FOUND AND LOST.
There was a misty green, betokening the coming spring, upon the bare
boughs of the trees in the park at Rollin, and the little lake in its
midst reflected the clear blue of the skies above it. Adela, seated on
the white bench, near the water, was hardly aware either of the budding
branches around her or of the gleaming mirror before her. Her thoughts
were occupied with her expected visitor, and her hands and eyes with a
beautiful brown greyhound that never seemed to tire of leaping to and
fro over the riding-whip she held out for him.
"What will Walter tell me?" she thought. "Jump, Fidele!" she called out
to the dog, who had paused for a moment and looked dubiously at his
mistress. "You are a good creature," she went on, stroking his handsome
head, and again her thoughts flew to Walter. "Poor dear fellow, his
eyes have so sad a look in them now; and indeed it is too uncomfortable
in Eichhof. Thea really looks quite ill; she must be fairly bored to
death. Come, Fidele, you shall jump once more, and then I'll give you
some sugar."
And the dog jumped again, and was fed with sugar, while his mistress
began to think that Walter allowed himself to be waited for too long.
Suddenly she sprang up. The sound of a horse's hoofs was audible, and
in an instant Walter turned into the avenue of oaks that led to where
she was sitting. Fidele ran towards him, and leaped beside the horse
barking his welcome, while Adela, in sudden and unexpected confusion,
which she strove to hide behind an affectation of indifference, fixed
her eyes upon the surface of the lake beyond the rider.
"Well," she said, when Walter, having tied his horse to a tree, stood
beside her, "I have only just arrived. I nearly forgot our
appointment."
"I should have been so sorry not to find you," he said, "for after our
offensive and defensive alliance it would have pained me to leave
Eichhof without telling you myself of what you will be sure to hear
from others, coloured, probably, by their prejudices."
"Leave? You are going away? Where? You have only just come!" the girl
exclaimed, evidently alarmed, and quite forgetting her part of
indifference, as she drew Fidele towards her and put her arms around
his neck, as if craving some sympathy from him, while she looked up at
Walter anxiously.
"You perhaps remember a ride we took together, about a year ago, when I
told you how hard I had found it to resign the idea of studying
medicine," Walter began.
"Good heavens, Walter," she interrupted him, "you are not going to
begin about that again?"
He gazed at her seriously and sadly for a moment in silence, and noted
the eager and yet terrified expression in her eyes.
"But I am," he then said, softly. "I am firmly, unalterably
resolved----"
"Walter!" she exclaimed loudly, thrusting Fidele from her. "You cannot!
you dare not! Think of your father!"
"I have thought of him and tried to do as he wished. But do you not
think that my father loved me and earnestly desired my happiness?"
"Yes; and for that very reason you ought to do nothing that he would
have disapproved."
"And suppose I am perfectly convinced that I never could be contented,
but, on the contrary, should be positively miserable, in the career he
chose for me?"
"You still ought to pursue that career."
"And live but half a life, tormented by the consciousness that I was
entirely unfitted for my position? No, Adela, my father never could
have wished me to do this. When I told him of my wishes I had not yet
made an attempt to conform to his. This was my duty, and I have done
it. Now what I only suspected has come to be a certainty. I have no
interest whatever in the study of the law. I cannot make it the
business of my life. Do you not believe that the knowledge of this
would alter my father's views?"
"Your father never would have allowed you to be a doctor."
"Then he would have sacrificed his better self to a prejudice. The very
essence of his being was a kindly enjoyment of life, and it would have
caused him the greatest sorrow to have been the occasion of unhappiness
to one of his sons. I believe that if he had lived he would have seen
this and would have yielded to my wishes. Happiness and unhappiness are
dealt out to us by heaven, but human will is not without influence in
their distribution. As far as I can I choose to be happy, and in so
being to fulfil what I know to have been my father's chief hope for
me."
"But your mother,--think of your mother; she never will consent to what
you desire."
"No, my mother never will consent until some brilliant result justifies
my choice. But she is just as averse to a commonplace legal career,
which is what I should now be obliged to pursue, since I cannot be
under obligations to my brother. I must be independent. My mother has
no decided views for me at present. I hope to win her over in time.
Bernhard is angry with me; Lothar only laughs at me. I am very much
alone in my family, Adela. But I never shall forget that I am an
Eichhof, and I shall try, so far as I can, to do honour to my name. I
hope that my mother may one day be proud of me; at all events she shall
never be ashamed of me."
He had spoken with some emotion latterly, almost more to himself than
to Adela. He suddenly paused and looked at her. Her eyes were opened
wide, and tears were rolling down her cheeks.
"Now you know all. Are you still my friend, Adela?" he asked, bending
over her.
