Winter came suddenly in the first days of December. The world lay
hidden in snow, and the ruts of the roads wound over the great white
plain like black ribbons. A sky resembling a smoky ceiling hung low
over the earth, and the twilight of night seemed to fall before the day
had properly begun.
The months from December to March are, as a rule, a period of rest and
recreation for the country squire. He is now at liberty to enjoy social
pleasures, take trips to the capital or travel in Italy. He may drink
and gamble, or if his tastes are cultured he can order from his
bookseller the latest novels and the newest sensation in current
literature.
But none of these things had any attraction for Leo. He didn't care to
associate with the neighbouring families, for he knew that matchmaking
mammas regard, him as a catch. He was sick of travelling. It would have
been a herculean task to get drunk, as he required so much to bring
about that happy condition, and at Monte Carlo he had played so high
that his empty coffers, as a memorial of his losses, warned him against
further gaming. As for reading, he had neither the taste nor the powers
of concentration necessary for enjoying it. Even the consolation of
sport was denied him, for the big game of the prairies had spoilt him
for partridge shooting.
Nothing remained but to do what turned up next, and to amuse himself
according to the whim of the moment. And all the time longing devoured
him. Yes, he could no more hide it from himself, he longed for her.
He had not met her since the ceremony of taking the Sacrament.
Afterwards he had torn away as if hunted by demons, without shaking
Ulrich's hand, without heeding his people's looks of hurt surprise. He
had wanted to get away as quickly as possible from the perfume that she
exhaled, away from the questioning eye of his friend, away from the
house of God, whose gift of grace had been transformed for him into a
curse. "For whoso eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh
his own damnation."
So ran the text in the Bible which he had once learnt at school, and
which now was brought home to him with such terrifying force.
Gradually, however, he had come to a calmer state of mind. Religious
brooding was so foreign to his nature that he succeeded in throwing off
the consciousness of being damned eternally. And yet on that day he had
lost his last hold on his old happy-go-lucky will. Henceforth he lay
more or less under the ban of a dull depression, which threatened to
build a barrier between him and his fellow-creatures. Ulrich had been
in Berlin a month, and during that month Leo had not set foot in
Uhlenfelde.
"Don't go near her," was now, as it had been five months ago, the
upshot of his wisest reflections, but the resolve which then had had
its foundation in a courageous and vigorous character, was now prompted
by weakness and fear.
He avoided, too, associating with any of the inmates of his house,
except at meals. He saw plainly how much they were estranged from him.
Johanna scarcely noticed him; Elly was frightened of him; and Hertha
defiant; even his beloved old mother had no longer the heart to force
him into conversation. Never, indeed, had there been a sadder Advent
time at Halewitz.
The sixteenth of December had always been a high feast-day in the
annals of the county gentry, for it was Frau von Stolt's birthday. She
did not send out invitations, but took it as a personal insult if
people did not come on that day without.
Leo felt that he would be bound to put in an appearance at Stoltenhof,
or risk a feud with his neighbours. He did not expect that _she_ would
be there, as Ulrich was still away, but at the bare possibility his
heart seemed to jump into his throat.
There was a scurrying up and down the corridors, banging of doors
without end; for the two "chicks" were going to their first dance
to-day, so the whole household was in a fever of excitement.
At dusk grandmamma came into Leo's study, her bosom bristling with
pins.
"Won't you, for once, drive with us to-night, dear son?" she asked.
"No."
"Johanna is not going."
"Still I say no."
"Leo!" With her hands folded and gulping back her tears, she came and
stood close to him.
"What is it, mother?"
"Leo, are you ill?"
"No." He fixed on her a morose and vacant gaze.
"Have we offended you, Leo?"
"No."
"Haven't you the least bit of love left for me?"
He saw her pleading eyes, her quivering lips, and for a moment he was
moved to sorrow, but the rising emotion was extinguished instantly,
like a lighted match in a water-butt.
"Leave me alone," he said. "I want nothing but to live in my own way,
and not to be too intimate with any one," and he turned his back.
She stroked his sleeve twice, thrice, and with this timid endearment
slipped quietly away.
