CHAPTER V.

SCIENCE AND FAITH.

The dawning day strove in vain to lift the misty veil that a rainy night had spread over hill and dale. It was one of those mornings when the waning summer--like a belle whose charms are of the past in her morning dishabille--showed plainly that its glories were fading. The rising sun crept behind the cold, misty clouds, and the bushes were dripping with tears of regret. The faithful watcher, who had stood on guard all night near the castle, shook the wet from his cloak and shivered as he looked in the direction of the school-house, whence relief was to arrive.

He did not wait long. The powerful figure of a young man appeared briskly advancing through the mist. Slowly and sleepily the clock in the tower of the village church tolled half-past four.

"To a moment!" cried the watcher to the new arrival. "This is punctuality indeed!"

"Good-morning!" said Walter. "Brr! the air is cold. You must be almost frozen."

"Not more so than the huntsman on the watch," replied Johannes. "Ardour for the chase makes him warm. I burn and long to clutch that beast of prey up there. Oh, Walter, I am not easily roused,--my nature is a quiet one,--but if that man had tried to slip away in the night, and had fallen into my hands, I could not have answered for the consequences."

"I do not wonder at you," laughed Walter. "Nothing would gratify me more than a chance at the fellow. How did you spend the night? Could you not sit down?"

"No, I was not calm enough to do anything but pace to and fro, and now it is beginning to tell upon my wearied limbs."

"Make haste, then, and get dry and warm. My father is impatiently expecting you. He is up and dressed, and my mother has a good cup of coffee waiting for you."

"How kind you all are!" said Johannes. "But I am very anxious, Walter. Gleissert was with Ernestine until midnight. From the hill yonder I could see their heads through the window. They appeared to be in eager conversation, and moved about, as if they were packing. Oh, if she can possibly intend----"

"Do not be in the least alarmed,--she cannot, after what you have told her."

"But how, after what I have told her, can she endure that man about her for hours? How can she breathe the air of the room where he is, for even ten minutes?"

"Hm--it does seem incredible. But, whatever happens, we have nothing to do but to watch and be ready. I will do my duty in this respect. Go, now, and rest for a couple of hours, that you may relieve me at school-time. Had you only allowed me to watch in your place, he would have found me as difficult as you to deal with."

"You help me enough by assisting me during the day. Good-by, then. I shall be back at eight o'clock." And Johannes walked slowly and wearily towards the school-house. When he entered the low, dimly-lighted room, he found the steaming coffee-pot already upon the table. Frau Leonhardt had seen him coming, and all was in readiness for him.

Herr Leonhardt sat in his place by the stove, and held out his hand with a kind but anxious "Good-morning! How are you after your unwonted duty through the night?"

"Tolerably, old friend," replied Johannes, "but I cannot deny that my respect has considerably increased since yesterday for the honourable guild of watchmen.--No, thank you, Frau Leonhardt, I cannot eat anything."

"Oh, do not drink your coffee without a morsel of something solid. Well, if you do not wish it--but, you see, here it is!"

"Yes, my dear Frau Leonhardt, I see it," Johannes assured her, with a smiling glance at the great basketful of biscuits.

"You must know that my Brigitta was up half the night to prepare her most tempting biscuits for your breakfast,--it is all she could do for you. Yes, Brigitta, the Herr Professor can appreciate your good will."

"Indeed I can," said Johannes. "Such womanly kindness is dear to me wherever I meet with it. Your labour shall not be in vain." And he forced himself to eat.

"Oh," said Brigitta, "if the Fraeulein had known that you were walking up and down beneath her windows in the cold night, she would have been grieved enough, and filled with pity!"

"The Fraeulein knows no pity, my dear Frau Leonhardt," said Johannes bitterly.

The old man laid his hand kindly upon Johannes' shoulder. "You do not mean what you say. You cannot think so meanly of her--your impatience speaks now, not you. If you could only understand her noble nature as I do, who am not blinded by passion!"

"But, Father Leonhardt, I do not deny Ernestine's noble nature. Should I devote myself to her as I am now doing after her rejection of me, if I did not know her to be more than worthy of all that I can do? But if you could have seen her rigid, marble face yesterday, you would have questioned, as I did, whether that young girl really possessed a heart."