She seized his hand, and cried, between laughter and tears, "Dear, dear
Walter, I know I ought to be angry with you, but I cannot, I cannot."
He pressed her hand to his lips. "Then you think I am right, Adela?" he
asked, gazing earnestly into her eyes.
"Good heavens! I do not know, Walter," she sobbed; "but you are so
good, and we have known each other so long, and I know you will go away
now and never come back again for years."
"And you are sorry?" he whispered.
She did not reply, but her tears continued to flow silently, and, as if
to conceal them, she leaned her head upon Walter's shoulder. He put his
arm around her, and she made no resistance.
His lips almost touched her curls, and she wept so uncontrollably that
his heart was inexpressibly touched. Her tears, and the gentle pressure
of her head upon his shoulder, annihilated all the fixed resolves he
had made with regard to her; all the prudent reasonings with which he
had silenced the promptings of his heart were melted by those 'kindly
drops,' like the last snow beneath a warm spring shower. "Dear, dearest
Adela!" he whispered, and kissed her brow. She threw her arms about his
neck and nestled close to him.
The larks trilled above them, and the sunbeams kissed open the buds of
the elder-bush that grew beside the lake, while Fidele looked at the
youthful pair clasped in each other's arms with a certain expression of
comprehension in his honest eyes, as if it were all a matter of course.
"And so the very words which I feared would separate us have united us
forever, my darling," said Walter, after a long and ecstatic pause.
"Ah, how proudly I shall now pursue my path, since I know that I shall
not be struggling and working only for myself, but for you! And you
will believe in me, and will be patient until the goal is reached, and
I have a home for you where you shall be shielded from every blast that
blows?"
She suddenly freed herself from his clasp, and, stroking her curls from
before her eyes, looked at him in a kind of terror. "Walter," she said,
hastily, "for heaven's sake, don't talk so!"
He smiled, and drew her towards him again. "Never fear, dear love," he
said. "Be sure that my strength and courage will be all-sufficient to
provide for our future. I know now that you love me, and will one day
consent to be my wife, although I still persist in being a doctor."
Again she broke away from him. "I never said that, Walter," she cried;
"no, no; and I never will say it. You ought to know that if I love
you,--and I am not so very sure that I do love you,--all this happened
so quickly,--but even if I did love you, I never, never would consent
to be a doctor's wife."
Walter looked at her like some sleeper awakening from a dream. He
found it hard to understand her, but her words could bear no other
meaning except that she meant to break with him if he adhered to his
resolve. "It was all a mistake, then,--the saddest mistake of my life,"
he said, slowly and monotonously. "I do not understand how it could be,
Adela, but I understand that you now send me from you." He stood still
for a moment, as though awaiting a reply. Adela was silent, and pressed
her handkerchief to her lips to restrain her sobs. Walter still looked
inquiringly at her. "Farewell!" he suddenly said, and turned to go, but
she seized his arm and clung to him as in desperation.
"Walter!" she cried. "Oh, heavens! I--I think--I love you, Walter. You
must not go!"
"Adela, do not torture me so!" he entreated. "After what has passed
between us, I do not, I cannot know what you mean. You say you love me,
and----"
"Yes, yes, Walter; but you must not be a doctor. If you are poor, no
matter; we will wait until you are a Landrath, and I will learn all
about housekeeping and whatever you wish me to, for--even if I do not
know exactly whether I love you--yet----"
"You do not know whether you love me, Adela?" he said, with a bitter
laugh. "You do not know exactly? Well, I know, and I will tell you. No,
you do not love me, or you never, after what I have told you, could
demand such a sacrifice of me! You do not love me, Adela; it was all a
dream, and"--he drew out the ribbon upon which he wore her ring--"and
it is past and gone!"
He held out the ring to her. "There, take it back," he said, his voice
trembling with agitation. "I cannot any longer be your friend. There is
only one relation possible between us. I must have all or nothing. Take
it, take it back!" And he still held the ring out to her.
"I will not have it," she said, turning stubbornly away.
"Take it, or I will throw it into the lake. I will not keep it."
"Do as you please."
Walter tossed the ring from him. For an instant it glittered in the
sunlight above the waters of the little lake, into which it sank with a
faint splash.
Adela never looked towards it. She stooped and stroked the head of her
dog, who pressed close to her side as if in dread of some coming
misfortune. The girl thought that Walter would speak again. Suddenly
she heard the sound of a horse's hoofs behind her. She started up, to
see both steed and rider just disappearing at the turning of the oak
avenue.
"Walter!" she almost screamed.
But he had gone. She sank on her knees, and laid her head upon Fidele's
neck.
"Walter," she sobbed, "I love you! Oh, now I know I love you!" But
Walter could not hear her.