The next moment he heard her scolding the lady's maid because she had
not ironed a strip of tulle properly.
"Fortunately things don't go very deeply with her," he thought. And
then he was filled with disgust at his own conduct. Was he going to
sacrifice his mother, too, to that nameless ghost of the past?
The big covered sleigh came round at seven o'clock, and half an hour
later he followed it, in a small sleigh with one horse, as usual
driving himself. A pale moonlight illumined the white expanse of snow
from which the peasants' huts and farm-buildings rose in shapeless
masses of shadow. The distance was enshrouded in a milky haze, setting
the groups of trees in silver.
The road lay on this side of the river, but passed through Wengern and
close by the ferry. Two sleighs belonging to distinguished company had
just been deposited here as he came up, and he heard the music of their
bells as they rattled on ahead of him. He would have known the tone of
the Uhlenfelde sleigh-bells amongst a thousand, and he was satisfied
that they were not amongst these. Would she be there? Would she be
there?
And he stretched himself, for he was stiff and cramped with suspense.
But when he reached the stables certainty awaited him. There stood the
Kletzingks' old Wilhelm, touching his cap to him with the familiar grin
which is permissible from the servants of a friendly house. It occurred
to him that, after all, Ulrich might have come too, and the thought
filled him with alarm. He would have liked to ask, but an undefinable
feeling of shame stifled the words in his throat.
Then he slowly walked to the house. The castle of Stoltenhof
to-night resembled a camp. The hall was arranged with booths and
refreshment-stalls like a fair, and civil and military uniforms moved
about in the gay throng. The officers of both the Muensterberg and
Wartenstein-Uhlan regiments were everywhere very active, rendering the
assistance which seemed too much for the legs of the more deliberate
country "junkers."
Leo was met by his host, whose copper-coloured countenance, with
its record of past pleasures, was beaming with good-humour and
self-satisfaction.
"Ha! so you have ventured out of your shell," was his shrill greeting.
"Come along, come along, they are breaking their hearts for you in the
salon."
"Are your boys there?" Leo asked, longing, but not daring, to inquire
for Ulrich.
"Of course! Of course! The young dogs are all there, the whole boiling
lot laying siege to your fair cousin."
"Cousin! What cousin?"
"Why, your cousin Felicitas, naturally; you lucky beggar."
Leo was only too glad to forget the relationship. The reminder of it
now stabbed him like a knife.
"And I can assure you she is in her old form! For a long time she
seemed so altered, and made no disguise of being bored--probably she
was grieving. But since the reconciliation between your two families
she has been herself again."
Leo bit his lips. So they were talking about that already. Passing a
number of hands outstretched to shake his, he made his way to the door
of the salon.
Despite its ugly furniture and low smoky ceiling, with a six branched
zinc chandelier, it wore a festive aspect to-night, and blossomed like
the rose with youth and beauty. A garland of fir boughs, decorated with
lights, hid the palisade of famous racers from view, and lent an
unwonted grace to the usually severely utilitarian apartment. The
fragrance of firs and the shimmer of candle-light gave a flavour of the
coming Christmas feast to the whole picture.
The young people were dancing with zeal to the strains of a modest
fiddle and piano. His little sister, flushed and radiant in the arms of
her partner, floated by. And while his eyes searched in burning
eagerness for Felicitas, they fell on Hertha, who looked at him for a
moment in cool disdain, and then turned her back abruptly. Her dainty,
haughtily poised little head was unbecomingly coiffured, and her thin
neck rose stiffly from her childishly undeveloped bosom. She was not
looking her best.
He would have gone and spoken to her, in case the coldness between them
should be remarked, when he saw steering towards him the mountainous
form of the lady of the house, whose hand he had come to kiss.
"You should really take a little more care of our fair Felicitas, dear
von Sellethin," she said, accepting his respectful salute with gracious
condescension.
Leo wondered what she meant, for there was an undertone of distinct
displeasure in her voice.
"Your friend is away," she continued, "and I believe that next to him
you are responsible. Excuse my speaking so openly, but since I had the
happiness to bring about the reconciliation between you, I feel that I
may, without offence, claim the rights of friendship, too."