"Indeed, indeed she does possess one," affirmed the old man. "But remember, Herr Professor, her heart has hitherto been fed solely through her understanding. She has had nothing to love but ideas. Human beings she has known nothing of. What wonder, then, if she imagines that she should love only where her intellect can say Amen? That Amen cannot be said in your case, for you have opposed all that has hitherto had the warrant of her intellect, which must needs be in arms against you, and the oppressed young heart must mutely acquiesce. Ernestine's intellect is that of a full-grown man, while her sensibilities are as undeveloped as those of a girl of fifteen. The consequence is that incessant contradictions appear in her conduct. Give these undeveloped sensibilities time, do not stunt them by coldness, and you will see them assert their rights in opposition to the intellect. She might almost be called a kind of Caspar Hauser in the world of sentiment. She is not at home there. She needs a patient teacher, and such a one she will find in you, I am sure. Do all that you can to prevent her from going to America; if she goes, she is as good as dead for us."

"Rely upon me, faithful and wise old friend," cried Johannes, and fresh resolution was depicted on his face. "I will do all that I can for her,--not for my own sake, but for hers."

"If you have finished your breakfast, you must take some rest," said Leonhardt. "My wife has arranged a bed for you."

"I accept your kindness gratefully," replied Johannes, "for I am exhausted, and have a fatiguing day before me."

"Then let me show you to your room. That service even a blind man can render you," said the old man with a smile.

And the two ascended to the upper story, where Herr Leonhardt opened a door and showed his guest into a scrupulously neat little apartment, containing a most inviting bed. Then he groped about, assuring himself that all was as it should be, and returned to the room below, saying, as he closed the door, "Take a good sleep,--you may need the strength it will give you."

"Thanks, a thousand thanks, Father Leonhardt!" Johannes cried after him, and he listened to the careful tread of his kind host upon the narrow stairway. Then his eyes closed. Frau Brigitta's words sounded in his ears, "If the Fraeulein had known that you were walking up and down beneath her windows in the cold night----"

She must have known it. He had told her plainly enough that he should do so, and she had not even opened a window or looked out at him. But stay,--stay! She would come out to him herself. See! see! The gate opened softly. Was her uncle with her? No! She was alone,--quite alone! "Come," she whispered, "you are cold. Come in." And she took his hands and breathed upon them and rubbed them. "Will you not come into the house?" she asked. "There you can watch for my uncle and be out of the rain, and I will stay with you and never, never leave you."

"Ernestine," cried Johannes, stretching out his arms to embrace her. The sudden motion awoke him, and he found himself alone. He could not have slept more than a quarter of an hour, and yet he could not go to sleep again. He lay quietly resting for a time, and then arose, prepared to go through with the decisive day that awaited him.

Evening had come. As on the previous day, Ernestine was sitting at her writing-table, but it was empty now. Its contents were packed up in the chests which were standing in the room, locked and ready for the voyage. Ernestine sat idly, with her hands in her lap, listening to her uncle's directions to the weeping housekeeper in reference to the price at which she was to dispose of the furniture of the house.

"The scientific works and the apparatus I shall leave to Walter Leonhardt," she said.

"What!" cried Leuthold. "Are you going to give away at least a thousand thalers?" He paused, with a glance at Frau Willmers, who had the tact to leave the room. "Why throw money out of the window, now that we are beggared?"

"The thousand thalers that the things would bring would not keep me from starving, while they will secure the young man's future. He has talents that must not run to waste, and which I can foster by giving him the means of pursuing his studies."

"Is it possible? You think it your duty, then, to foster all neglected genius?"

"Uncle," said Ernestine with cold severity, "I pray you spare me your opinion of my conduct. The habit of submission, it appears, is more easily discarded than that of ruling. I have cast aside the former, since yesterday, like a garment. It would be well for you to do the same with the latter."

"But I thought I might at least be suffered to advise," observed Leuthold.

"I will ask your advice when I think it necessary. In this matter it is enough that I choose to do as I have said."

Leuthold regarded her immovable features with a mixture of fear and hatred, and thought to himself, "Once let me get you on the other side of the water, and in my power, and you shall atone bitterly for all the trouble that you give me now."

