PER CRUCEM AD LUCEM.
Bernhard's exertions in Berlin were fruitless. The failure of the large
banking firm had involved many other business firms. There had been
heavy losses, and those who had not suffered shook their heads and kept
their money safe in their pockets. The word 'railway' provoked a
perfect panic, and confidence everywhere was greatly shaken. Upon a
closer examination Bernhard's losses were found to be much greater than
had been at first supposed. After conscientious consideration he could
not but admit to himself that it was time for him to look after his own
interests and relinquish, for the present at least, his efforts for the
benefit of the country at large. So he returned to his home very much
cast down, his confidence in his own ability greatly shaken,
discontented with himself and with destiny.
At the station, which was about three miles from Eichhof, his carriage
was awaiting him. He got into it with a sigh, and as it rolled through
the monotonous pine forest he sat thinking how refreshing it would be
to him to be affectionately welcomed to his home. He saw before him
Thea as she had been a year before, when she had studied so hard for
his sake, and the past lay before his mental vision like a lost
Paradise. Why was it all so different now? why was there this shadow
between himself and his wife, the shadow of a dead man, and yet
palpable enough to separate them forever?
"She was pure as a lily when she came to me," he said to himself.
"Could I not have shielded her from every possible danger? Did I not
know Lothar? Did I not know that he was as thoughtless as he was
susceptible? Why did I look so far abroad and shut my eyes to what was
nearest me? I built castles in the air for the future, and lost the
ground beneath my feet. But then--Thea was my wife, Lothar was my
brother,--how could I think---- Oh, it is hard, fearfully hard!"
Monotonous as the road along which he was driving, his future life now
lay before him, without one sunny, peaceful spot that promised repose.
Suddenly he thought of his child, his son, of whom he had as yet seen
so little. From his fair rosy boy a light seemed to issue and illumine
the future pathway of the lonely man. He could devote himself to the
care of his child, he could prepare for him a golden future. To be
sure, he was himself still too young not to rebel against his fate, but
nevertheless the thought of his boy consoled him. He roused himself
from his gloomy revery, and asked the coachman whether the Countess
Thea and his child were at Eichhof. The old servant turned towards him,
and his eyes seemed mutely to reproach his master as he replied, "Yes,
Herr Count; Madame the Countess arrived at Eichhof yesterday."
"And the child is well?" Bernhard inquired.
The old man's face grew sad, but his eyes were not so reproachful; his
master had not quite forgotten his wife and child. "Beg pardon, Herr
Count," he said, "but the child is not well. They were both well when
they arrived, but in the night----"
"Not well; what do you mean? The child is not seriously ill?"
"Beg pardon, Herr Count, but the child is very ill. Just before the
despatch came from Berlin ordering the carriage, Madame the Countess
telegraphed to the Herr Count----"
"And you have never told me until now?" Bernhard exclaimed.
The old man began once more with his "Beg pardon, Herr Count;" and
added, "Madame the Countess thought that the Herr Count would have left
Berlin before her despatch could reach him, and she was afraid that the
Herr Count might be anxious, and so she told me to say nothing unless
the Herr Count inquired. And I did just as Madame the Countess
ordered."
"Drive on!" Bernhard cried, wrapping himself in his cloak. He looked at
his watch; they were just crossing the forest near Panienka; he could
not reach home in less than an hour. And his child, for whom he had
just been planning in his mind, was ill, dangerously ill, or Thea would
not have telegraphed him.
"What are you about, Hadasch?" he suddenly exclaimed to the coachman.
"Drive as fast as you possibly can----"
Instead of which the carriage stood still, and with his usual "Beg
pardon, Herr Count," the coachman pointed to a very dashing and
graceful horsewoman who had just appeared from a side-road, and who was
the cause of the delay.
She reined in her steed beside the carriage, and Bernhard replied to
the enchanting smile of the fair Amazon by a formal lifting of his hat.
"What a delightful encounter!" cried Frau von Wronsky, and her eyes
were more eloquent than any words. "I hope your business matters are
concluded, or rather I know they are, and that you have had much that
was most annoying to endure."
"You know----" He was now standing in his barouche, with his hand upon
the back of the seat, and her brilliant eyes were on a level with his
own.
"Yes; I have heard it all in my letters from Berlin, and naturally I
have sympathized with you from my heart. Your home must indemnify you,
my dear Count, for all that you have suffered abroad." She leaned
forward and looked him full in the face as she spoke. "I trust you will
soon come to Panienka, that we may discuss it all together."