"Please be a little more explicit, my dear madame."
"Oh, there is nothing to explain. I only would hint that she needs an
eye over her,--we all know she is a bit of a flirt, in a harmless way,
of course; but she may be guilty of indiscretions which might be
exaggerated by mischievous tongues, and I have no desire that a fresh
scandal shall take its rise under my roof."
His feelings were of mingled alarm and relief. No one suspected. What
had once excited suspicion had been forgiven and forgotten.
"Madame, put my mind at rest, in Heaven's name, and tell me what's
going on?"
"Nothing very bad. But come and see for yourself." She led him through
the crowd of dancing couples to a small ante-room, dimly lighted by
pink Chinese lanterns, where the windows were thrown open, it being the
first cooling retreat from the ballroom. Felicitas was sitting directly
in the icy draught surrounded by a circle of admirers, who filled with
noise and laughter the retiring place in which they had no business to
be, as they ought to have been dancing.
Leo saw, and his wrath rose so fiercely that at first he could scarcely
breathe.
"Here is another friend of yours, my dearest," said Frau von Stolt
before she went away. "Now your grass-widowhood will be completely
consoled."
Leo felt that this was a thrust at himself as well as her, and he grew
still more furious.
"Friend, brother and cousin rolled into one," cried Felicitas, holding
out her ungloved left hand to him. "Why has your majesty not been seen
for such ages?"
"You will catch cold, Felicitas," was his answer. "Don't fuss, my
friend, but give your lion's paw to these young men, and be a _bon
garcon_."
Lizzie's "wild team," as they entitled themselves with pride, were all
there--Otzen, Krassow, Zesslingen, and Neuheim, and the two soldier
sons of the house, of course.
It had all been in vain, then, the sacrifice of his manliness, the
plunge into a maze of lies and deceit. She had reopened the undignified
flirtation with these silly boys without troubling herself about his
opinion. He might have spared himself everything; all the long anguish,
beginning on the Isle of Friendship that September morning, and
culminating on the altar steps the other day. A red haze dimmed his
sight, the invariable signal of one of his most furious outbursts.
"Pull yourself together," an inward voice commanded. He realised that
in any passage of arms with these youths he must be worsted, as she
apparently was oblivious of any harm being done. So he shook hands with
them and then said very firmly--
"You know, Felicitas, how careful Ulrich is of your health. I cannot
stand by and see you catch your death. Take my arm."
She dared not refuse point-blank, for she dreaded a serious
remonstrance on his part. She got up, and laying her hand on the arm of
the younger Stolt, she said--
"He who is my cavalier mustn't try to be my master, too, dear Leo.
Come, Fritz, and let us dance."
She curtsied, and with her feet already beating time to the music of
the waltz, she rustled past him.
"Never mind, Sellenthin," said young Zesslingen, naively, "she treats
us worse than that, even."
To the rage of mothers and the chagrin of sisters, the troop of youths
now took up their post at the door of the salon, awaiting the moment
when their charmer should stop to rest, and they be able to rush to her
again.
As Leo was making his way back to the hall, he encountered Kurt
Brenckenberg, mincing and smug, with fresh wine-stains on the silk
lappets of his dress-coat. He whistled indifferently to conceal an
uneasy conscience, and made a sharp detour to avoid Leo. The latter
remembered the song of "The Smiling Stars," and he beckoned Elly to
come and speak to him for a moment. She flew from her partner's arms to
his, half wild with triumph in her conquests.
"Look here," he said, "it is my wish that you don't have anything more
to do with the Candidate Brenckenberg."
She looked blank at first, as if the name had entirely escaped her
memory.
"Candidate! Candidate! Oh, you mean ... _him_. I have cut him long ago.
Dear Leo, you may make your mind quite easy on that score, I assure
you."
And with one of those expressions of boundless and unutterable contempt
which very young and ingenuous ladies always know how to command, she
glanced over her shoulder at the object of her first love, who, in his
mortification, was biting the fingers of his cleaned white kid gloves.
