In an instant Madeleine had grasped what he was driving at. "Well, and

what of that, pray?" she asked. "Do you think I should have been there,

if I had been ashamed of it?"

"I saw whom you were with," he went on, and treated the tassel so

roughly that it came away in his hand. "I say, Madeleine, it can't be

true, what they say--that you are thinking of ... of marrying that old

German?"

Madeleine coloured, but continued to meet his eyes. "And why not?" she

asked again.--"Don't destroy my furniture, please."

"Why not?" he echoed, and laid the tassel on the table. "Well, if you

can ask that, I should say you don't know the facts of the case. If I

had a sister, Madeleine, I shouldn't care to see her going about with

that man. He's an old ?? ??--don't you know he has had two wives, and

is divorced from both?"

"Fiddle-dee-dee! You and your sister! Do you think a man is going to

come to nearly fifty without knowing something of life? That he hasn't

been happy in his matrimonial relations is his misfortune, not his

fault."

"Then it's true?"

"Why not?" she asked for the third time.

"Then, of course, I've nothing more to say. I've no right to interfere

in your private affairs. I hoped I should still be in time--that's all."

"No, you can't go yet, sit still," she said peremptorily. "I too, have

something to say.--But will you first tell me, please, what it can

possibly matter to you, whether you are in time, as you call it, or

not?"

"Why, of course, it matters.--We haven't seen much of each other

lately; but you were my first friend here, and I don't forget it.

Particularly in a case like this, where everything is against the idea

of you marrying this man: your age--your character--all common sense."

"Those are only words, Maurice. With regard to my age, I am over

twenty-seven, as you know. I need no boy of eighteen for a husband.

Then I am plain: I shall never attract anyone by my personal

appearance, nor will a man ever be led to do foolish things for my

sake. I have worked hard all my life, and have never known what it is

to let to-morrow take care of itself.--Now here, at last, comes a man

of an age not wholly unsuitable to mine, whatever you may say. What

though he has enjoyed life? He offers me, not only a certain social

standing, but material comfort for the rest of my days. Whereas,

otherwise, I may slave on to the end, and die eventually in a

governesses' home."

"YOU would never do that. You are not one of that kind. But do you

think, for a moment, you'd be happy in such a position of dependence?"

"That's my own affair. There would certainly be nothing extraordinary

in it, if I were."

"As you put it, perhaps not. But------If it were even some one of your

own race! But these foreigners think so queerly. And then, too,

Madeleine, you'll laugh, I daresay, but I've always thought of you as

different from other women--strong and independent, and quite sure of

yourself. The kind of girl that makes others seem little and stupid. No

one here was good enough for you."

Madeleine's amazement was so great that she did not reply immediately.

Then she laughed. "You have far too high an opinion of me. Do you

really think I like standing alone? That I do it by preference?--You

were never more mistaken, if you do. It has always been a case of

necessity with me, no one ever having asked me to try the other way. I

suppose like you, they thought I enjoyed it. However, set your mind at

rest. Your kind intervention has not come too late. There is still

nothing definite."

"I'm glad to hear it."

"I don't say there mayn't be," she added. "Herr Lohse and I are

excellent friends, and it won't occur to me not to accept the

theatre-tickets and other amusements he is able to give me.--But it is

also possible that for the sake of 'your ideals, I may die a solitary

old maid."

Here she was overcome by the comical side of the matter, and burst out

laughing.

"What a ridiculous boy you are! If you only knew how you have turned

the tables on me. I sent for you, this afternoon, to give you a sound

talking-to, and instead of that, here you sit and lecture me."

"Well, if I have achieved something----"

"It's too absurd," she repeated more tartly. "For you to come here in

this way to care for my character, when you yourself are the talk of

the place."

His face changed, as she had meant it to do. He choked back a sharp

rejoinder. "I'd be obliged, if you'd leave my affairs out of the

question."

"I daresay you would. But that's just what I don't intend to do. For if

there are rumours going the round about me, what on earth is one to say

of you? I needn't go into details. You know quite well what I mean. Let

me tell you that your name is in everybody's mouth, and that you are

being made to appear not only contemptible, but ridiculous."

"The place is a hot-bed of scandal. I've told you that before," he

cried, angry enough now. "These dirty-minded MUSIKER think it outside

the bounds of possibility for two people to be friends." But his tone

was unsure, and he was conscious of it.

"Yes--when one of the two is Louise."

"Kindly leave Miss Dufrayer out of the question."

"Oh, Maurice, don't Miss Dufrayer me!--I knew Louise before you even

knew that she existed.--But answer me one question, and I'm done. Are

you engaged to Louise?"

"Most certainly not."

"Well, then, you ought to be.--For though you don't care what people

say about yourself, your conscience will surely prick you when you hear

that you're destroying the last shred of reputation Louise had left.--I

should be sorry to repeat to you what is being said of her."

But after he had gone, she reproached herself for having put such a

question to him. At the pass things had reached, it was surely best for

him to go through with his infatuation, and get over it. Whereas she,

in a spasm of conventionality, had pointed him out the sure road to

perdition; for the worst thing that could happen would be for him to

bind himself to Louise, in any fashion. As if her reputation mattered!

The more rapidly she got rid of what remained to her, the better it

would be for every one, and particularly for Maurice Guest.

Had Maurice been in doubt as to Madeleine's meaning, it would have been

removed within a few minutes of his leaving the house. As he turned a

corner of the Gewandhaus, he came face to face with Krafft. Though they

had not met for weeks, Heinrich passed with no greeting but a

disagreeable smile. Maurice was not half-way across the road, however,

when Krafft came running back, and, taking the lappel of his friend's

coat, allowed his wit to play round the talent Maurice displayed for

wearing dead men's shoes.

CARMEN was given that night in the theatre; Maurice had fetched tickets

from the box-office in the morning. An ardent liking for the theatre

had sprung up in Louise of late; and they were there sometimes two or

three evenings in succession. Besides this, CARMEN was her favourite

opera, which she never missed. They heard it from the second-top

gallery. Leaning back in his corner, Maurice could see little of the

stage; but the bossy waves of his companion's head were sharply

outlined for him against the opposite tier.

Louise was engrossed in what was happening on the stage; her eyes were

wide open, immovable. He had never known anyone surrender himself so

utterly to the mimic life of the theatre. Under the influence of music

or acting that gripped her, Louise lost all remembrance of her

surroundings: she lived blindly into this unreal world, without the

least attempt at criticism. Afterwards, she returned to herself tired

and dispirited, and with a marked distaste for the dullness of real

life. Here, since the first lively clash of the orchestra, since the

curtain rose on gay Sevilla, she had been as far away from him as if

she were on another planet. Not, he was obliged to confess to himself,

that it made very much difference. Though he was now her constant

companion, though his love for her was stronger than it had ever been,

he knew less of her to-day than he had known six months ago, when one

all-pervading emotion had made her life an open book.

Since that unhappy afternoon on which he learnt the contents of the

letter from Dresden, they had spent a part of nearly every day in each

other's company. Louise had borne him no malice for what he had said to

her; indeed, with the generous forgetfulness of offence, which was one

of the most astonishing traits in her character, she met him, the day

after, as though nothing had passed between them. By common consent,

they never referred to the matter again; Maurice did not know to this

day, whether or how she had answered the letter. For, although she had

forgiven him, she was not quite the same with him as before; a faint

change had come over their relation to each other. It was something so

elusive that he could not have defined it; yet nevertheless it existed,

and he was often acutely conscious of it. It was not that she kept her

thoughts to herself; but she did not say ALL she thought--that was it.

And this shade of reserve, in her who had been so frank, ate into him

sorely. He accepted it, though, as a chastisement, for he had been in a

very contrite frame of mind on awakening to the knowledge that he had

all but lost her. And so the days had slipped away. An outsider had

first to open his eyes to the fact that it was impossible for things to

go on any longer as they were doing; that, for her sake, he must make

an end, and quickly.

And yet it had been so easy to drift, so hard to do otherwise, when

Louise accepted all he did for her as a matter of course, in that

high-handed way of hers which took no account of details. He felt sorry

for her, too, for she was not happy. There was a gnawing discontent in

her just now, and for this, in great measure, he held himself

responsible: for a few weeks she had been buoyed up by the hope of a

new life, and he had been the main agent in destroying this hope. In

return, he had had nothing to offer her--nothing but a rigid living up

to certain uncomfortable ideals, which brought neither change nor

pleasure with them: and, despite his belief in the innate nobility of

her nature, he could not but recognise that ideals were for her

something colder and sterner than for other people.

She made countless demands on his indulgence, and he learnt to see,

only too clearly, what a dependent creature she was. It was more than a

boon, it was a necessity to her, to have some one at her side who would

care for her comfort and well-being. He could not picture her alone;

for no one had less talent than she for the trifles that compose life.

Her thoughts seemed always to be set on something larger, vaguer,

beyond.

He devoted as much time to her as he could spare from his work, and

strove to meet her half-way in all she asked. But it was no slight

matter; for her changes of mood had never been so abrupt as they were

now. He did not know how to treat her. Sometimes, she was cold and

unapproachable, so wrapped up in herself that he could not get near

her; and perhaps only an hour later, her lips would curve upwards in

the smile which made her look absurdly young, and her eyes, too, have

all the questioning wonder of a child's. Or she would be silent with

him, not unkindly, but silent as a sphinx; and, on the same day, a fit

of loquacity would seize her, when she was unable to speak quickly

enough for the words that bubbled to her lips. He managed to please her

seldomer than ever. But however she behaved, he never faltered. The

right to be beside her was now his; and the times she was the hardest

on him were the times he loved her best.

As spring, having reached and passed perfection, slipped over into

summer, she was invaded by a restlessness that nothing could quell. It

got into her hands and her voice, into all her movements, and worked

upon her like a fever-like a crying need. So intense did it become that

it communicated itself to him also. He, too, began to feel that rest

and stillness were impossible for them both, and to be avoided at any

cost.

"I have never really seen spring," Louise said to him, one day, in

excuse of some irrational impulse that had driven her out of the house.

