pressing necessity as
ours."
Arthur shook his head sadly.
"The other works can be no rule for us. A few arrests, a few slight
wounds, and matters were settled there. Fifty men and three or four
shots in the air were sufficient to quell the whole revolt. Here they
have Hartmann at their head, and we all know what that means. He would
not yield to a bayonet charge, and all his party are ready to stand or
fall with him. They would challenge us to do our worst, and, to buy
peace, we must sacrifice some lives."
The other was silent, but his significant shrug showed that he was of
the same opinion.
"But if peace is to be had in no other way?"
"If it were to be had at all! but it is not, and the sacrifice of life
will be made in vain. I can crush the rebellion for the time being, but
in a year, in a few months perhaps, it will break out again, and you
know as well as I do that the last chance of keeping on the works would
be gone from me then. Elsewhere there are some signs of returning
confidence and of a juster feeling; elsewhere the people seem to be
coming to their senses again, but that is not to be hoped with us. The
distrust sown during long years cannot be speedily overcome. Hatred and
hostility was the watchword given out against me when I came here; it
is the watchword still, and, if once I cause blood to be shed, all will
be over for ever between us."
"Hartmann may venture to bring his recusant followers back to obedience
by open combat and to impose his will on them by force, he will still
remain their Messiah to whom they look for salvation. If I were to
order one shot to be fired, if I take up arms in my own defence, I
shall be called a tyrant, ready to murder them in cold blood, and
taking delight in their destruction. The old Manager was right that
day, when he said: 'If troubles break out here among our people, the
Lord have mercy upon us!'"
There was no complaint, no dispirited lament in these words, only the
bitterness of a man who finds himself at length borne to the very verge
of that precipice to avoid which he has in vain been straining every
nerve.
Probably the young master would have so spoken to no other. The
chief-engineer was the only person who seemed to have drawn nearer him
of late. He had stood by him so steadfastly through all the danger,
helping so actively to carry out all the necessary measures, and he was
the only one to whom Arthur would occasionally speak freely, passing
beyond the mere instructions and encouraging speeches which were all
the other officials ever heard from his lips.
"But some of the hands are willing to take to work again already,"
objected the elder man.
"And that is just what compels me to make war on the rest. There is no
making terms with Hartmann. I have tried to do so and failed."
"With whom? You have tried what?" asked the other, with such a
horrified expression that Arthur looked at him in surprise.
"To come to an understanding with Hartmann. It was not done officially,
it is true, that might have been interpreted as a sign of weakness. It
was when we met one day accidentally that I held out my hand to him
once again."
"You should not have done it," interrupted the other almost
passionately. "Held out your hand to that man! But I had forgotten, you
know nothing as yet."
"I should not?" repeated Arthur sharply. "May I ask what you mean, sir?
Be satisfied that I am well able to maintain the dignity of my position
even on such an occasion as that."
The chief-engineer had already regained his composure.
"Excuse me, Herr Berkow, I intended in no way to criticise your
conduct as master of the works, it was in your position as the son that
I----but you are ignorant of the reports connected with your father's
last moments. We agreed not to mention them before you; it was done
with the best intention, but now I see that we were wrong, that you
must be told. You would have offered Hartmann your hand, and that, I
repeat, ought not to have been."
Arthur looked at him fixedly. His face had grown colourless and his
lips quivered.
"You speak of Hartmann and of my father's death. Is there any
connection between the two?"
"I fear so, we all fear so. General suspicion rests upon the Deputy,
not among us alone, but among his fellow-miners."
"Down there in the shaft," cried Arthur terribly agitated. "A murderous
assault on a defenceless man! I do not believe that of Hartmann."
"He hated the deceased," said the chief-engineer emphatically, "and he
has never denied his hatred of him. Herr Berkow may have exasperated
him by some word, some command. Whether the ropes really broke, and he
seized the moment of danger to save himself and hurl the other down
into the depths below, or whether the whole thing were premeditated, is
all a dark mystery, but innocent he is not, that I'll answer for."