Having thus discharged a brotherly duty, Leo began to be depressed with
a sense of his own superfluity and complete aloofness from everybody
around him. He felt shame-stricken and paralysed. A dull fury
smouldered in his heart, which changed its aspect every minute. Now it
was ready to break out and commit murder, then it sank into an
impotent, passive, gnawing grief.
Suddenly a light was thrown on what ailed him, and he knew that this
poison in his veins meant jealousy. At the discovery he laughed loud
and bitterly. As it happened, the sound fell on a silence, and he
looked round, horrified at what he had done, to see a row of astounded
faces staring at him. He now became conscious for the first time where
he was. He was sitting at the beer-table in the hall in the midst of
friends and good neighbours, with whom he had scarcely exchanged three
words since his home-coming.
They now all fell upon him. He must not continue to withdraw himself
from their society, they urged, and live the life of a recluse and
hermit. What cares he had brought with him from the other side of the
Atlantic they would help to dispel. While they talked to him thus, he
let his glance wander anxiously from one face to the other. How many
men there were troubling themselves about his welfare, men who had the
right to give him their well-meant tactless advice. And yet how they
had all become strangers to him; and how easy it was to forget that
they had sat on the same form with him in school, and taken part in his
early escapades. Fate had laid a gulf between him and them, from the
other side of which he saw their features looming indistinctly as if
from behind a mist.
"What do you want me to do?" he asked them, when they had all done
speaking at once.
He ought to come out of his misanthropic shell, they declared. Send his
megrims to the devil; take his right place in the society of the
neighbourhood, and perhaps look out for a wife.
"Don't talk to me of women!" he said roughly.
Then Hans von Sembritzky, sturdy, stout old Hans, who of all the boon
companions of his youth, remained most congenial to him, came out with
a suggestion. He described in glowing terms the social evenings which
took place two or three times a week at the Prussian Crown, when landed
proprietors, officers, and civilians foregathered to smoke, drink,
retail gossip, and tell "good stories." He would be in his element
amongst them, if only he would come.
He promised to make a note of the invitation. And then, to obliterate
the impression of that mad unguarded laugh, he made a supreme effort to
talk, and monopolized the conversation. He related some of his
adventures "on the other side," and pictures of his life there passed
in procession before his excited brain like a recent dream.
A large circle of admiring listeners, among whom were ladies, collected
round him and hung on his lips. He was charmed at his own success; and
his imagination became more and more inflamed. He bubbled over with
humorous anecdote and pointed allusion. And while his voice echoed
continuously in his ears, his amazement at what he was doing grew.
Faces became mere white specks. He saw nothing distinctly but the
yellow-flowered carpet, the copper hanging-lamp, and decanters of red
wine. And all the time beneath his triumph a voice kept crying, "It's
useless, useless!" For _she_ had cheated him, played with him, he who
had sacrificed honour, friendship, his life's happiness and hope,
everything for her.
The man who sat there telling tales of encounters with Indians and wild
beasts, half true, half invented, was nothing but an automaton. His
memory flashed forth brilliant pictures, while his soul was in torment.
In the back row of his listeners, almost hidden behind the others, he
became aware of a pair of dark eyes fixed on him in mingled fascination
and defiance. One moment radiant with pride, the next lowering with
fear. Those eyes belonged to a girl whose young heart was his own in
every fibre, who was capable of rejoicing in his joys more than he did
himself, and bleeding for his sufferings. And in return he had
pulverised her in his rude grasp, and spurned her.
The sad pity of it all unnerved and unmanned him. He lost the thread of
his reminiscences, his words became confused.
"I can't go on," he said, getting up; "I'll finish another time."
The little crowd, much disappointed, scattered, and he relapsed again
into his dreary ruminations.
Towards midnight supper was served on small tables. Stalls and
drinking-booths were now converted into buffets, from which each
gentleman had to procure provisions for himself and partner.
Leo selected little Meta Sembritzky as his. Her small care-worn face
appealed to his sympathy. She wore a very wide grey silk teagown, which
only half hid her interesting condition.
Their conversation flagged, but they felt that they were old enough
friends to understand each other without mentioning what was uppermost
in their minds.