And the quick picture she drew, of how, in her native land, the brief

winter passed almost without transition into the scathing summer; her

suggestion of unchanging leaves, brown barrenness, and and dryness; of

grass burnt to cinders, of dust, drought, and hot, sandy winds: all

this helped him to understand something of what she was feeling. A

remembrance of this parched heat was in her veins, making her eager not

to miss any of the young, teeming beauty around her, or one of the new

strange scents; eager to let the magic of this awakening permeate her

and amaze her, like a primeval happening. But, though he thus grasped

something of what was going on in her, he was none the less uneasy

under it: just as her feverish unburdening of herself after hours of

silence, so now her attitude towards this mere change of nature

disquieted him; she over-enjoyed it, let herself go in its exuberance.

And, as usual, when she lost hold of her nerves, he found himself

retreating into his shell, practising self-control for two.

Often, how often he could not count, the words that had to be said had

risen to his lips. But they had never crossed them--in spite of the

wanton greenness of the woods, which should have been the very frame in

which to tell a woman you loved her. But not one drop of her nervous

exaltation was meant for him: she had never shown, by the least sign,

that she cared a jot for him; and daily he became more convinced that

he was chasing a shadow, that he was nothing to her but the STAFFAGE in

the picture of her life. He was torn by doubts, and mortally afraid of

the one little word that would put an end to them.

He recollected one occasion when he had nearly succeeded in telling

her, and when, but for a trick of fate, he would have done so. They

were on their way home from the NONNE, where the delicate undergrowth

of the high old trees was most prodigal, and where Louise had closed

her eyes, and drunk in the rich, earthy odours. They had paused on the

suspension bridge, and stood, she with one ungloved hand on the

railing, to watch the moving water. Looking at her, it had seemed to

him that just on this afternoon, she might listen to what he had to say

with a merciful attentiveness; she was quiet, and her face was gentle.

He gripped the rail with both hands. But, before he could open his

lips, a third person turned from the wood-path on to the bridge, making

it tremble with his steps--a jaunty cavalry officer, with a trim

moustache and bright dancing eyes. He walked past them, but threw a

searching look at Louise, and, a little further along the bridge, stood

still, as if to watch something that was floating in the water, in

reality to look covertly back at her. She had taken no notice of him as

he passed, but when he paused, she raised her head; and then she looked

at him--with a preoccupied air, it was true, but none the less

steadily, and for several seconds on end. The words died on Maurice's

lips: and going home, he was as irresponsive as she herself ...

"I love you, Louise--love you." He said it now, sitting back in his

dark corner in the theatre; but amid the buzz and hum of the music, and

the shouting of the toreadors, he might have called the words aloud,

and still she would not have heard them.

Strangely enough, however, at this moment, for the first time during

the evening, she turned her head. His eyes were fixed on her, in a

dark, exorbitant gaze. Her own face hardened.

"The opera-glass!"

Maurice opened the leather case, and gave her the glass. Their fingers

met, and hers groped for a moment round his hand. He withdrew it as

though her touch had burnt him. Louise flashed a glance at him, and

laid the opera-glass en the ledge in front of her, without making use

of it.

Slowly the traitorous blood subsided. To the reverberating music, which

held all ears, and left him sitting alone with his fate, Maurice had a

moment of preternatural clearness. He realised that only one course was

open to him, and that was to go away. BEI NACHT UND NEBEL, if it could

not be managed otherwise, but, however it happened, he must go. More

wholly for her sake than Madeleine had dreamed of: unless he wanted to

be led into some preposterous folly that would embitter the rest of his

life. Who could say how long the wall he had built up round her--of the

knowledge he shared with her, of pity for what she had undergone--would

stand against the onset of this morbid, overmastering desire?

To the gay, feelingless music, he thought out his departure in detail,

sparing himself nothing.

But in the long interval after the second act, when they were

downstairs on the LOGGIA, where it was still half daylight; where the

lights of cafes and street-lamps were only beginning here and there to

dart into existence; where every man they met seemed to notice Louise

with a start of attention: here Maurice was irrevocably convinced that

it would be madness to resign his hard-won post without a struggle. For

that it would long remain empty, he did not for a moment delude himself.

They hardly exchanged a word during the remainder of the evening. His

mouth was dry. Carmen, and her gaudy fate, drove past him like the

phantasmagoria of a sleepless night.

When, the opera was over, and they stood waiting for the crowd to thin,

he scanned his companion's face with anxiety, to discover her mood.

With her hand on the wire ledge, Louise watched the slow fall of the

iron curtain. Her eyes were heavy; she still lived in what she had seen.

Her preoccupation continued as they crossed the square; her movements

were listless. Maurice's thoughts went back to a similar night, a year

ago, when, for the first time, he had walked at her side: it had been

just such a warm, lilac-scented night as this, and then, as now, he had

braced himself up to speak. At that time he had known her but slightly;

perhaps, for that very reason, he had been bolder in taking the plunge.

He turned and looked at her. Her face was averted: he could only see

the side of her cheek, and the clear-cut line of her chin.

"Are you tired, Louise?" he asked, and, in the protective tenderness of

his tone, her name sounded like a term of endearment.

She made a vague gesture, which might signify either yes or no.

"It was too hot for you up there, to-night," he went on. "Next time, I

shall take you a scat downstairs--as I've always wanted to." As she

still did not respond, he added, in a changed voice: "Altogether,

though, it will be better for you to get accustomed to going alone to

the theatre."

She turned at this, with an indolent curiosity. "Why?"

"Because--why, because it will soon be necessary. I'm going away."

He had made a beginning now, clumsily, and not as he had intended, but

it was made, and he would stand fast.

"You are going away?"

She said each word distinctly, as if she doubted her ears.

"Yes."

"Why, Maurice?"

"For several reasons. It's not a new decision. I've been thinking about

it for some time."

"Indeed? Then why choose just to-night to tell me?--you've had plenty

of other chances. And to-night I had enjoyed the theatre, and the

music, and coming out into the air ..."

"I'm sorry. But I've put it off too long as it is. I ought to have told

you before.--Louise ... you must see that things can't go on like this

any longer?"

His voice begged her for once to look at the matter as he did. But she

heard only the imperative.

"Must?" she repeated. "I don't see--not at all."

"Yes.--For your sake, I must go."

"Ah!--that makes it clearer. People have been talking, have they? Well,

let them talk."

"I can't hear you spoken of in that way."

"Oh, you're very good. But if we, ourselves, know that what's being

said is not true, what can it matter?"

"I refuse to be the cause of it."

"Do you, indeed?" She laughed. "You refuse? After doing all you can to

make yourself indispensable, you now say: get on as best you can alone;

I've had enough; I must go.--Don't say it's on my account--that the

thought of yourself is not at the bottom of it--for I wouldn't believe

you though you did."

"I give you my word, I have only thought of you. I meant it ... I mean

it, for the best."

She quickened her steps, and he saw that she was nervously worked up.

"No man can want to injure the woman he respects--as I respect you."

Her shoulders rose, in her own emotional way.

"But tell me one thing," he begged, as she walked inexorable before

him. "Say it will matter a little to you if I go--that you will miss

me--if ever so little ... Louise!"

"Miss you? What does it matter whether I miss you or not? It seems to

me that counts least of all. You, at any rate, will have acted

properly. You will have nothing to reproach yourself with.--Oh, I

wouldn't be a man for anything on earth! You are all--all alike. I hate

you and despise you--every one of you!"

They were within a few steps of the house. She pressed on, and, without

looking back at him, or wishing him good-night, disappeared in the

doorway.

XII.

It was a hot evening in June: the perfume of the lilac, now in fullest

bloom, lay over squares and gardens like a suspended wave. The sun had

gone down in a cloudless sky; an hour afterwards, the pavements were

still warm to the touch, and the walls of the buildings radiated the

heat they had absorbed. The high old houses in the inner town had all

windows set open, and the occupants leaned out on their

window-cushions, with continental nonchalance. The big garden-cafes

were filled to the last scat. In the woods, the midges buzzed round

people's heads in accompanying clouds; and streaks of treacherous white

mist trailed, like fixed smoke, over the low-lying meadow-land.

Maurice and Louise had rowed to Connewitz; but so late in the evening

that most of the variously shaped boats, with coloured lanterns at

their bows, were returning when they started.

Louise herself had proposed it. When he went to her that afternoon, he

found her stretched on the sofa. A theatre-ticket lay on the table--for

she had taken him at his word, and shown him that she could do without

him. But to-night she had no fancy for the theatre: it was too hot. She

looked very slight and young in her white dress; but was moody and out

of spirits.

On the way to Connewitz, they spoke no more than was necessary. Coming

back, however, they had the river to themselves; and she no longer

needed to steer. He placed cushions for her at the bottom of the boat;

and there she lay, with her hands clasped under her neck, watching the

starry strip of sky, which followed them, between the tops of the trees

above, like a complement of the river below.

The solitude was unbroken; they might have gone down in the murky

water, and no one would ever know how it had happened: a snag caught

unawares; a clumsy movement in the light boat; half a minute, and all

would be over.--Or, for the first and the last time in his life, he

would take her in his arms, hold her to him, feel her cheek on his; he

would kiss her, with kisses that were at once an initiation and a

farewell; then, covering her eyes with his hands, he would gently, very

gently, tilt the boat. A moment's hesitation; it sought to right

itself; rocked violently, and overturned: and beneath it, locked in

each other's arms, they found a common grave....

In fancy, he saw it all. Meanwhile, he rowed on, with long, leisurely

strokes; and the lapping of the water round the oars was the only sound

to be heard.

At home, on the lid of his piano, lay the prospectuses of music-schools

in other towns. They were still arriving, in answer to the impulsive

letters he had written off, the night after the theatre. But the last

to come had remained unopened.--He was well aware of it: his lingering

on had all the appearance of a weak reluctance to face the inevitable.

For he could never make mortal understand what he had come through, in

the course of the past week. He could no more put into words the

isolated spasms of ecstasy he had experienced--when nothing under the

sun seemed impossible--than he could describe the slough of misery and

uncertainty, which, on occasion, he had been forced to wade through.

For the most part, he believed that the words of contempt Louise had

spoken, came straight from her heart; but he had also known the faint

stir ring of a new hope, and particularly was this the case when he had

not seen Louise for some time. Then, at night, as he lay staring before

him, this feeling became a sudden refulgence, which lighted him through

all the dark hours, only to be remorselessly extinguished by daylight.