"You are very kind, but I have just heard that my boy is very ill,
and----"
"Oh, has your wife returned? Happy man! I am still alone; my husband is
away for an indefinite time----"
Bernhard looked not at her, but at his horses pawing the ground
impatiently, as he rejoined, "I am extremely anxious with regard to my
boy; he seems to be dangerously ill."
She struck her glove impatiently with the silver butt of her
riding-whip, and her dark brows lowered, but she controlled herself,
and said, "If the sick-room should be too confining for you, I pray you
to remember the rocks about the lake in the park at Panienka. My
remembrances to your charming wife. I hope soon to hear from you."
She inclined her head and reined in her horse for an instant longer, as
though awaiting an answer.
"I certainly will send you word with regard to the child's condition,"
Bernhard said, gravely.
She galloped off, and he again ordered the coachman to drive as fast as
possible.
The old man, however, who had listened with an impassive face to the
conversation between his master and the charming Julutta, took the
liberty of begging pardon once more, that he might inform Bernhard that
Madame von Wronsky's groom had met him to-day, and had questioned him
as to the exact hour of the Herr Count's arrival.
Bernhard's brow grew dark. His people then were aware, it seemed, of
his 'friendship,' and watched him. And she, Julutta, had not disdained
to learn what she wished concerning him through her groom. And she
seemed also to have made inquiries about him in Berlin. And yet, in
spite of all this interest, she had no comprehension of his anxiety
concerning his child! The sentiment with which he now regarded this
woman, for whose sake he had for an instant done violence to all that
was best in him, was more like hate than love. When at last he reached
Eichhof he sprang impatiently from the carriage.
"How is the child?" he asked of the footman who instantly appeared. The
man shook his head. "The doctor is up-stairs, Herr Count; I am afraid
he is no better."
Bernhard hurried to the sick-room and entered noiselessly. He saw Thea
leaning back in an armchair, deadly pale, and the physician occupied
with her. Beside the child's cradle two women knelt weeping. One glance
at the little form lying there told Bernhard that he was too late, that
all was over. For an instant he stood as though turned to stone. Then
the doctor perceived him. The old friend of the family could scarcely
speak to the young Count for a moment, but pressed his hand in silence.
"Is it all over?" Bernhard asked in a scarcely audible whisper,
pointing to the child.
The physician assented. "Human means were of no avail. He died of
convulsions."
"And my wife?"
"It is only a fainting-fit; but Countess Thea is terribly distressed."
Just then Thea opened her eyes, and, obeying his first impulse,
Bernhard hurried to her side and clasped her in his arms. For an
instant she allowed her head to rest upon his shoulder. Her whole frame
was shaken by convulsive sobs. Then she gently disengaged herself, and
sank on her knees beside the cradle, laying her head down upon the
pillow.
Bernhard stood beside her, profoundly agitated. Perfect silence reigned
in the room, which was broken at last by the physician's entreaty to
Thea to remember how much she needed care, and how overwrought she was.
She shook her head, and begged to be left alone with the child.
"It is best to let her have her way," the doctor said.
Bernhard once more stooped over her. "Thea!" he whispered. She waved
him off, and he left the room silently with the others. He saw that she
was determined to allow him no share in her grief. "And yet this grief
is the only, the last bond between us," he thought.
Through all these days Thea was so touching and yet so dignified in her
sorrow, that Bernhard knew, as he had never known before, how truly
she, and she alone, was the only woman whom he could ever love. In
spite of her suffering she found time to attend to his lightest wish.
He felt himself surrounded by her love, and yet he met with the same
gentle but firm repulse whenever he sought to approach her. His sorrow
for his child was scarcely more keen than his sorrow for the loss of
his wife. For that he had lost her was now clearer to him than ever;
and yet, strangely enough, he doubted more strongly every day whether
the cause of this loss was what he had hitherto supposed it to be. When
he saw her performing her duties so quietly, bearing her pain so
proudly and yet with such true womanliness, it seemed to him impossible
that she could ever have been other than proud and womanly. He began to
scrutinize himself and his conduct towards her, and to have doubts
whether the fault were not, after all, his own. But then he thought of
Lothar's death, of her refusal to answer his question, and of the total
change in her manner towards him from that time. Would she have agreed
to the letter he had written her then, if she were not guilty? Would
she not have eagerly sought an explanation with him had she been
innocent, instead of mutely avoiding it as she had done?