Nevertheless Leo was not left in ignorance of the fact that Hans came
home very late at night, and that mamma-in-law was stricter than ever.
From a table at the far end of the hall, laughter was rippling, and
salvoes of witticisms, which drowned other people's remarks and
attracted universal attention.
There Felicitas sat amidst her adorers. Some of these considered that
they had done their duty by taking in to supper raw young girls, whom
they now entirely neglected to devote themselves to the fair mistress
of Uhlenfelde. The poor damsels sat in awkward silence, casting
despairing glances at their renegade cavaliers, whose jokes with
Felicitas they could not follow or appreciate. The latter had defied
the custom which would have apportioned her to a married man, and had
come in to supper on the arm of young Zesslinger. But the young
cuirassiers had both been sent to distant tables by their indignant
mother.
Frau von Sellenthin, looking regal in claret-coloured satin and lace,
yet lovable as always, towards the end of supper, crossed the hall with
dignified step and motioned Leo into a corner.
"For mercy's sake," she murmured, "do you know what has come over
Lizzie to-night? She is behaving scandalously with those stupid boys.
Every one is talking about it."
"Why do you ask _me_, mother?"
"I thought perhaps you could----"
"I can do nothing. Felicitas is mistress of her own actions. If she
chooses to make herself ridiculous, it is her own look-out."
And he led her back to her seat.
After supper, Felicitas came up to him with sparkling eyes and cheeks
flushed from champagne and merriment.
"Gesegnete Mahlzeit, you growly-bear," she cried, putting her small
soft hand into his, and shaking it with comical heartiness.
Not by the quiver of an eyelash or the trembling of a lip did she
betray that there was any secret between them. Every trace of what had
been and was seemed erased from her memory. He replied to her,
"Gesegnete Mahlzeit," stiffly.
"_A propos_, Leo," she went on. "Are you in the humour for a spree?"
"It depends on what the spree is."
"Oh! you cautious old slow-coach. Listen, and I'll tell you; only you
mustn't tell. We are getting up a midnight sleigh-drive."
"We! Who?"
"Why, these boys and two or three others. It's to be a sleigh-drive
after the fashion of the King of Bavaria, you know--torches and
outriders in mediaeval costume, and all the rest of it. Unfortunately,
there are no mountains to risk breaking our necks over. All the same,
it will be a very _risque_ affair, as I am to be the only lady of the
party. So I thought if I found a steady, reliable person--a relation
like yourself--to come and act as chaperon, it would be all right."
"I am honoured by the confidence you place in me, my dear Lizzie," he
replied, drawing himself erect. "But I am afraid that I am not nearly
enough related to you to undertake the _role_ you suggest without
injury to your reputation. On the other hand, I am sufficiently
intimate with Ulrich to call to account those who, by taking part in
such a mad excursion, would put you so wantonly in a false position."
Three faces lengthened in dismay at his words. Even Felicitas grew
perceptibly paler. Her eyes, which a moment before had flashed a
mocking challenge at him, drooped in veiled supplication. He turned his
back on the group, and re-entered the hall, trembling with suppressed
emotion. There he spent another miserable two hours, resolving every
moment to go home, and yet incapable of tearing himself from the magic
spell of her environment.
He sat moping in silence behind the broad back of a whist-player,
apparently engrossed in watching the game, and only glad that no one
disturbed him.
When it was almost three o'clock he heard one of the young officers
telling a servant to order round the Uhlenfelde sleigh.
A swift decision made him spring up, take his leave, and rush to the
stables to see that his own horse was put in as speedily as possible.
A clear, cold moonlight lay on the white world. There was a filagree of
snow crystals shimmering over the surface of the fields as if a crop of
diamonds were sprouting from the sleeping soil. Here and there the
shadows of the trees dug dark patches in the whiteness. No lights shone
from the farmsteads, and the white slanting gables and long lines of
walls rose indistinctly against the silvery distance.