Most frequently, however, it was so slender a hope as to be a mere

distracting flutter at his heart. Whence it sprang, he could not

tell--he knew Louise too well to believe, for a moment, that she would

make use of pique to hide her feelings. But there was a something in

her manner, which was strained; in the fact that she, who had never

cared, should at length be moved by words of his; in a certain way she

had looked at him, once or twice in these days; or in a certain way she

had avoided looking at him. No, he did not know what it was. But

nevertheless it was there--a faint, inarticulate existence--and,

compared with it, the tangible facts of life were the shadows of a

shadow.

Surely she had fallen asleep. He said her name aloud, to try her.

"Louise!" She did not stir, and the word floated out into the

night--became an expression of the night itself.

They had passed the weir and its foaming, and now glided under the

bridges that spanned the narrower windings of the river. The wooden

bathing-house looked awesome enough to harbour mysteries. Another sharp

turn, among sedge and rushes, and the outlying streets of the town were

on their right. The boat-sheds were in darkness, when they drew up

alongside the narrow landing-place. Maurice got out with the chain in

his hand, and secured the boat. Louise did not follow immediately. Her

hair had come down, and she was stiff from the cramped position in

which she had been lying. When she did rise to her feet, she could

hardly stand. He put out his hand, and steadied her by the arm.

"A heavy dew must be falling. Your sleeve is wet."

She made a movement to draw her arm away; at the same moment, she

tangled her foot in her skirt, tripped, and, if he had not caught her,

would have fallen forward.

"Take care what you're doing! Do you want to drown yourself?"

"I don't know. I shouldn't mind, I think," she answered tonelessly.

His own balance had been endangered. Directly he had righted himself,

he set her from him. But it could not be undone: he had had her in his

arms, had felt all her weight on him. The sensation seemed to take his

strength away: after the long, black, silent evening, her body was

doubly warm, doubly real. He walked her back, along the deserted

streets, at a pace she could not keep up with. She lagged behind. She

was very pale, and her face wore an expression of almost physical

suffering. She looked resolutely away from Maurice; but when her eyes

did chance to rest on him, she was swept by such a sense of nervous

irritation that she hated the sight of him, as he walked before her.

Upstairs, in her room, when he had laid the cushions on the sofa; when

the lamp was lighted and set on the table; when he still stood there,

pale, and wretched, and undecided, Louise came to an abrupt decision.

Advancing to the table, she leaned her hands on it, and bending

forward, raised her white face to his.

"You told me you were going away; why do you not go? Why have you not

already gone?" she asked, and her mouth was hard. "I am waiting ...

expecting to hear."

His answer was so hasty that it was all but simultaneous.

"Louise!--can't you forgive me?--for what I said the other night?"

"I have nothing to forgive," she replied, coldly in spite of herself.

"You said you must go. I can't keep you here against your will."

"It has made you angry with me. I have made you unhappy."

"You are making us both unhappy," she said in a low voice. "Now, it is

I who say, things can't go on like this."

"I know it." He drew a deep breath. "Louise! ... if only you could care

a little!"

There was silence after these words, but not a silence of conclusion;

both knew now that more must follow. He raised his head, and looked

into her eyes.

"Can you not see how I love you--and how I suffer?"

It was a statement rather than a question, but he was not aware of

this: he was only amazed that, after all, he should be able to speak so

quietly, in such an even tone of voice.

There was another pause of suspense; his words seemed like balls of

down that he had tossed into the still air: they sank, lingeringly,

without haste; and she stood, and let them descend on her. His haggard

eyes hung on her face; and, as he watched, he saw a change come over

it: the enmity that had been in it, a few seconds back, died out; the

lips softened and relaxed; and when the eyes were raised to his again,

they were kind, full of pity.

"I'm sorry. Poor boy ... poor Maurice."

She seemed to hesitate; then, with one of her frankest gestures, held

out her hand. At its touch, soft and living, he forgot everything:

plans and resolutions, hopes and despairs, happiness and unhappiness no

longer existed for him; he knew only that she was sorry for him, that

some swift change in her had made her sympathise and understand. He

looked down, with dim eyes, at the sweet, pale face, now alight with

compassion then, with disarming abruptness, he took her head between

his hands, and kissed her, repeatedly, whereever his lips chanced to

fall--on the warm mouth, the closed eyes, temples, and hair.

He was gone before she recovered from her surprise. She had

instinctively stemmed her hands against his shoulders; but, when she

was alone, she stood just as he left her, her eyes still shut, letting

the sensation subside, of rough, unexpected kisses. She had been taken

unawares; her heart was beating. For a moment or two, she remained in

the same attitude; then she passed her hand over her face. "That was

foolish of him ... very," she said. She looked down at herself and saw

her hands. She stretched them out before her, with a sudden sense of

emptiness.

"If I could care! Yes--if I could only care!"

At two o'clock that morning, Maurice wrote:

FORGIVE ME--I DIDN'T KNOW WHAT I WAS DOING. FOR I LOVE YOU, LOUISE--NO

WOMAN HAS EVER BEEN LOVED AS YOU ARE. I KNOW IT IS FOLLY ON MY PART. I

HAVE NOTHING TO OFFER YOU. BUT BE MY WIFE, AND I WILL WORK MY FINGERS

TO THE BONE FOR YOU.

He went out into the summer night, and posted the letter. Returning to

his room, he threw himself on the sofa, and fell into a heavy sleep,

from which he did not wake till the morning was well advanced.

Work was out of the question that day, when he waited as if for a

sentence of death. He paced his narrow room, incessantly, afraid to go

out, for fear of missing her reply. The hours dragged themselves by, as

it is their special province to do in crises of life; and with each one

that passed, he grew more convinced what her answer to his letter would

be.

It was late in the afternoon when the little boy she employed as a

messenger, put a note into his hands.

COME TO ME THIS EVENING.

It was all but evening now; he went, just as he was, on the heels of

the child.

The windows of her room were open. She sprang up to meet him, then

paused. He looked desperately yet stealthily at her. The commiseration

of the previous night was still in her face; but she was now quite sure

of herself: she drew him to the sofa and made him sit down beside her.

Then, however, for a few seconds, in which he waited with hammering

pulses, she did not speak. The dull fear at his heart became a

certainty; and, unable to bear the suspense any longer, he took one of

her hands and laid it on his forehead.

Then she said: "Maurice--poor, foolish Maurice!--it is not possible.

You see that yourself, I'm sure."

"Yes. I know quite well: it is presumption."

"Oh, I don't mean that. But there are so many reasons. And you, too,

Maurice ... Look at me, and tell me if what you wrote was not just an

attempt to make up for what happened last night." And as he did not

reply, she added: "You mustn't make yourself reproaches. I, too, was to

blame."

"It was nothing of the sort. I've been trying for weeks now to tell

you. I love you--have loved you since the first time I saw you."

He let go of her hand, and she sat forward, with her arms along her

knees. Her eyes were troubled; but she did not lose her calm manner of

speaking. "I'm sorry, Maurice, very sorry--you believe me' don't you,

when I say so? But believe me, too, it's not so serious as you think.

You are young. You will get over it, and forget--if not soon, at least

in time. You must forget me, and some day you will meet the nice, good

woman, who is to be your wife. And when that happens, you will look

back on your fancy for me as something foolish, and unreal. You won't

be able to understand it then, and you will be grateful to me, for not

having taken you at your word."

Maurice laughed. All the same, he tried to take his dismissal well: he

rose, wrung her hand, and left her.

In the seclusion of his own room, he went through the blackest hour of

his life.

He began to make final preparations for his departure. His choice had

fallen on Stuttgart: it was far distant from Leipzig; he would be well

out of temptation's way--the temptation suddenly to return. He wrote a

letter home, apprising his relatives of his intention: by the time they

received the letter, it would be too late for them to interfere.

Otherwise, he took no one into his confidence. He would greatly have

liked to wait until the present term was over; another month, and the

summer vacation would have begun, and he would have been able to leave

without making himself conspicuous. But every day it grew more

impossible to be there and not to see her--for four days now he had

kept away, fighting down his unreasoning desire to know what she was

doing. He intended only to see her once more, to bid her good-bye.

The afternoon before his interview with Schwarz--he had arranged this

with himself for the morning, at the master's private house--he sat at

his writing-table, destroying papers and old letters. There was a heap

of ashes in the cold stove by the time he took out, tied up in a

separate packet, the few odd scraps of writing he had received from

Louise. He balanced the bundle in his hand, hesitating what to do with

it. Finally, he untied the string, to glance through the letters once

again.

At the sight of the bold, black, familiar writing, in which each

word--two or three to a line--seemed to have a life of its own; at the

well-conned pages, each of which he knew by heart; at the

characteristic, almost masculine signature, and the faint perfume that

still clung to the paper: at the sight of these things all--that he had

been thinking and planning since seeing her last, was effaced from his

mind. As often before, where she was concerned, a wild impulse, surging

up in him, took entire possession of him; and hours of patient and

laborious reasoning were by one swift stroke blotted out.

He rose, locked the letters up again, rested his arm on the lid of the

piano, his head on his arm. The more he toyed with his inclination to

go to her, the more absorbent it became, and straightway it was an

ungovernable longing: it came over him with a dizzy force, which made

him close his eyes; and he was as helpless before it as the drunkard

before his craving to drink. Standing thus, he saw with a flash of

insight that, though he went away as far as steam could carry him, he

would never, as long as he lived, be safe from overthrows of this kind.

It was something elemental, which he could no more control than the

flow of his blood. And he did not even stay to excuse himself to

himself: he went headlong to her, with burning words on his lips.

"My poor boy," she said, when he ceased to speak. "Yes, I know what it

is--that sudden rage that comes over one, to rush back, at all costs,

no matter what happens afterwards.--I'm so sorry for you, Maurice. It

is making me unhappy."

"You are not to be unhappy. It shall not happen again, I promise

you.--Besides, I shall soon be gone now." But at his own words, the

thought of his coming desolation pierced him anew. "Give me just one

straw to cling to! Tell me you won't forget me all at once; that you

will miss me and think of me--if ever so little."

"You asked me that the other night. Was what I said then, not answer

enough?--And besides, in these last four days, since I have been alone,

I've learnt just how much I shall miss you, Maurice. It's my

punishment, I suppose, for growing so dependent on anyone."

"You must go away, too. You can't stay here by yourself. We must both

go, in opposite directions, and begin afresh."