Arthur was evidently deeply moved by this disclosure; he leaned heavily
on the table.
"At the inquest it was proved to be an accident," said he in an
unsteady voice.
"Nothing at all was proved at the inquest, so they concluded it was an
accident and let it pass as such. No one dared make an open accusation,
proofs were wholly wanting, and there would have been endless conflicts
with the miners if their leader had been taken up on suspicion and then
discharged, as he, no doubt, would have been. We knew, Herr Berkow,
that, under existing circumstances, a struggle was inevitable between
you and him, and we wished to spare you the bitterness of knowing your
adversary for what he is. That was why we kept silence."
Arthur passed his hand across his brow.
"I never dreamt of that, never! Even though it be nothing more than a
suspicion, you are right, I should not offer that man my hand."
"That man," broke in the official, speaking with much energy, "that
man, as leader of the rest, has brought the whole misfortune on us,
that man has constantly heaped coals on the fire and kept up the
strife, and now that he sees his power is on the decline he is doing
all he can to make the breach irreparable, and a reconciliation
impossible. Can you, will you, spare him still?"
"I spare him? No! I had done with him when he so roughly repulsed the
overture I made him, but I cannot spare the others either after what
has happened to-day. I am driven to take extreme measures. There were
two hundred this morning who wanted to return to work, and they
certainly have the right to require protection at their labour. The
shafts must be secured at any cost, and I cannot do it alone, so"----
"So ...? We are waiting your orders, Herr Berkow?"
There was a pause of a minute, then the struggle visible in Arthur's
face yielded to an expression of pained but firm resolve.
"I will write to M----. The letter shall go today. It must be."
"At last!" murmured the chief-engineer, half reproachfully. "It was
high time!"
Arthur turned to his writing-table.
"Go over now and see that the Director and the other gentlemen remain
at the posts I assigned them when I was at the works. It would have
been useless to interfere in all the clamour this morning; perhaps now
it may be possible. In half-an-hour I shall be with you. Should
anything particular occur before send me word over at once."
Before leaving the room the official stepped up to his side again.
"I know what the resolution has cost you, Herr Berkow," he said
earnestly, "and we none of us take the thing lightly, believe me, but
we must not look on the dark side. Perhaps it may be settled without
bloodshed after all."
He bowed and left the room, much too hurried and too preoccupied to
notice Eugenie, who, at his approach, retreated still farther behind
the sheltering curtain. Without looking to the right or the left, he
passed rapidly through the adjoining room and closed the door after
him. Husband and wife were alone together.
Arthur had only replied by a bitter smile to the chief-engineer's
parting words.
"Too late!" he said to himself, "they will not yield until blood is
shed. I must reap what my father has sown."
He threw himself down on a chair and leaned his head on his hands. Now
that he had not to meet the eyes of strangers, now that he need no
longer play the leader on whose resolution all depended, the look of
energy faded from his face, and, in its place, came one of exhaustion,
such as may overcome the strongest man when, for weeks at a stretch,
his powers of mind and body have been overwrought and strained to the
uttermost.
It was a moment of despairing dejection, coming naturally enough to one
who had striven on and on, and all in vain, against the curse of a past
in which he himself had not been to blame, except in so far as he had
held himself aloof from the duties of it. Now the fatal inheritance was
his alone, and the weight of it almost crushed him to the earth.
The accusing words against his father, which had escaped his lips, had
been silenced in the self-same moment by the terrible suggestions he
had listened to respecting the manner of that father's death. Yet to
his predecessor was it solely due that he, the son, was now driven to
the last terrible necessity, that, with ruin staring him in the face,
deserted by his wife, forsaken by all his former friends, he was forced
to resort to the only means which might yet save himself and all that
he could still call his own from an enmity sown and nourished for many
a long year, and whose fruits he was now compelled to taste. Arthur
closed his eyes and leaned his head back on the arm-chair. He was worn
out.
Eugenie had noiselessly left her hiding-place and had stepped on to the
threshold. Forgotten now the peril she had passed through, forgotten
the accusations she had heard with such feelings of horror, forgotten
even the man on whom they rested and all that had reference to him.
