The Riddle Solved.
Jane held the sheet silently in her hand; her eyes were veiled as if by
starting tears. It is never a matter of unconcern to a woman to see a
heart bleeding for her sake, least of all if she is the first and the
only one who has taught this proud, cold heart to feel.
Walter's glance rested searchingly upon her face; it was sad, and
painfully intent, as if from torturing unrest.
"I must now entreat the explanation, and yet, I do not know whether
Miss Forest will be inclined to give it. When we met for the last time,
on that day of my return from L. with Frederic's corpse, Mr. Alison
stood between us, and held your hand in his, firmly, as if by this one
act he would assert his right to all the world, He need not have
thought it necessary to deprive us in so decided a manner of all
opportunity to be alone; the moment forbade any word but of sorrow for
the dead; we both alike lost much in him."
Gently but excitedly Jane shook her head. "You lost only a servant,
Professor Fernow," she said. "The lot of my brother was one of cruel
servitude from his earliest youth, and destiny would have been still
more cruel to him had he not found in you a good master. I--did not
make things easier for him while it lay in my power, and later, I could
give him nothing--nothing but the cold marble above his grave!"
Walter now stood close to her; gently he took her trembling right hand
in his. "And the last embrace of a sister!" he said softly.
Jane's lips quivered in bitterest sorrow. "He paid dearly enough for
it," she said; "he had to buy it with his life-blood. If I had not been
near him in that hour he might have come back healthy and merry with
the others; my rescue was his destruction. I bring only sorrow to all
that love me; I had to give death to my brother; I had to make Henry
wretched--keep far from me, Professor Fernow, I can give you no
happiness!"
With a convulsive movement she stepped to the edge of the balustrade,
and with averted face gazed out into the distance. Frederic's death
still threw its shadow over her life; the shadow would not lift, she
could not overcome her remorseful sorrow. Something of the old hardness
and bitterness again lay upon her features, and the anguish which
thrilled through them and would scarce yield to control, only too well
betrayed how serious she had been in those gloomy words before which at
this moment, all hope, every dream of the future, sank into
nothingness.
"Johanna!"
It was again that tone which once before in S. had wrought so mightily
upon her heart, lifting it above all sorrow and all conflict; it
compelled her now to turn round, to glance up to him; and when she met
his eyes, hardness and bitterness could no longer hold their ground
before these blue depths which once more spoke to her in that language
of dreamy tenderness now as then holding her spell-bound.
"You have also caused me sorrow, Johanna, fearful sorrow; it was upon
that autumn night when I implored you to make yourself free, and was
ready the dare the utmost to win you. At that time, you flung back at
me, this hard, 'Never! Even if Alison should release me and every other
barrier should fall, NEVER, Walter!' Those words have ever since stood
threateningly between us both; they have intimidated me up to this
moment. Will you now at last, solve for me the riddle?"
Jane bowed her head. For some moments she was silent, then she said in
a hollow voice: "I had found a clue to my brother, I knew that he had
been reared by pastor Hartwig, and I heard the name from your lips as
that of your foster-father."
"For God's sake, you did not believe--?"
"Yes! Do not chide me, Walter, that I deemed it possible. I suffered
fearfully from that possibility, I almost died from that unhappy
error."
Jane Forest's proud lips had at last humbled themselves to this
confession, and there was a moist glimmer in her eyes, their "boreal
glow" had vanished and the ice with it, and from those eyes beamed
forth as it were, a radiant, glowing spring--life. That glance which
Alison yesterday had seen but for a moment, when she had fallen on her
knees before him in agonized entreaty--that glance through which she
had forced him to a renunciation which without it she would never have
attained, now fell, ardent yet tender, upon him who had known how to
awaken it. He felt the whole spell of this nature, a nature which could
irresistibly attract, indissolubly fetter, and infinitely bless. He
knew the worth of the being who now, for the first time, gave herself
fully and unreservedly to him.
There was no wooing, no proposal, not even a declaration, between these
two; but there was much, inconceivably much that had been wanting at
that first betrothal where all had been so formally arranged, glowing
blushes, tears of happiness, and a betrothed bride, tender, joyous
yielding up of life and future into the hands of him she loved. And
here was the deep, glowing, inspired passion of a man over whom cold
calculation and interest could have no sway. In his arms, Jane felt
that this dreamer who had known how to throw aside the pen and wield
the sword, knew also how to love with all the fervor of a deep,
unselfish nature.
There was a rustle in the shrubbery at the foot of the ruin, and Mr.
Atkins, who again had been playing the spy, came to light. But this
time, he neither disturbed the pair of lovers, nor brought them his
congratulations.
His face expressed anything but good wishes as hastily and unremarked,
he took the homeward way.
"A most preposterous, sentimental thing, love is here in Germany!" he
growled. "Jane Forest was lost us to the moment she set foot on this
poetic soil. It is shameful! And that accursed Rhine over yonder, with
its romance, is answerable for all!"
He threw a glance of deepest resentment upon the hated river, and then,
muttering, turned his back upon it. But the Rhine did no seem to take
the discourtesy at all to heart. All through its waves there was a
sparkle and a glitter as if the old Niebelungen horde had mounted up
from those deep recesses, making those waters one tide of liquid gold,
that overflowed even the environing shores. And the old river rolled on
mightily and triumphantly, as if upon it swelling current, it were
bearing the spring and peace far into the land.
The End.