She did not reply at once. "I shouldn't know where to go," she said,

after a time. "Will nothing else do, Maurice? Is there no other

way?--Oh, why can't we go on being friends, as we were!"

He shook his head. "I've struggled against it so long--you don't know.

I've never really been your friend--only I couldn't hurt you before, by

telling you. And it has worn me out; I'm good for nothing.

Louise!--think, just once more--ask yourself, once more, if it's quite

impossible, before you send me into the outer darkness."

She was silent.

"I don't ask you to love me," he went on, in a low voice. "I've come

down from that, in these wretched days. I would be content with less,

much less. I only ask you to let yourself be loved--as I could love

you. If only you could say you liked me a little, all the rest would

come, I'm confident of it. In time, I should make you love me. For I

would take, oh, such care of you! I want to make you happy, only to

make you happy. I've no other wish than to show you what happiness is."

"It sounds so good ... you are good, Maurice. But the future--tell me,

have thought of the future?"

"I should think I have.--Do you suppose it means nothing to me to be so

despicably poor as I am? To have absolutely nothing to offer you?"

She took his hand. "That's not what I mean. And you know it. Come, let

us talk sensibly this afternoon, and look things straight in the

face.--You want to marry me, you say, and let the rest come? That is

very, very good of you, and I shall never forget it.--But what does it

mean, Maurice? You have been here a little over a year now, haven't

you?--and still have about a year to stay. When that's over, you will

go back to England. You will settle in some small place, and spend your

life, or the best part of your life, there--oh, Maurice, you are my

kind friend, but I tell you frankly, I couldn't face life in an English

provincial town. I'm not brave enough for that."

He gleaned a ray of hope from her words. "We could live here--anywhere

you liked. I would make it possible. I swear I would."

She shook her head, and went on, with the same reasonable sweetness.

"And then, there's another thing. If I married you, sooner or later you

would have to take me home to your people. Have you really thought of

that, and how you would feel about it, when it came to the point?--No,

no, it's impossible for me to marry you."

"But that--that American!--you would have married him?"

"That was different," she said, and her voice grew thinner. "It's the

knowing that tells, Maurice. You would have that still to learn. You

don't realise it yet, but afterwards, it would come home to

you.--Listen! You have always been kind to me, I owe you such a debt of

gratitude, that I'm going to be frank, brutally frank with you. I've

told you often that I shall never really care for anyone again. You

know that, don't you? Well, I want to tell you, too--I want you to

understand quite, quite clearly that ... that I belonged to him

altogether--entirely--that I ... Oh, you know what I mean!"

Maurice covered his face with his hands. "The past is the past. It

should never be mentioned between us. It doesn't matter--nothing

matters now."

"You say that--every one says that--beforehand," she answered; and not

only her words, but also her way of saying them, seemed to set her down

miles away from him, on a lonely pinnacle of experience. "Afterwards,

you would think differently."

"Louise, if you really cared, it would be different. You wouldn't say

such things, then--you would be only too glad not to say them."

In her heart she knew that he was right, and did not contradict him.

The busy little clock on the writing-table ticked away a few seconds.

With a jerk, Maurice rose to his feet. Louise remained sitting, and he

looked down on her black head. His gaze was so insistent that she felt

it, and raised her eyes. His forlorn face moved her.

"Why is it--what is the matter with me?--that I must upset your life

like this? I can't bear to see you so unhappy.--And yet I haven't done

anything, have I? I have always been honest with you; I've never made

myself out to be better than I am. There must be something wrong with

me, I think, that no one can ever be satisfied to be just my

friend.--Yet with you I thought it was different. I thought things

could go on as they were. Maurice, isn't it possible? Say it is! Show

me just one little spark of good in myself!"

"I'm not different from other men, Louise. I deluded myself long

enough, God knows!"

She made a despondent gesture, and turned away. "Well, then, if either

of us should go, I'm the one. You have your work. I do nothing; I have

no ties, no friends--I never even seem to have been able to make

acquaintances. And if I went, you could stay quietly on. In time, you

would forget me.--If I only knew where to go! I am so alone, and it is

all so hard. I shall never know what it is to be happy myself, or to

make anyone else happy--never!" and she burst into tears.

It was his turn now to play the comforter. Drawing a. chair up before

her, he took her hand, and said all he could think of to console her.

He could bear anything, he told her, but to see her unhappy. All would

yet turn out to be for the best. And, on one point, she was to set her

mind at rest: her going away would not benefit him in the least. He

would never consent to stay on alone, where they had been so much

together.

"I've nothing to look forward to, nothing," she sobbed. "There's

nothing I care to live for."

As soon as she was quieter, he left her.

For an hour or more Louise lay huddled up on the sofa, with her face

pressed to her arm.

When she sat up again, she pushed back her heavy hair, and, clasping

her hands loosely round her knees, stared before her with vacant eyes.

But not for long; tired though she was, and though her head ached from

crying, there was still a deep residue of excitement in her. The level

beams of the sun were pouring blindly into the room; the air was dense

and oppressive. She rose to her feet and moved about. She did not know

what to do with herself: she would have liked to go out and walk; but

the dusty, jarring light of the summer streets frightened her. She

thought of music, of the theatre, as a remedy for the long evening that

yawned before her: then dismissed the idea from her mind. She was in

such a condition of restlessness, this night, that the fact of being

forced to sit still between two other human beings, would make her want

to scream.

The sun was getting low; the foliage of the trees in the opposite

gardens was black, with copper edges, against the refulgence of the

sky. She leaned her hands on the sill, and gazed fixedly at the stretch

of red and gold, which, like the afterglow of a fire, flamed behind the

trees. Her eyes were filled with it. She did not think or feel: she

became one, by looking, with the sight before her. As she stood there,

nothing of her existed but her two widely opened eyes; she was a

miracle wrought by the sunset; she WAS the sunset--in one of those

vacancies of mind, which all intense gazers know.

How long she had remained thus she could not have told, when a strange

thing happened to her. From some sub-conscious layer of her brain,

which started into activity because the rest of it was so passive, a

small, still thought glided in, and took possession of her mind. At

first, it was so faint that she hardly grasped it; but, once

established there, it became so vivid that, with one sweep, it blotted

out trees and sunset; so real that it seemed always to have been

present to her. Without conscious effort on her part, the solution to

her difficulties had been found; a decision had been arrived at, but

not by her; it was the work of some force outside herself.

She turned from the window, and pressed her hands to her blinded eyes.

Good God! it was so simple. To think that this had not occurred to her

before!--that, throughout the troubled afternoon, the idea had never

once suggested itself! There was no need of loneliness and suffering

for either of them. He might stay; they both might stay; she could make

him happy, and ward off the change she so dreaded.--Who was she to

stick at it?

But she remained dazed, doubtful as it were of this peaceful ending;

her hand still covered her eyes. Then, with one of the swift movements

by which it was her custom to turn thought into action, she went to the

writing-table, and scrawled a few, big words.

MAURICE, I HAVE FOUND A WAY. COME BACK TO-MORROW EVENING.

She hesitated only over the last two words, and, before writing them,

sat with her chin in her hand, and deliberately considered. Then she

addressed the envelope, and stamped it: it would be soon enough if he

got it through the post, the following morning.

But, with her, to resolve was to act; she was ill at ease under

enforced procrastination; and had often to fight against a burning

impatience, when circumstances delayed the immediate carrying out of

her will. In this case, however, she had voluntarily postponed

Maurice's return for twenty-four hours, when he might have been with

her in less than one: for, in her mind, there lurked the seductive

thought of a long, summer day, with an emotion at its close to which

she could look forward.

In the meantime, she was puzzled how to fill up the evening. After all,

she decided to go to the theatre, where she arrived in time to hear the

last two acts of AIDA. From a seat in the PARQUET, close to the

orchestra, she let the showy music play round her. Afterwards, she

walked home through the lilac-haunted night, went to bed, and at once

fell asleep.

Next morning, she wakened early--that was the sole token of

disturbance, she could detect in herself. It was very still; there was

a faint twittering of birds, but the noises of the street had not yet

begun. She lay in the subdued yellow light of her room, with one arm

across her eyes.

Fresh from sleep, she understood certain things as never before. She

saw all that had happened of late--her slow recovery, her striving and

seeking, her growing friendship with Maurice--in a different light. On

this morning, too, she was able to answer one of the questions that had

puzzled her the night before. She saw that the relations in which they

had stood to each other, during the bygone months, would have been

impossible, had she really cared for him. She liked him, yes, had

always liked him; and, in addition, his patience and kindness had made

her deeply grateful to him. But that was all. Neither his hands, nor

his voice, nor his eyes, nor anything he did, had had the power to

touch her--SO to touch her, that her own hands and eyes would have met

his half-way; that the old familiar craving, which was partly fear and

partly attraction, would have made her callous to his welfare. Had

there been a breath of this, things would have come to a climax long

ago. Hot and eager as she was, she could not have lived on coolly at

his side--and, at this moment, she found it difficult to make up her

mind whether she admired Maurice or the reverse, for having been able

to carry his part through.

And yet, though no particle of personal feeling drew her to him, she,

too, had suffered, in her own way, during these weeks of morbid

tension, when he had been incapable either of advancing or retreating.

How great the strain had been, she recognised only in the instant when

he had spanned the breach, in clear, unmistakable words. If he had not

done it, she would have been forced to; for she could never find

herself to rights, for long, in half circumstances: if she were not to

grow bewildered, she had to see her road simple and straight before

her. His words to her after they had been on the river together--more,

perhaps, his bold yet timid kisses--had given her back strength and

assurance. She was no longer the miserable instrument on which he tried

his changes of mood; she was again the giver and the bestower, since

she held a heart and a heart's happiness in the hollow of her hand.

What people would think and say was a matter of indifference to her:

besides, they practically believed the worst of her already. No; she

had nothing to lose and, it might be, much to gain. And after all, it

meant so little! The first time, perhaps; or if one cared too much. But

in this case, where she had herself well in hand, and where there was

no chance of the blind desire to kill self arising, which had been her

previous undoing; where the chief end aimed at was the retention of a

friend--here, it meant nothing at all.