His roan had fared well as guest in the Stoltenhof stable, and would
have started at a brisk trot, only Leo used force to hold him in. The
sleigh-bells tinkled lazily through the silence. A consciousness of
repose seemed to have descended on the earth; the vast repose of deaths
so dreaded by the living, yet exercising so infinite a charm.
"What are you about?" he questioned himself. "Why don't you give the
horse a touch of the whip instead of pulling him in? Tear home. Don't
look round, don't listen."
But his eager ear continued on the stretch for sounds piercing the
stillness of the night behind him, and from time to time he paused to
be certain that his own bells were not swallowing the faint echo of
others.
He persuaded himself that it was to sit in judgment on her, and to take
her to task for her conduct, that he would see her again that night.
Yet all the while the miserable conviction was being borne in on him
that what he thought was anger was nothing but a longing passionate
desire.
As he passed the parsonage at Wengern dull resentment took possession
of him.
"There the old rascal and prophet sleeps the sleep of the just,"
thought he, "while poor King David is wandering alone through the
night."
He turned down the slope to the ferry. Here he could wait for Felicitas
without exciting notice, for it was only natural, the ferry station
being on his estate, that he should linger to see all was in order
there. The black surface of the river was shot with silver, and the
ripples broke with a crunching grinding sound on the frozen banks.
His sleigh-bells brought old Juergens out of his bunk half asleep,
holding a lantern in a tremulous hand.
"Who the devil is it?" he inquired, not recognising Leo in his modest
turn out.
"Don't swear, Juergens," Leo answered, feeling compassion for the old
man on account of his disturbed slumbers.
"Lord! it's never the gnaediger master?" and he came and kissed his
coat-sleeve, and would have taken hold of the horse's bridle to lead it
down to the ferry-side when Leo stopped him.
He had only come, he explained, to ascertain the condition of the ice.
The music of a three-toned sleigh-bells faint and distant, fell on his
ear. Leo's heart bounded. She was coming; coming alone. He wrenched off
his fur coverings and, jumping out, tied the horse's reins to the
palings that surrounded the ferry-house.
Juergens chattered on with toothless garrulity, as is the way of old
servitors. The thickness of the ice on the river was nothing to speak
of to-day, but to-morrow it would be another inch or so, and by
Christmas it would bear cannons passing over it. This was the best day
of all the year for him, he had sometimes taken as much as seven marks
in tips. So generous were the friends of Herr von Stolt.
Now she must be driving through the village, the sound was deadened by
the walls of the houses. Suddenly it broke forth clearly again, and a
shadow was cast on the churchyard wall. The sleigh curved down towards
the stream.
Hers was the muffled figure leaning back wearily in a corner. He
approached the side of the sleigh as the driver brought the horses to a
standstill.
She had been asleep, and did not stir till the jerk of the sleigh
halting roused her.
"Good morning, Felicitas."
She gave a low cry and stretched out her hands to him, half in fear,
half in joy, like a child who is not sure whether it is going to be
scolded or caressed.
"Don't be alarmed," he said, giving a significant glance at the
coachman. "I got out here to see if the ferry was all right. The river
is full of ice-floes, and I am responsible for the Stoltenhof guests."
She smiled her thanks, for she understood his meaning.
"I will accompany you to the other side," he said. "If you get out we
shall be able to talk better."
Obediently she let him help her out of the sleigh. For a moment he felt
his soft burden cling to him, and light as she was she seemed to weigh
him to the earth.
The sleigh pounded down to the ferry, and the pair followed it in
silence.
"Leo!" she whispered entreatingly.
"Hush! and keep close to me!" he replied, forcing himself to speak
severely, and he lifted the bar.
They stepped together on to the shaky companion ladder, jutting, narrow
and slippery, into the water. They were hardly separated from its black
depths by a foot. The rope, covered with icicles, shone like metal, and
its frozen crust crunched against the wheels of the pulley.
"Leo!" she whispered again, and pressed her head against his sleeve.
"Now, what have you to say for yourself? You----" An ugly word, which
was suppressed with difficulty, was on the tip of his tongue.
"Leo, I am desperate without you," she complained, in a subdued tone.
"Why have you forsaken me?"