This was the state of affairs when, a few days after the child's
funeral, Thea entered his room. Since Lothar's death she had never done
so, and Bernhard, therefore, received her with surprise, and almost
with alarm; for he instantly saw by her face that the coming hour would
be decisive for them both. She seated herself in the armchair he placed
for her, and looked down at her hands, which were clasped in her lap.
There was no ring upon them.
It went to Bernhard's heart to observe that she had laid aside her
betrothal-ring, and yet he knew that so it must be.
He had not the courage to begin the conversation, and, after a pause,
she said, in a low tone, "I am come to remind you of that letter,--of
the letter in which you expressed your views of our relation to each
other. Our child is dead----" Her voice was choked for an instant, but
she went on: "There is nothing now to unite us. I propose going to
Schoenthal to-morrow."
He sat opposite her, his head leaning on his hand. "Can you not stay,
then?" he asked, gently.
She rose proudly, her self-possession entirely recovered. "No," she
cried, "I will not be endured out of pity!"
Bernhard rose in his turn, and looked her full in the face. "Pity?" he
repeated. "What do you mean, Thea?"
"I mean that you are sorry for me, that you think it will be hard for
me to leave the place where my child lies in his grave, the house in
which he was born. But I have borne heavier griefs, and I can bear that
too; and, although I know that your happiness does not depend alone
upon _your_ freedom, I am too proud to remain where I am only endured!"
He stared at her as if she were some phantom. "For God's sake, Thea,
tell me what you mean," he cried.
The expression of his face bewildered her. She paused again for a
moment.
Then he took her hand, and said, in a voice vibrating with emotion,
"This is perhaps the last time that we shall stand thus face to
face,--our last conversation. Thea, will you not answer truly and
frankly one question?"
"I have always been true," she replied, gazing past him as into space.
"Tell me, then, do you believe the cause that separates us to exist in
me? Do you believe that I desire our separation? and is there no reason
_known only to yourself_, no memory in _your_ soul, to keep us
asunder?"
She covered her eyes with her hand, as if dazzled by a sudden light. A
slight tremor passed through her frame, and a delicate flush coloured
the pale, resigned face. Bernhard gazed at her in breathless eagerness;
but, even before she spoke, he was overpowered by the conviction that
this woman could not be false; that he had been the victim of an
illusion.
"I have no such memory," said Thea, helplessly dropping her clasped
hands before her. "Nothing in this world except yourself could ever
separate me from you. I thought----"
Before she could utter another word she was clasped in his arms. "Thea!
my own Thea! what useless misery we have caused each other!"
She extricated herself in utter bewilderment from his embrace.
"And do you still love me, then?" she asked.
"More deeply and truly than on our marriage-day," he said, fervently.
"And Julutta Wronsky----"
"Ah, dearest child, let me tell you all. I will confess everything to
you,--all the doubts that have so tortured me."
She looked at him in amazement. "Doubts?" she repeated.
"Yes, my darling; foolish doubts. I know them to be so now, but they
were terrible. Do you remember refusing me any explanation with regard
to Lothar? Then I----"
"Ah, poor Lothar! I, too, have something to tell you, Bernhard."
She nestled close to him, and he told her of his adventures with
Julutta Wronsky. He did not even suppress the account of the fleeting
emotion of that moment when he thought he loved her; he told her all;
and she listened to him, without doubt, without reproach, with the
entire confidence of a woman who loves.
"We have both been blind," she said; "but only when we doubted of each
other's love did we learn how valueless life was to us without it. Oh,
Bernhard, how wretched we have been!"
"And how blest we are once more,--each living in the other's heart!"
"Oh, why is our child not with us?" Thea cried.
He kissed the tears from her eyes. "He has been our guardian angel, my
darling," he said. "He has reunited us; for who can say how long we
should have been estranged from each other without this sorrow?"
Late in the afternoon of this day Thea carried a bunch of white roses
to the little chapel; Bernhard was with her, and as they entered he
took one of the fragrant rosebuds from her hand and laid it on Lothar's
coffin.
"_Requiescat in pace_," he whispered softly.
Hand in hand they stood before their child's coffin, one in their
sorrow, one in their love. The last rays of the setting sun streamed
through the stained glass of the window and played upon the wreaths and
palm branches, and when Bernhard and Thea left the chapel, forest and
field lay before them bathed in the red gold of sunset, and they walked
hand in hand through the nodding grasses and bright flowers of the
little grave-yard towards a new life in the old home.
CONCLUSION.
Years have flown by. A stock company has taken in hand the railway in
which Bernhard was so much interested, and there is a station at R----,
where the express-train from Warschau is just arriving.