The thought that she might possibly have scruples on his part to

combat, crossed her mind. She stretched her arm straight above her

head, then laid it across her eyes again. She would like him none the

less for these scruples, did they exist: now, she believed that, at

heart, she had really appreciated his reserve, his holding back, where

others would have been so ready to pounce in. For the first time, she

considered him in the light of a lover, and she saw him differently. As

if the mere contemplation of such a change brought her nearer to him,

she was stirred by a new sensation, which had him as its object. And

under the influence of this feeling, she told herself that perhaps just

in this gentler, kindlier love, which only sought her welfare, true

happiness lay. She strained to read the future. There would be storms

neither of joy nor of pain; but watchful sympathy, and the fine, manly

tenderness that shields and protects. Oh, what if after all her

passionate craving for happiness, it was here at her feet, having come

to her as good things often do, unexpected and unsought!

She could lie still no longer; she sprang up, with an alacrity that had

been wanting in her movements of late. And throughout the long day,

this impression, which was half a hope and half a belief was present to

her mind, making everything she did seem strangely festive. She almost

feared the moment when she would see him again, lest anything he said

should dissipate her hope.

When he came, her eyes followed him searchingly. With an instinct that

was now morbidly sharpened, Maurice was aware of the change in her,

even before he saw her eyes. His own were one devouring question.

She made him sit down beside her.

"What is it, Louise? Tell me--quickly. Remember, I've been all day in

suspense," he said, as seconds passed and she did not speak.

"You got my note then?"

"What is it?--what did you mean?"

"Just a little patience, Maurice. You take one's breath away. You want

to know everything at once. I sent for you because--oh, because ... I

want you to let us go on being friends."

"Is that all?" he cried, and his face fell. "When I have told you again

and again that's just what I can't do?"

She smiled. "I wish I had known you as a boy, Maurice--oh, but as quite

a young boy!" she said in such a changed voice that he glanced up in

surprise. Whether it was the look she bent on him, or her voice, or her

words, he did not know; but something emboldened him to do what he had

often done in fancy: he slid to his knees before her, and laid his head

on her lap. She began to smooth back his hair, and each time her hand

came forward, she let it rest for a moment.--She wondered how he would

look when he knew.

"You can't care for me, I know. But I would give my life to make you

happy."

"Why do you love me?" She experienced a new pleasure in postponing his

knowing, postponing it indefinitely.

"How can I say? All I know is how I love you--and how I have suffered."

"My poor Maurice," she said, in the same caressing way. "Yes, I shall

always call you poor.--For the love I could give you would be worthless

compared with yours."

"To me it would be everything.--If you only knew how I have longed for

you, and how I have struggled!"

He took enough of her dress to bury his face in. She sat back, and

looked over him into the growing dusk of the room: and, in the

alabaster of her face, nothing seemed to live except her black eyes,

with the half-rings of shadow.

Suddenly, with the unexpectedness that marked her movements when she

was very intent, she leant forward again, and, with her elbow on her

knee, her chin on her hand, said in a low voice: "Is it for ever?"

"For ever and ever."

"Say it's for ever." She still looked past him, but her lips had

parted, and her face wore the expression of a child's listening to

fairy-tales. At her own words, a vista seemed to open up before her,

and, at the other end, in blue haze, shone the great good that had

hitherto eluded her.

"I shall always love you," said the young man. "Nothing can make any

difference."

"For ever," she repeated. "They are pretty words."

Then her expression changed; she took his head between her hands.

"Maurice ... I'm older than you, and I know better than you, what all

this means. Believe me, I'm not worth your love. I'm only the shadow of

my old self. And you are still so young and so ... so untried. There's

still time to turn back, and be wise."

He raised his head.

"What do you mean? Why are you saying these things? I shall always love

you. Life itself is nothing to me, without you. I want you ... only

you."

He put his arms round her, and tried to draw her to him. But she held

back. At the expression of her face, he had a moment of acute

uncertainty, and would have loosened his hold. But now it was she who

knotted her hands round his neck, and gave him a long, penetrating

look. He was bewildered; he did not understand what it meant; but it

was something so strange that, again, he had the impulse to let her go.

She bent her head, and laid her face against his; cheek rested on

cheek. He took her face between his hands, and stared into her eyes, as

if to tear from them what was passing in her brain. Over both, in the

same breath, swept the warm, irresistible wave of self-surrender. He

caught her to him, roughly and awkwardly, in a desperate embrace, which

the kindly dusk veiled and redeemed.

XIII.

"Now you will not leave me, Maurice?"

"Never ... while I live."

"And you ..."

"No. Don't ask me yet. I can't tell you."

"Maurice!"

"Forgive me! Not yet. That after all you should care a little! After

all ... that you should care so much!"

"And it is for ever?"

"For ever and ever ... what do you take me for? But not here! Let us go

away--to some new place. We will make it our very own."

Their words came in haste, yet haltingly; were all but inaudible

whispers; went flying back and forwards, like brief cries for aid,

implying a peculiar sense of aloofness, of being cut adrift and thrown

on each other's mercy.

Louise raised her head.

"Yes, we will go away. But now, Maurice--at once!"

"Yes. To-night ... to-morrow ... when you like."

The next morning, he set out to find a place. Three weeks of the term

had still to run, and he was to have played in an ABENDUNTERHALTUNG,

before the vacation. But, compared with the emotional upheaval he had

undergone, this long-anticipated event was of small consequence. To

Schwarz, he alleged a succession of nervous headaches, which interfered

with his work. His looks lent colour to the statement; and though, as a

rule, highly irritated by opposition to his plans, Schwarz only

grumbled in moderation. He would have let no one else off so easily,

and, at another time, the knowledge of this would have rankled in

Maurice, as affording a fresh proof of the master's indifference

towards him. As it was, he was thankful for the freedom it secured him.

On the strength of a chance remark of Madeleine's, which he had

remembered, he found what he looked for, without difficulty. It could

not have been better: a rambling inn, with restaurant, set in a

clearing on the top of a wooded hill, with an open view over the

undulating plains.

That night, he wrote to Louise from the Rochlitzer Berg, painting the

nest he had found for them in glowing colours, and begging her to come

without delay. But the whole of the next day passed without a word from

her, and the next again, and not till the morning of the third, did he

receive a note, announcing her arrival for shortly after midday. He

took it with him to the woods, and lay at full length on the moss.

Although he had been alone now for more than forty-eight hours--a July

quiet reigned over the place--he had not managed to think connectedly.

He was still dazed, disbelieving of what had happened. Again and again

he told himself that his dreams and hopes--which he had always pushed

forward into a vague and far-off future--had actually come to pass. She

was his, all his; she had given herself ungrudgingly: as soon as he

could make it possible, she would be his wife. But, in the meantime,

this was all he knew: his nearer vision was obstructed by the

stupefying thought of the weeks to come. She was to be there, beside

him, day after day, in a golden paradise of love. He could only think

of it with moist eyes; and he swore to himself that he would repay her

by being more infinitely careful of her than ever man before of the

woman he loved. But though he repeated this to himself, and believed

it, his feelings had unwittingly changed their pole. On his knees

before her, he had vowed that her happiness was the end of all his

pleading; now it was frankly happiness he sought, the happiness of them

both, but, first and foremost, happiness. And it could hardly have been

otherwise: the one unpremeditated mingling of their lives had killed

thought; he could only feel now, and, throughout these days, he was

conscious of each movement he made, as of a song sung aloud. He

wandered up and down the wooded paths, blind to everything but the

image of her face, which was always with him, and oftenest as it had

bent over him that last evening, with the strange new fire in its eyes.

Closing his own, he felt again her arms on his shoulders, her lips

meeting his, and, at such moments, it could happen that he threw his

arms round a tree, in an ungovernable rush of longing. Beyond the

moment when he should clasp her to him again, he could not see: the

future was as indistinct as were the Saxon plains, in the haze of

morning or evening.

He set out to meet her far too early in the day, and when he had

covered the couple of miles that lay between the inn on the hill and

the railway-station at the foot, he was obliged to loiter about the

sleepy little town for over an hour. But gradually the time ticked

away; the hands of his watch pointed to a quarter to two, and presently

he found himself on the shadeless, sandy station which lay at the end

of a long, sandy street, edged with two rows of young and shadeless

trees; found himself looking along the line of rail that was to bring

her to him. Would the signal never go up? He began to feel, in spite of

the strong July sunlight, that there was something illusive about the

whole thing. Or perhaps it was just this harsh, crude light, without

relieving shadows, which made his surroundings seem unreal to him.

However it was, the nearer the moment came when he would see her again,

the more improbable it seemed that the train, which was even now

overdue, should actually be carrying her towards him--her to him! He

would yet waken, with a shock. But then, coming round a corner in the

distance, at the side of a hill, he saw the train. At first it appeared

to remain stationary, then it increased in size, approached, made a

slight curve, and was a snaky line; it vanished, and reappeared,

leaving first a white trail of cloud, then thick rounded puffs of

cloud, until it was actually there, a great black object, with a creak

and a rattle.

He had planted himself at the extreme end of the platform, and the

carriages went past him. He hastened, almost running, along the train.

At the opposite end, a door was opened, the porter took out some bags,

and Louise stepped down, and turned to look for him. He was the only

person on the station, besides the two officials, and in passing she

had caught a glimpse of his face. If he looks like that, every one will

know, she thought to herself, and her first words, as he came

breathlessly up, were: "Maurice, you mustn't look so glad!"

He had never really seen her till now, when, in a white dress, with

eyes and lips alight, she stood alone with him on the wayside platform.

To curb his first, impetuous gesture, Louise had stretched out both her

hands. He stood holding them, unable to take his eyes from her face. At

her movement to withdraw them, he stooped and kissed them.

"Not look glad? Then you shouldn't have come."

They left her luggage to be sent up later in the day, and set out on

their walk. Going down the shadeless street, and through the town, she

was silent. At first, as they went, Maurice pointed out things that he

thought would interest her, and spoke as if he attached importance to

them. While, in reality, nothing mattered, now that she was beside him.

And gradually, he, too, lapsed into silence, walking by her side across

the square, and through the narrow streets, with the solemnly festive

feelings of a child on Sunday. They crossed the moat, passed through

the gates and courtyard of the old castle, and began to ascend the

steep path that was a short-cut to the woods. It was exposed to the

full glare of the sun, and, on reaching the sheltering trees, Louise

gave a sigh of relief, and stood still to take off her hat.