"How can you talk of forsaking?" he muttered. "While Ulrich is away, I
can't come. That is all."
"Why not?"
"How can you ask?"
"But I do ask. We have repented and confessed. We have expiated our sin
before God and man. We know that we are on the right footing now."
"Indeed! That is how you feel about it?"
"Yes; and don't you feel the same?" she asked, looking up at him
innocently.
His answer stuck in his throat. Was it he alone, then, who was damned?
Had God accepted her oblation and rejected his?
"We went to the Sacrament together," she continued, "and thereby gained
our souls' salvation. We ought now to be quite sure of ourselves."
"We ought to be; certainly we ought to be," he sneered.
"Leo, please don't be so mistrustful. How can any evil befall us if we
are sincere in following the path of penitence. We must hold together.
If you leave me to fight alone, I am powerless. Day after day I have
been expecting and waiting for you. Every morning I have got up with
the question on my lips, 'Will he come?' And then I have hoped for the
morrow, and again for the morrow, and so I have gone on. Oh, how long
the time has seemed! My life has been sad and monotonous, and finally I
was driven to despair and said to myself, 'If he gives you up you must
give yourself up.' And so I began the old nonsense again with those
boys. I have turned their heads and let them pay me attentions. And
to-day a devil possessed me, and I thought, 'I'll just show him that I
can do without him.' But all the time my heart was heavy, and I was
crying out to you in my soul. But you were so hard and cruel, that I
was forced to go on playing my part."
A strange sensation of content suffused his limbs. He felt as if a dead
weight had fallen from them. He felt wholesomely tired, and could have
stretched himself out on the spot and fallen asleep.
"And now you'll send those youths to the right about?" he asked.
"Leo!"
"Yes or no?"
"With the greatest pleasure in the world if you will come and see me
again."
"But if I don't come?"
She hung her head in utter discouragement. "Then I can't say what I
shall do," she stammered.
"When do you expect Ulrich home?" he asked, to divert her.
"Ah, Ulrich!" she exclaimed quickly. "In every one of his letters he
has inquired after you and sent messages. Some he has addressed to us
both. But I haven't dared write to him, because I haven't seen you. And
what would he think if he knew you hadn't been once?"
"That's true enough," he said, and thought to himself that even the
most trustful person would be struck by such extraordinary conduct.
Then he repeated his question as to when Ulrich was coming back.
"The Reichstag separates for the recess either to-morrow or the day
after," she answered, "but it is very uncertain whether he will be here
by Christmas. He has been chosen president of a committee--for some
agricultural exhibition, I believe--and he will be obliged to give up
part of the parliamentary recess to arrange matters. He told me to ask
you if he should reserve a place for you on the committee, and thinks,
for the sake of your reputation, you should accept."
Shame kept him silent. Whether from far or near Ulrich's hand was ever
held out to him in loving, helpful friendship. He was a fool so to
underrate his own strength of mind. Surely Leo Sellenthin could never
be capable of the infamy of which he had been standing in such nameless
dread?
"You will come, won't you?" she implored.
"Yes," he answered with prompt decision.
"Soon?"
"Yes, soon."
"To-morrow?"
He hesitated. That would look too much like passionate haste.
"I am engaged to-morrow at Knutzendorf," he replied.
"Beg off!"
"No."
"Leo!" she urged reproachfully.
"Would you have me neglect my duties?"
"God forbid. But remember, till you set foot across my threshold, not a
minute will go by without my expecting you."
The companion ladder was let down. They struck the opposite bank, and
the bar crunched on its frozen hinges.
"Good-bye!"
"Good-bye!"
Their hands met in a clinging grasp which it seemed as though only
force could separate. Then they let go of each other with a start. He
settled her in her seat and wrapped the furs about her. The horse moved
on, the bells began to tinkle, and the sleigh melted into the grey
distance like a silver phantom. The ferry raft gurgled back into the
water, and old Juergens breathed heavily as he pulled. His steering
strings swished in the air like a cat-of-nine-tails. Leo, leaning
against the side, listened to the dying echo of the sleigh-bells.
The moon was waning. The ice-floes split against the wide keel of the
boat.