Now that she was so near her husband, she saw and thought of nothing
but him. The veil, which had so long divided them, would now be torn
away. All would be made clear, and yet she hesitated and trembled at
the coming decision as though sentence of death were about to be passed
on her.
If she had been mistaken, if she were not received as she had hoped to
be, as, after the sacrifice she had wrung from her pride, she felt she
must be received .... The blood rushed violently to the young wife's
heart, and it throbbed in an agony of suspense. Everything for her hung
on the next minute.
"Arthur!" she said very softly.
He started up, as though he had heard a voice from the dead, and looked
around him. There in the doorway, close to the spot where she had bade
him farewell for ever, stood his wife.
In that first moment of recognition all consideration and reflection
vanished; he rushed towards her and the cry of joy which was wrung from
his lips, the radiant brightness of his eyes, revealed all that up to
this hour had been disavowed by the self-restraint of months.
"Eugenie!"
She breathed freely, as though a mountain load had been lifted from her
heart. The look, the tone with which he spoke her name gave her at last
the long questioned certainty, and even though he stopped short in his
hasty advance towards her, trying, as a protection against himself, it
seemed, to take up the old mask once more and veiling that tell-tale
glance, it was too late, she had seen too much!
"Where do you come from?" he asked at length, recovering himself with
difficulty, "so suddenly, so unexpectedly, and how did you get up to
the house? The works are in open revolt, you cannot possibly have
passed by them."
Eugenie drew nearer slowly.
"I only arrived a few minutes ago. I had indeed to force my way
through. Do not ask me how, at present, enough that I forced it. I
wanted to be with you before danger reached you."
Arthur tried to turn from her.
"What does this mean, Eugenie? Why do you speak in that tone? Conrad
has been making you anxious, though I entreated him not, though I
expressly forbade him to do so. I want no sacrifice made from
generosity or from a sense of duty. You know it."
"Yes, I know it," she returned steadily. "You sent me from you once
before with those words. You could not forgive me that I had once done
you a wrong, and in revenging yourself for it, you nearly sacrificed
both yourself and me. Arthur, who was the hardest, the unkindest, of us
two?"
"It was not revenge," he said in a low voice. "I set you free, you
wished it yourself."
Eugenie was standing quite close to him now. The word, which once no
consideration on earth would ever have forced from her lips, was so
easy to speak now that she knew herself to be beloved. She raised full
upon him her dark eyes, all dewy with tears.
"And if I tell my husband that I will have no freedom away from him,
that I have come back to share with him whatever may befall us both,
that I--that I have learnt to love him, will he once more tell me to
go?"
She received no answer, at least not in words, but already she was in
his arms, and they held her in an embrace so close and warm, it seemed
as though they would never again give up the prize they had won at
last.
As she lay there and felt the passionate caresses he showered upon her,
she knew how cruel a blow her loss must have been, and all that her
return was to him at a moment like the present. She saw a radiance in
those great brown eyes, such as she had never before seen there, not
even during those old bright lightning-like flashes.
The spell was broken. The world so long lying perdu had risen from its
depths up to the broad light of day, and some instinct must have
revealed to the young wife all the treasures that world held for her,
for she laid her head upon her husband's breast, yielding herself up to
him in fullest trust and confidence, as he bent over her whispering,
"My wife! my treasure!"
Through the open window came a breezy rustling greeting from the green
wooded heights up yonder. Those forest-voices must have their say and
mingle their whispers in the new-found bliss. Had they not helped to
create it? Long ago they had understood, these two, before the two had
learnt to understand themselves, at a time when they stood face to face
in haughty contest, and spoke the word of separation in the very moment
when their hearts were meeting.
But the contention and pride of the children of men avail but little
when, with their loves and hopes, they come within the magic circle
traced by the spirit of the mountains, as, amid the surging mists, he
travels through his dominions in that first early hour of spring--and
that which meets then, will cleave together for evermore!