"It's so hot. And I like best to be bareheaded."

"Yes, and now I can see you better. Is it really you, at last? I still

can't believe it.--That you should have come to me!"

"Yes, I'm real," she smiled, and thrust the pins through the crown of

the hat. "But very tired, Maurice. It was so hot, and the train was so

slow."

"Tired?--of course, you must be. Come, there's a seat just round this

corner. You shall rest there."

They sat, and he laid his arm along the back of the bench. With his

left hand he turned her face towards him. "I must see you. I expect

every minute to wake and find it's not true."

"And yet you haven't even told me you're glad to see me."

"Glad? No. Glad is only a word."

She leaned lightly against the protective pressure of his arm. On one

of her hands lying in her lap, a large spot of sunlight settled. He

stooped and put his lips to it. She touched his head.

"Were the days long without me?"

"Why didn't you come sooner?"

Not that he cared, or even cared to know, now that she was there. But

he wanted to hear her speak, to remember that he could now have her

voice in his ears, whenever he chose. But Louise was not disposed to

talk; the few words she said, fell unwillingly from her lips. The

stillness of the forest laid its spell upon them: each faint rustling

among the leaves was audible; not a living thing stirred except

themselves. The tall firs and beeches stretched infinitely upwards, and

the patches of light that lay here and there on the moss, made the cool

darkness seem darker.

When they walked on again, Maurice put his arm through hers, and, in.

this intimacy of touch, was conscious of every step she took. It made

him happy to suit his pace to hers, to draw her aside from a spreading

root or loose stone, and to feel her respond to his pressure. She

walked for the most part languidly, looking to the ground. But at a

thickly wooded turn of the path, where it was very dark, where the

sunlight seemed far away, and the pine-scent was more pungent than

elsewhere, she stopped, to drink in the spicy air with open lips and

nostrils.

"It's like wine. Maurice, I'm glad we came here--that you found this

place. Think of it, we might still be sitting indoors, with the blinds

drawn, knowing that the pavements were baking in the sun. While here!

... Oh, I shall be happy here!"

She was roused for a moment to a rapturous content with her

surroundings. She looked childishly happy and very young. Maurice

pressed her arm, without speaking: he was so foolishly happy that her

praise of the place affected him like praise of himself. Again, he had

a chastened feeling of exhilaration: as though an acme of satisfaction

had been reached, beyond which it was impossible to go.

On catching sight of the rambling wooden building, in the midst of the

clearing that had been made among the encroaching trees, Louise gave

another cry of pleasure, and before entering the house, went to the

edge of the terrace, and looked down on the plains. But upstairs, in

her room on the first storey, he made her rest in an arm-chair by the

window. He himself prepared the tea, proud to perform the first of the

trivial services which, from now on, were to be his. There was nothing

he would not do for her, and, as a beginning, he persuaded her to lie

down on the sofa and try to sleep.

Once outside again, he did not know how to kill time; and the remainder

of the afternoon seemed interminable. He endeavoured to read, but could

not take in the meaning of two consecutive sentences. He was afraid to

go far away, in case she should wake and miss him. So he loitered about

in the vicinity of the house, and returned every few minutes, to see if

her blind were not drawn up. Finally, he sat down at one of the tables

on the terrace, where he had her window in sight. Towards six o'clock,

his patience was exhausted; going upstairs, he listened outside the

door of her room. Not a sound. With infinite precaution, he turned the

handle, and looked in.

She was lying just as he had left her, fast asleep. Her head was a

little on one side; her left hand was under her cheek, her right lay

palm upwards on the rug that covered her. Maurice sat down in the

arm-chair.

At first, he looked furtively, afraid of disturbing her; then more

openly, in the hope that she would waken. Sitting thus, and thinking

over the miracle that had happened to him, he now sought to find

something in her face for him alone, which had previously not been

there. But his thoughts wandered as he gazed. How he loved it!--this

face of hers. He was invariably worked on afresh by the blackness of

the lustreless hair; by the pale, imperious mouth; by the dead white

pallor of the skin, which shaded to a dusky cream in the curves of neck

and throat, and in the lines beneath the eyes was of a bluish brown.

Now the lashes lay in these encircling rings. Without doubt, it was the

eyes that supplied life to the face: only when they were open, and the

lips parted over the strong teeth, was it possible to realise how

intense a vitality was latent in her. But his love would wipe out the

last trace of this wan tiredness. He would be infinitely careful of

her: he would shield her from the impulsiveness of her own nature; she

should never have cause to regret what she had done. And the affection

that bound them would day by day grow stronger. All his work, all his

thoughts, should belong to her alone; she would be his beloved wife;

and through him she would learn what love really was.

He rose and stood over her, longing to share his feelings with her. But

she remained sunk in her placid sleep, and as he stood, he became

conscious of a different sensation. He had never seen her face--except

convulsed by weeping--when it was not under full control. Was it

because he had stared so long at it, or was it really changed in sleep?

There was something about it, at this moment, which he could not

explain: it almost looked less fine. The mouth was not so proudly

reticent as he had believed it to be; there was even a want of

restraint about it; and the chin had fallen. He did not care to see it

like this: it made him uneasy. He stooped and touched her hand. She

started up, and could not remember where she was. She put both hands to

her forehead. "Maurice!--what is it? Have I been asleep long?"

He held his watch before her eyes. With a cry she sprang to her feet.

Then she sent him downstairs.

They were the only guests. They had supper alone in a longish room, at

a little table spread with a coloured cloth. The window was open behind

them, and the branches of the trees outside hung into the room. In

honour of the occasion, Maurice ordered wine, and they remained

sitting, after they had finished supper, listening to the rustling and

swishing of the trees. The only drawback to the young man's happiness

was the pertinacious curiosity of the girl who waited on them. She

lingered after she had served them, and stared so hard that Maurice

turned at length and asked her what the matter was.

The girl coloured to the roots of her hair.

"Ach, Fraulein is so pretty," she answered naively, in her broad Saxon

dialect.

Both laughed, and Louise asked her name, and if she always lived there.

Thus encouraged, Amalie, a buxom, thickset person, with a number of

flaxen plaits, came forward and began to talk. Her eyes were fixed on

Louise, and she only occasionally glanced from her to the young man.

"It's nice to have a sweetheart," she said suddenly.

Louise laughed again and coloured. "Haven't you got one, Amalie?"

Amalie shook her head, and launched out into a tale of faithlessness

and desertion. "Yes, if I were as pretty as you, Fraulein, it would be

a different thing," she ended, with a hearty sigh.

Maurice clattered up from the table. "All right, Amalie, that'll do."

They went out of doors, and strolled about in the twilight. He had

intended to show her some of the pretty nooks in the neighbourhood of

the house. But she was not as affable with him as she had been with

Amalie; she walked at his side with an air of preoccupied indifference.

When they sat down on a seat, on the side of the hill, the moon had

risen. It was almost at the full, and a few gently sailing scraps of

cloud, which crossed it, made it seem to be coming towards them. The

plains beneath were veiled in haze; detached sounds mounted from them:

the prolonged barking of a dog, the drone of an approaching train.

Round about them, the air was heavy with the scent of the sun-warmed

pines. Maurice had taken her hand and sat holding it: it was the one

thing that existed for him. All else was vague and unreal: only their

two hearts beat in all the universe. But there was no interchange

between them of binding words or endearments, such as pass between most

lovers.

How long they sat, neither could have told. But suddenly, far below, a

human voice was raised in a long cry, which echoed against the side of

the hill. Louise shivered: and he had a moment of apprehension.

"You're cold. We have sat too long. Let us go."

They rose, and walked slowly back to the house.

Although the doors were still open, the building was in darkness, and

they had to grope their way up the stairs. Outside her room, he paused

to light the candle that was standing on the table, but Louise opened

the door and went in. As she did so, she gave a cry. The blind had not

been lowered, and a patch of greenish-white moonlight lay on the floor

before the window, throwing the rest of the room into massy shadow. She

went forward and stood in it.

"Don't make a light," she said to him over her shoulder.

Maurice put down the matches, with which he had been fumbling, went

quickly in after her, and shut the door.

Before anyone else was astir, he had flung out into the freshness of

the morning. It was cool in the shade of the woods; grass and moss were

a little moist with dew. He did not linger under the trees; he needed

movement; and striding along the driving-road, which ran down the hill

where the incline was easiest, he went out on the plains, among the

little villages that dotted the level land like huge clumps of

mushrooms. He carried his cap in his hand, and let the early sun play

on his head.

When he returned, it was nine o'clock, and he was ravenously hungry.

Amalie carried the coffee and the crisp brown rolls to one of the small

tables on the terrace, and herself stood, after she had served him, and

looked over the edge of the hill. When he had finished eating, he

opened a volume of DICHTUNG UND WAHRHEIT, which he carried in his

pocket, and began to read. But after a few lines, his thoughts

wandered; the book had a chilling effect on him in his present mood;

the writing seemed stiff and strained--the work of a very old man.

At first, that morning, he had not ventured to review even in thought

the past hours. Now, however, that he was again within a stone's throw

of Louise, memories crowded upon him; he gazed, with a passion of

gratefulness, at her window. One detail stood out more vividly than all

the rest. It was that of waking suddenly at dawn, from a dreamless

sleep, and of finding on his pillow, a thick tress of black ruffled

hair. For a moment, he had hardly been able to believe his eyes; and

even yet, the mere remembrance of this dusky hair on the pillow's

whiteness, seemed to bring what had happened home to him, as nothing

else could have done.

She had slept on, undisturbed, and she was still asleep, to judge from

the lowered blind. But though hours seemed to pass while he sat there,

he was not dissatisfied; it was enough to know how near she was to him.

When she came, she was upon him before he was aware of it. At the light

step behind, he sprang from his seat.

"At last!"

"Are you tired of waiting for me?"

She was in the same white dress, and a soft-brimmed hat fell over her

forehead. He did not answer her words; for Amalie followed on her heels

with fresh coffee, and made a great business of re-setting the table.

"WUNSCHE GUTEN APPETIT!"

The girl retired to a distance, but still lingered, keeping them in

sight. Maurice leaned across the table. "Tell me how you are. Have you

forgotten me?" He tried to take her hand.

"Take care, Maurice. We can be seen here."

"How that girl stares! Why doesn't she go away?"

