CHAPTER XXIII.

THE FREIHERR ASSERTS HIS AUTHORITY.

When the Freiherr heard of Johanna's departure, he had for the moment no thought save of the insult it offered to his authority. But when his first anger had passed away, he said to himself that it might mean something more than merely anxiety for her little sister. Johanna's absence from meals on the previous day, Otto's conduct, Thekla's distressed face, all taken together suggested to the Freiherr some disagreement between the lovers. He determined to question Otto himself upon the subject, and made Tannhagen the goal of his morning ride.

When half-way there, he met Otto. Aunt Thekla had sent him Johanna's note, and he was betaking himself to consult with her as to what was to be done. He was startled when at a turn of the road he perceived the tall figure of the Freiherr upon his gray gelding. He could not avoid him, so, summoning all his courage, he rode towards him.

"Do you know that Johanna has gone off?" his grandfather asked him after their first salutations, and as he spoke his gaze seemed to pierce the young man's very soul.

"So she writes me," he replied, trying in vain to appear indifferent under the Freiherr's gaze.

"Indeed! I should like to know something more about it. Ride back with me to Doenninghausen," said the Freiherr, turning his horse that way. "And now, frankly, what has occurred between you?"

"Really, sir, I do not know. I should not like to accuse----" Otto stammered.

"Have I asked you to?" the Freiherr exclaimed, impatiently. "I only wish to know whether the silly child's flight is your fault; and if it is, you will go after her and bring your foolish lady fair back again."

Otto was startled. "Indeed, sir----" he began, hesitatingly.

The Freiherr interrupted him: "Deuce take you, lad, what kind of a face is that to wear? You look as if I were sending you after the devil's grandmother instead of in pursuit of a silly child who has wellnigh lost, on your account, the atom of woman's wit that she possessed!" Then he added, more seriously, "You can tell her that this time mercy shall wait on justice, but there must be no more escapades. Of course you must have your quarrels,--lovers cannot live without them,--but you will please to keep them to yourselves. I beg you to arrange them so that I and the peace of my household shall not be implicated."

For a while they rode along silently side by side. Otto, who had been too self-occupied to have any correct idea of Johanna's state of mind, had read her note with mingled astonishment and indignation. He did not divine the pain concealed beneath the apparent calm of her words; he only saw that she could give him up. He thought her conduct hard, cold, and selfish, and he held himself absolved by the scandal she had caused from all duties towards her, and entirely justified in exculpating himself as best he might. She had expressly required that he should give their grandfather a credible explanation of their separation. He would do so.

"My dear grandfather," he said, after he had taken time for reflection, "as matters stand, I find to my regret that I must acquaint you somewhat with the cause of the present disagreement between Johanna and myself."

"Be brief, then!" the Freiherr exclaimed. "Give me the principal facts. I cannot stand childish bickerings."

"Just as you please," Otto replied, his task thus made more easy. "The first as well as the last cause is Johanna's position with regard to her step-mother's unfortunate second marriage. I require her to break at once and forever with the family of the 'equestrian artist.' She refuses to do so, and takes the first opportunity that offers to bid defiance to my wishes and requests."

"Nonsense!" the Freiherr cried, angrily. "I ought to have been told this. But she can be brought to reason. You can go for her----"

"To the house of a circus-rider! Never!" Otto declared, with an amount of resolution that the next moment surprised himself.

His grandfather's eyes flashed, but he seemed to reflect before saying, "There is something in that." And then, after another pause, he added, "We will write. I will give her the choice between Doenninghausen and these people, and you can tell her whatever seems to you just and kind. If she should then perceive her folly, let the whole stupid affair be forgotten."