A man with a dark sunburned face is leaning out of a coupe window,
looking eagerly across the platform towards the town and the poplar
avenue leading to Eichhof. Then he scans those who are leaving and
those who are entering the train, and a shadow of melancholy clouds his
brow.
"Strangers, all strangers!" he murmurs. "How changed it is! The same
place, and yet so different; and no one here to recognize me."
Just then a gentleman with a full gray beard came hurriedly from the
waiting-room. The signal for departure sounded, and the porter opened
the coupe door in great haste, and the gray-bearded individual took his
seat beside our traveller. The two men scanned each other for an
instant, and then he of the sunburned face said, "If I am not mistaken,
chance has led two old acquaintances into the same railway-carriage.
Are you not Herr Superintendent Bergmann from Eichhof?"
"Most certainly; and I think I call to mind----"
"Ah!" laughed the stranger, "I see you do not know who I am. The sun on
the Bulgarian battlefields has tanned me past recognition. Do you not
remember Lieutenant Werner, Lothar Eichhof's comrade?"
"Ah! Lieutenant Werner, forgive me. But you are Colonel Werner now, I
hear, with a breast covered with orders. The newspapers have kept us
advised with regard to you. How much my Count will be interested to
hear of this meeting! We have all rejoiced in your advancement."
Werner shook his head. "Advancements are for the most part the work of
chance," he said; "but, in spite of some terrible experiences, these
last years have been the most interesting of my life. I could write
books, let me tell you; indeed, I will not promise not to write them.
But let us leave the Turks and Russians, of whom I have latterly seen
quite enough, and let me hear something of my old friends and
acquaintances. First, how goes everything at Eichhof?"
The old man smiled. "Admirably; as it must, I think, where an honest
man does his duty, and Count Bernhard is a fine fellow and does his
duty well,--sometimes, we think, rather exceeds it. I always said, when
people used to shake their heads at him, 'He is young; only wait, and
you'll see he'll come all right.' And now he has come all right. Since
he ceased to look abroad for a sphere of action, and made up his mind
to do what lay nearest to him, he has enjoyed his work. You ought to
pay us a visit and see how well everything goes on. His people would go
through fire and water to serve him."
"And his wife? How is the Countess?"
"Oh, you ought to see her! She grows younger and prettier every year.
One need only look in her eyes to see how happy she is, when she walks
through fields and gardens on her husband's arm, with their two fine
boys playing about them. And our youngest--the little Countess Thea--is
a perfect rosebud. Yes, laugh,--I confess to a weakness for these
children; they are like grandchildren to me. Have I not had Count
Bernhard in my arms when he was no older than they?"
Werner gazed thoughtfully from the window. "Three children, have they?
It is really strange to hear of such a happy household, with the
thunder of trumpets and cannon scarcely out of one's ears. Well,
perhaps I will come to Eichhof in the autumn. I should have liked to
stop there to-day, but I have urgent business in Berlin."
"Why, then, you can hunt up the Count. He is there now."
"Ah! I had forgotten the Reichstag."
"No, he is no longer a member of the Reichstag. He has so much
practical work to attend to that he has no time for theorizing, even
politically; but he is there to attend a family festival,--the
christening of the first boy of Walter Eichhof, our youngest."
"Ah! is he married?"
"Yes; to the love of his boyhood, the daughter of the old Freiherr von
Hohenstein."
"Had he not some idea formerly of becoming a physician?"
"He is a physician, and a fine one, I can tell you. Our Count was in a
terrible way about it at first, but Countess Thea insisted that the boy
was right, and the brothers were reconciled when Walter was betrothed.
He undertook the management of Dr. Nordstedt's large infirmary when
Nordstedt was called to a professor's chair in Strasburg. You know, I
suppose, that Fraeulein Alma, our Countess's sister, is married to
Professor Nordstedt?"
"I think I heard of that before I left Germany. I certainly must look
up my old acquaintances. This vagabond life makes one a terrible
stranger in his home."
The locomotive whistles, the next station is reached, and the
superintendent takes his leave of Werner, who leans back in a corner of
the coupe and falls into a revery. The past rises before him like a
dream. He sees Thea in memory the same, and yet so different. He can
think of her now as of some lovely picture, which one admires and
enjoys without coveting, and he can ponder upon the past without
remorse.
"What a wonder life is!" he muses, as the train speeds on. "But it all
amounts to the fact that if you would be happy--and who would not?--you
must do what is right."
THE END.
By Captain Charles King, U.S.A
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