"She is envying me my sweetheart again ... who won't let me eat my

breakfast."

"I've been alone for hours, Louise. Tell me what I want to know."

"Yes--afterwards. The coffee is getting cold."

He sat back and watched her movements, with fanatic eyes. She was not

confused by the insistence of his gaze; but she did not return it. She

was paler than usual; and the lines beneath her eyes were blacker.

Maurice believed that he could detect a new note in her voice this

morning; and he tried to make her speak, in order that he might hear

it; but she was as chary of her words as of her looks. Attracted by the

two strangers, a little child of the landlord's came running up to

stare shyly. She spread a piece of bread with honey, and gave it to the

child. He was absurdly jealous, and she knew it.

For the rest of the morning, she would have been content to bask in the

sun, but when she saw how impatient he was, she gave way, and they went

out of the sight of other people, into the friendly, screening woods.

"I thought you would never come."

"Why didn't you wake me? Oh, gently, Maurice! You forget that I've just

done my hair."

"To-day I shall forget everything. Let me look at you again ... right

into your eyes."

"To-day you believe I'm real, don't you? Are you satisfied?"

"And you, Louise, you?--Say you're happy, too!"

They came upon the FRIEDRICH AUGUST TURM, a stone tower, standing on

the highest point of the hill, beside a large quarry; and, too idly

happy to refuse, climbed the stone steps, led by a persuasive old

pensioner, who, on the platform at the top, adjusted the telescope, and

pointed out the distant landmarks, with something of an owner's pride.

On this morning, Maurice would not have been greatly surprised to hear

that the streaky headline of the Dover coast was visible: he had eyes

for her alone, as, with assumed interest, she followed the old man's

hand, learned where Leipzig lay, and how, on a clear day, its many

spires could be distinguished.

"Over there, Maurice ... a little more to the right. How far away we

seem!"

Leaning against the parapet, he continued to look at her. The few

ordinary words meant in reality something quite different. It was as if

she had said to him: "Yes, yes, be at rest--I am still yours;" and he

told himself, with a feverish pleasure, that, from now on, everything

she said in the presence of others would be a cloak for what she really

meant to say. He had been right, there was a new tone in her voice this

morning, an imperceptible vibration, a sensuous undertone, which seemed

to have been left over from those moments when it had quivered like a

roughly touched string beneath a bow. Going down the steps behind her,

he heard her dress swish from step to step, and saw the fine grace of

her strong, supple body. At a bend in the stair, he held her back and

kissed her neck, just where the hair stopped growing. On the

ground-floor, she paused to pick out a trifle from a table set with

mementoes. The old man praised his wares with zeal, taking up this and

that in his old, reddened hands, on which the skin was drawn and

glazed, like a coating of gelatine. Louise chose a carved wooden pen; a

tiny round of glass was set in the handle, through which might be seen

a view of the tower, with an encircling motto.

After this, he had her to himself, for the rest of the day. They sat on

a seat that was screened by trees, and thickly grown about. His arm lay

along the back of the bench, and every now and then his hand sought and

pressed the warm, soft round of her shoulder. In this attitude, he

poured out his heart to her. Hitherto, the very essence of his love had

been taciturn endurance; now, he felt how infinitely much he had to say

to her: all that he had undergone since knowing her first, all the

hopes and feelings that had so long been pent up in him, struggled to

escape. Now, there was no hindrance to his telling her everything; it

was not only permissible, but right that he should: henceforth there

must be no strangeness between them, no knowledge, pleasant or

unpleasant, that she did not share. And he went back, and dwelt on

details and events long past, which, unknown to himself, his memory had

stored up; but it was chiefly the restless misery of the past half year

that was his theme--he took the same pleasure in reciting it, now that

it was over, as the convalescent in relating his sufferings. Besides

that, it was easier, there being nothing to conceal; whereas, in

referring to an earlier time, a certain name had to be shirked and gone

round about, like a plague-spot. His impassioned words knew no halt; he

was amazed at his own eloquence. And the burden of months fell away

from him as he talked.

The receptiveness of her silence spurred him on. She sat motionless,

with loosely clasped hands; and spots of light settled on her bare

head, and on the white stuff of her dress. Occasionally, at something

he said, a smile would raise the corners of her mouth; sometimes, but

less often, she turned her head with incredulous eyes. But, though she

was emotionally so irresponsive, Maurice had the feeling that she was

content, even happy, to sit inactive at his side, and listen to his

story.

Each of these first wonderful days was of the same pattern. They

themselves lost count of time, so like was one day to another; and yet

each that passed was a little eternity in itself. The weather was

superb, and to them, in their egotism, it came to seem in the order of

things that they should rise in the morning to cloudless skies and

golden sunshine; that the cool green seclusion of the woods should be

theirs, where they were more securely shut off from the world than

inside the house. Louise lay on the moss, with her arms under her head,

or sat with her back against a tree-trunk. Maurice was always in front

of her, so that he could see her face as he talked--this face of which

he could never see enough.

He was happy, in a dazed way; he could not appraise the extent of his

happiness all at once. Its chief outward sign was the nervous flood of

talk that poured from his lips--as though they had been sealed and

stopped for years. But Louise urged him on; what he had first felt

dimly, he soon knew for certain: that she was never tired of learning

how much he loved her, how he had hoped, and ventured, and despaired,

and how he had been prepared to lose her, up to the very last day. She

also made him describe to her more than once how he had first seen her:

his indelible impression of her as she played; her appearance at his

side in the concert-hall; how he had followed her out and looked for

her, and had vainly tried to learn who she was.

"I stood quite close to you, you say, Maurice? Perhaps I even looked at

you. How strange things are!"

Still, the interest she displayed was of a wholly passive kind; she

took no part herself in this building up of the past. She left it to

him, just as she left all that called for firmness or decision, in this

new phase of her life. The chief step taken, it seemed as if no further

initiative were left in her; she let herself be loved, waited for

everything to come from him, was without will or wish. He had to ask no

self-assertion of her now, no impulsive resolutions. Over all she did,

lay a subtle languor; and her abandon was absolute--he heard it in the

very way she said his name.

In the first riotous joy of possession, Maurice had been conscious of

the change in her as of something inexpressibly sweet and tender,

implying a boundless faith in him. But, before long, it made him

uneasy. He had imagined several things as likely to happen; had

imagined her the cooler and wiser of the two, checking him and chiding

him for his over-devotion; had imagined even moments of self-reproach,

on her part, when she came to think over what she had done. What he had

not imagined was the wordless, unthinking fashion in which she gave

herself into his hands. The very expression of her face altered in

these days: the somewhat defiant, bitter lines he had so loved in it,

and behind which she had screened herself, were smoothed out; the lips

seemed to meet differently, were sweeter, even tremulous; the eyes were

more veiled, far less sure of themselves. He did not admit to himself

how difficult she made things for him. Strengthened, from the first, by

his good resolutions, he was determined not to let himself be carried

off his feet. But it would have been easier for him to stand firm, had

she met him in almost any other way than this--even with a frank return

of feeling, for then they might have spoken openly, and have helped

each other. As it was, he had no thoughts but of her; his watchful

tenderness knew no bounds; but the whole responsibility was his. It was

he who had to maintain the happy mean in their relations; he to draw

the line beyond which it was better for all their after-lives that they

should not go. He affirmed to himself more than once that he loved her

the more for her complete subjection: it was in keeping with her

openhanded nature which could do nothing by halves. Yet, as time

passed, he began to suffer under it, to feel her absence of will as a

disquieting factor--to find anything to which he could compare it, he

had to hark back to the state she had been in when he first offered her

aid and comfort. That was the lassitude of grief, this of ... he could

not find a word. But it began to tell on him, and more than once made

him a little sharp with her; for, at moments, he would be seized by an

overpowering temptation to shake her out of her lassitude, to rouse her

as he very well knew she could be roused. And then, strange desires

awoke in him; he did not himself know of what he was capable.

One afternoon, they were in the woods as usual. It was very sultry; not

a leaf stirred. Louise lay with her elbow on the moss-grown roots of a

tree; her eyes were heavy. Maurice, before her, smoked a cigarette, and

watched for the least recognition of his presence, thinking, meanwhile,

that she looked better already for these days spent out-of-doors--the

tiny lines round her eyes were fast disappearing. By degrees, however,

he grew restless under her protracted silence; there was something

ominous about it. He threw his cigarette away, and, taking her hand,

began to pull apart the long fingers with the small, pink nails, or to

gather them together, and let them drop, one by one, like warm, but

lifeless things.

"What ARE you thinking of?" he asked at last, and shut her hand firmly

within his.

She started. "I? ... thinking? I don't know. I wasn't thinking at all."

"But you were. I saw it in your face. Your thoughts were miles away."

"I don't know, Maurice. I couldn't tell you now." And a moment later,

she added: "You think one must always be thinking, when one is silent."

"Yes, I'm jealous of your thoughts. You tell me nothing of them. But

now you have come back to me, and it's all right."

He drew her nearer to him by the hand he held, and, putting his arm

under her neck, bent her head back on the moss. Her stretched throat

was marked by two encircling lines; he traced them with his finger. She

lay and smiled at him. But her eyes remained shaded: they were

meditative, and seemed to be considering him, a little deliberately.

"Tell me, Louise," he said suddenly; "why do you look at me like that?

It's not the first time--I've seen it before. And then, I can't help

thinking there's some mistake--that after all you don't really care for

me. It is so--so critical."

"You are curious to-day, Maurice."

"Yes. There's so much I want to know, and you tell me nothing. It is I

who talk and talk--till you must be tired of hearing me."

"No, I like to listen best. And I have nothing to say."

"Nothing? Really nothing?"

"Only that I'm glad to be here--that I am happy."

He kissed her on the throat, the eyes and the lips; kissed her, until,

under his touch, that vague, elusive influence began to emanate from

her, which, he was aware, might some day overpower him, and drag him

down. They were quite alone, shut in by high trees; no one would find

them, or disturb them. And it was just this mysterious power in her

that his nerves had dreamed of waking: yet now, some inexplicable

instinct made him hesitate, and forbear. He drew his arm from under her

head, and rose to his feet, where he stood looking down at her. She lay

just as he had left her, and he felt unaccountably impatient.

"There it is again!" he cried. "You are looking at me just as you did

before."