They rode the rest of the way in silence. As soon as they reached Doenninghausen, the Freiherr seated himself at his writing-table, and wrote thus:

"DEAR JOHANNA,--When my sister told me of your departure this morning, I thought you wanting in respect to leave us as you did, without asking my permission, especially as you were going to people with whom I do not wish to have the slightest degree of intercourse. By way of excuse for you, I reflected that anxiety for your little sister had probably caused you to disregard for the moment the duty you owe to me and to the rules of my household. I take a different view of the matter now that I learn that your intercourse with the family of this circus-rider has been for some time the cause of serious disagreement between Otto and yourself. At first he was reluctant to explain, but upon my urgent desire to know the truth he has told me all. You know, my child, how much I love you, and how willing I am to have you act as you see fit; but here you are wrong and must submit. The honour of our family requires that you should sever all former ties. Come back, then, as soon as you can. Otto, whom I wished to send for you, declares that he cannot take you from the house of a circus-rider, which proves to me that he is more of a Doenninghausen than I thought him. In your veins also flows the blood of our race, and I expect you to show yourself worthy of it. In spite of your mother's errors we have received you into the family as one of us, and we must now require you to have no further connection with your father's former wife and her child. Only explain to Otto that you are ready to agree to this, and all will be smooth again between you. Should your step-sister be seriously ill, I do not require you to leave her immediately; but you must do so as soon as you are relieved concerning her, and in the mean time you will carefully avoid appearing in public with any member of the circus-rider's family. Answer particularly at what time you intend to return, and accept the cordial good wishes of your affectionate grandfather,

"JOHANN FREIHERR V. DOeNNINGHAUSEN."

The Freiherr gave this letter to Otto to read and to supplement, saying, "I have told the silly child what I require without circumlocution; now you can sweeten the pill of obedience to her as you please. You need not tone down what you want to say. I will not read what you write. Love-letters are interesting only to those for whom they are composed."

Would he have considered the following a love-letter?--

"Your hasty departure, dear Johanna, has unfortunately still further complicated matters. If you only would have granted me an interview, you would have forgiven me, I feel sure, and the delightful relations existing between our grandfather and yourself need not have been disturbed by any discord. But I have no idea of reproaching you. I only entreat you, as earnestly as I can, to deliver me from the false position you have forced me to take to our grandfather. One word of forgiveness and a promise to return, and all will be well. Think of the happy hours we have passed together, of the fair future that lies before us, and believe in the repentance and love of your

"OTTO."

Aunt Thekla also wrote a long letter, in which some passages were almost obliterated by her tears, repeating everything that she had said on the previous day, and then the epistles were all despatched, and the Freiherr awaited with certainty the answer he desired.

A letter from Johanna to her grandfather arrived after a week's delay, with an enclosure for Aunt Thekla, but not a line for Otto.

The Freiherr's letter ran thus:

"DEAR GRANDFATHER,--Since receiving your letter I have passed the days and nights in terrible anxiety beside my little sister's bed. Her disease is nervous fever, and she was at first dangerously ill, but the fever is gradually, I trust, subsiding, and I am apparently able to take more repose. But only apparently, for since I have been somewhat easier in mind with regard to Lisbeth I have been all the more miserable with regard to myself; and if I have at last arrived at a conclusion, it is with no sense of victory, and my heart trembles as well as my hand while I write that I cannot return to Doenninghausen. If Otto means to propose to me the alternative of severing myself either from you or from my father, whose memory I cherish in those he has left behind him, we have never understood each other, never loved each other, and I give him back his troth. That a separation from him deprives me also of you, of Aunt Thekla, and of a home which I love, is the severest trial that could befall me; but I must bear it. Farewell, dear, dear grandfather! Forgive me. Do not think me ungrateful; and, in spite of appearances, believe in the unalterable love and veneration of your grand-daughter

"JOHANNA."

The Freiherr had long finished reading the letter, when he still sat gazing at the uncertain characters in which Johanna's usual firm, clear handwriting was hardly to be recognized. _This_ he had not expected,--had not thought possible. But if she could thus resign Doenninghausen, without even asking if some compromise were not possible, he, too, would hold unalterably to the justice of his course.

"Read that!" he said at last, in a harsh, hoarse tone, as he handed the sheet to his sister. "Tell Otto how the matter stands. I do not want to speak of the foolish girl again."