Louise passed her hand over her eyes, and sat up. "Why, Maurice, what

do you mean? It was nothing--only something I was trying to understand."

But what it was that she did not understand, he could not get her to

tell him.

A fortnight passed. One morning, when a soft south breeze was in

motion, Maurice reminded her with an air of playful severity, that, so

far, they had not learned to know even their nearer surroundings; while

of all the romantic explorings in the pretty Muldental, which he had

had in view for them, not one had been undertaken. Louise was not fond

of walking in the country; she tired easily, and was always content to

bask in the sun and be still. But she did not attempt to oppose his

wish; she put on her hat, and was ready to start.

His love of movement reasserted itself. They went down the

driving-road, and out upon the long, ribbon-like roads that zigzagged

the plains, connecting the dotted villages. These roads were edged with

fruit-trees--apple and cherry. The apples were still hard, green,

polished balls, but the berries were at their prime. And everywhere men

were aloft on ladders, gathering the fruit for market. For the sum of

ten pfennigs, Maurice could get his hat filled, and, by the roadside,

they would sit down to make a second breakfast off black, luscious

cherries, which stained the lips a bluish purple. When it grew too hot

for the open roads, they descended the steep, wooded back of the bill,

to the romantic little town of Wechselburg at its base. Here, a massive

bridge of reddish-yellow stone spanned the winding, slate-grey Mulde; a

sombre, many-windowed castle of the same stone as the bridge looked out

over a wall of magnificent chestnuts.

On returning from these, and various other excursions, they were

pleasantly tired and hungry. After supper, they sat upstairs by the

window in her room, Louise in the big chair, Maurice at her feet, and

there watched the darkness come down, over the tops of the trees.

Somewhat later in the month, the fancy took her to go to a place called

Amerika. Maurice consulted the landlord about the distance. Their

original plan of taking the train a part of the way was, however,

abandoned when the morning came; for it was an uncommonly lovely day,

and a fresh breeze was blowing. So, having scrambled down to

Wechselburg again, they struck out on the flat, and began their walk.

The whole day lay before them; they were bound to no fixed hours; and,

throughout the morning, they made frequent halts, to gather the wild

raspberries that grew by the roadside. Having passed under a great

railway viaduct, which dominated the landscape, they stopped at a

village inn, to rest and drink coffee. About two o'clock, they came to

Rochsburg, and finally arrived, towards the middle of the afternoon, at

the picturesque restaurant that bore the name, of Amerika. Here they

dined. Afterwards, they returned to Rochsburg, but much less

buoyantly--for Louise was growing footsore--paid a bridge-toll, were

shown through the castle, and, at sunset, found themselves on the

little railway-station, waiting for an overdue train. The restaurant in

which they sat, was a kind of shed, roofed by a covering of Virginia

creeper; the station stood on an eminence; the plains stretched before

them, as far as they could see; the evening sky was an unbroken sheet

of red and gold.

The half-hour's journey over--it was made in a narrow wooden

compartment, crowded with peasants returning from a market--they left

the train, and began to climb the hill. But, by now, Louise was at the

end of her strength, and Maurice began to fear that he would never get

her home; she could with difficulty drag one foot after the other, and

had to rest every few minutes, so that it was nearly ten o'clock before

they entered the house. In her room, he knelt before her and took off

her boots; Amalie carried her supper up on a tray. She hardly touched

it: her eyes were closing with fatigue, and she was asleep as soon as

her head touched the pillow.

Next day she did not waken till nearly noon, and she remained in bed

till after dinner. For the rest of the day, she sat in the armchair.

Maurice wished to read to her, but she preferred quiet--did not even

want to be talked to. The weather was on her nerves, she said--for it

had grown very sultry, and the sky was overcast. The landlord

prophesied a thunderstorm. In the evening, however, as it was still

dry, and he had been in the house all day, Maurice went out for a

solitary walk.

He swung down the road at a pace he could only make when he was alone.

It had looked threatening when he left the house, but, as he went, the

clouds piled themselves up with inconceivable rapidity, and before he

was three miles out on the plain, the storm broke, with a sudden fury

from which there was no escape. He took to his heels, and ran to the

next village, some quarter of a mile in front of him. There, in the

smoky room of a tiny inn, together with a handful of country-people, he

was held a prisoner for over two hours; the rain pelted, and the

thunder cracked immediately overhead. When, drenched to the skin, he

reached the top of the hill again, it was going on for midnight. He had

been absent for close on four hours.

The candle in her room was guttering in its socket. By its failing

light, he saw that she was lying across the bed, still dressed. Over

her bent Amalie.

He had visions of sudden illness, and brushed the girl aside.

"What is it? What's the matter?"

At his voice, Louise lifted a wild face, stared at him as though she

did not recognise him, then rose with a cry, and flung herself upon him.

"Take care! I'm wet through."

For all answer, she burst out crying, and trembled from head to foot.

"What is it, darling? Were you afraid?"

But she only clung to him and trembled.

Amalie was weeping with equal vehemence; he ordered her out of the

room. Notwithstanding his dripping clothes, he was forced to support

Louise. In vain he implored her to speak; it was long before she was in

a state to reply to his questionings. Outside the storm still raged; it

was a wild night.

"What was it? Were you afraid? Did you think I was lost?"

"I don't know--Oh, Maurice! You will never leave me, will you?"

She wounded her lips against his shoulder.

"Leave you! What has put such foolish thoughts into your head?"

"I don't know.--But on a night like this, I feel that anything might

happen."

"And did it really matter so much whether I came back or not?"

He felt her arms tighten round him.

"Did you care as much as that?--Louise!"

"I said: my God!--what if he should never come back! And then, then ..."

"Then----?"

"And then the noise of the storm ... and I was so alone ... and all the

long, long hours ... and at every sound I said, there he is ... and it

never was you ... till I knew you were lying somewhere ... dead ...

under a tree."

"You poor little soul!" he began impulsively, then stopped, for he felt

the sudden thrill that ran through her.

"Say that again, Maurice!--say it again!"

"You poor, little fancy-ridden soul!"

"Oh, if you knew how good it sounds!--if I could make you understand!

You're the only person who has ever said a thing like that to me--the

only one who has ever been in the least sorry for me. Promise me

now--promise again--that you will never leave me.--For you are all I

have."

"Promise?--again? When you are more to me than my own life?"

"And you will never get tired of me?--never?"

"My own dear wife!"

She strained him to her with a strength for which he would not have

given her credit. He tried to see her face.

"Do you know what that means?"

"Yes, I know. It means, if you leave me now, I shall die."

By the next morning, all traces of the storm had vanished; the sun

shone; the slanting roads were hard and dry again. Other storms

followed--for it was an exceptionally hot summer--and many an evening

the two were prisoners in her room, listening to the angry roar of the

trees, which lashed each other with a sound like that of the open sea.

Every Sunday in August, too, brought a motley crowd of guests to the

inn, and then the whole terrace was set out with little tables. Two

waiters came to assist Amalie; a band played in an arbour; carts and

wagonettes were hitched to the front of the house; and the noise and

merry-making lasted till late in the night. Together they leaned from

the window of Louise's room, to watch the people; they hardly ventured

out of doors, for it was unpleasant to see their favourite nooks

invaded by strangers. Except on Sundays, however, their seclusion

remained undisturbed; half a dozen visitors were staying in the other

wing of the building, and of these they sometimes caught a glimpse at

meals; but that was all: the solitude they desired was still theirs.

And so the happy days slid past; August was well advanced, by this

time, and the tropical heat was at its height. In the beginning, it had

been Maurice who regretted the rapid flight of the days: now it was

Louise. Occasionally, a certain shadow settled on her face, and, at

such moments, he well knew what she was thinking of: for, once, out of

the very fulness of his content, he had said to her with a lazy sigh:

"To-day is the first of August," and then, for the first time, he had

seen this look of intense regret cross her face. She had entreated him

not to say any more; and, after that, the speed with which the month

decreased, was not mentioned between them.

But his carelessly dropped words had sown their seed. A couple of weeks

later, the remembrance of the work he had still to do for Schwarz,

before the beginning of the new term, broke over him like a douche of

cold water. It was a resplendent morning; he had been leaning out of

the window, idly tapping his fingers on the sill. Suddenly they seemed

to him to have grown stiff, to have lost their agility; and by the

thoughts that now came, he was so disquieted that he shut himself up in

his own room.

At his first words to her, Louise, who was still in bed, turned pale.

"Yes, yes, be quiet!--I know," she said, and buried her face in the

down pillow.

In this position she remained for some seconds; Maurice stood staring

out of the window. Then, without raising her face, she held out her

hand to him.

He took it; but he did not do what she expected he would: sit down on

the side of the bed, and put his arm round her. He stood holding it,

absent-mindedly. She stole a glance at him, and turned still paler.

Then, with a jerk, she released her hand, sat up in bed, and pushed her

hair from her face.

"Maurice! ... then if it has to be ... then to-day ... please, please,

to-day! Don't ask me to stay here, and think, and remember, that it's

all over--that this is the end--that we shall never, never be here in

this little room again! Oh, I couldn't bear it!--! can't bear it,

Maurice! Let us go away--please, let us go!"

In vain he urged reason; there was no gainsaying her: she brushed

aside, without listening to it, his objection that their rooms in

Leipzig would not be ready for them. Throwing back the bedclothes, she

got up at once and dressed herself, with cold fingers, then flung

herself upon the packing, helped and hindered by Amalie, who wept

beside her. The hour that followed was like a bad dream. Finally,

however, the luggage was carried downstairs, the bill paid, and the

circumstantial good-byes were said: they set off, at full speed, down

the woodpath to the station, to catch the midday train. Louise was

white with exhaustion: her breath came sobbingly. In a firstclass

carriage, he made her lie down on the seat. With her hand in his, he

said what he could to comfort her; for her face was tragic.

"We will come again, darling. It is only AUF WIEDERSEHEN, remember!"

But she shook her head.

"We shall never be here again."

Leipzig, at three o'clock on an August afternoon, lay baking in the

sun. He put her in a covered droschke, himself carrying the bags, for

he could not find a porter.

"At seven, then! Try to sleep. You are so pale."

"Good-bye--good-bye!"

His hand rested on the door of the droschke. She laid hers on it, and

clung to it as though she would never, let it go.