And his restless fancy painted vividly before his mind's eye the revenge that awaited him in that new world, and an ugly smile was upon his lips as he thought of all that his niece's proud nature would have to endure.

Ernestine arose. "There are only a few hours left before our departure," she said. "I must be sure that my intentions will be carried out."

She went into her laboratory, and packed up, as well as she could, the apparatus that she designed for Walter. Then she reopened the letter that she was to leave with Willmers for Leonhardt, and added these words, "Come what may, I pray you preserve these books and instruments for me as relics. Say they are yours, or they will be snatched from you and from me."

Thus she made her gift secure from the clutches of the law. She knew Leuthold well enough to feel sure that he would not seek to prevent its removal from the house if he could not keep it for his niece. Then she sent off the chests from the laboratory, and went into the library to select the books that Walter was to have. Leuthold hurried in, and said to her, "Moellner is coming! Now, Ernestine, summon up all your resolution!" His teeth fairly chattered with agitation. "Be strong, Ernestine. A human life is at stake! If you do not save me from Moellner's revenge and from the law, I am a dead man! By the life of my child,--dearer to me than aught else on earth,--I swear to you that I will commit suicide sooner than put on a convict's jacket! Now act accordingly."

Ernestine gazed at him with horror. At last he was speaking the truth! Sheer, blank despair was painted on his features.

"Uncle," she cried, "be calm! I will not drive you to suicide! My resolve is firm. Will you not be present?"

"No, that would make mischief. I will get everything ready for our departure, that nothing may detain us. Do not forget. We are reconciled,--do you hear? Will you tell him so?"

"I promise you."

"I will go. I will not meet him. Bless you for every kind word, and curses upon you if you should betray me."

He hurried away, and Ernestine looked after him with a shudder. A human life hung upon her lips! A curse awaited every thoughtless word that she might utter! She stood alone and helpless, burdened thus heavily, a young, inexperienced creature, scarcely able to bear the responsibility of her own actions. She spurred on her fainting energies to accomplish the almost superhuman task allotted to her.

Her dreaded visitor entered.

"Forgive me, Ernestine," he said, "for thus intruding unannounced. Your housekeeper directed me hither. This is no time for empty formalities. It is time for action, and, if need be, for a life-and-death struggle. I have just seen the chests sent off to Herr Leonhardt. I learn from Frau Willmers that you are going,--really going,--with your uncle. Ernestine, I have no words for the anguish that I am now enduring! I could submit to your rejection of my suit, for I might still love you, but to find you unworthy of my love, Ernestine, would be more than I can bear."

"And what could so degrade me in your eyes?" asked Ernestine with offended pride.

"Your not fleeing from such a villain, as from the Evil One himself,--your harbouring the intention of going forth into the world with one abhorred alike of God and man, not feeling sufficient detestation of the crime to induce you to avoid the criminal who must be shunned by every honest man. Oh, Ernestine, I cannot believe it now! I would rather die than believe it!"

"He has excused himself in my eyes," said Ernestine, deeply wounded. "He has convinced me that no human being should condemn another unheard. I am not conscious of such perfection and infallibility in myself as would permit me to dare to judge and denounce. That must be left for those better and stronger than I. The tie that bound me to him is, it is true, broken, but I must tread the same path that he treads. I cannot refuse to share his wanderings."

"Do you not fear the disgrace that will attach to you by thus joining your lot with that of a criminal, amenable to the law?"

"The law has no power over him. He has satisfied me with regard to my property, and, if I am content, it is enough."

"Good heavens! What security has he offered you? You are so inexperienced in such matters, he will deceive you again. Tell me, at least, what he has told you."

Ernestine stood more erect. Agitation almost choked her utterance, and, to conceal it, she put on a colder, sterner manner than usual. "When I tell you I am satisfied, it seems to me that should content you."

"Ernestine," cried Johannes, "why do you adopt this tone with me? I am acting and thinking only for you and your interest, and you treat me like a foe."

"For all that you have done and are doing for me, I am grateful to you, as also for your kind intentions. But now, I pray you, leave to me all care for my future fate. I feel fully competent to direct it."

"I tell you, Ernestine, that, whether you will it or not, I must snatch you from the abyss upon whose brink you are tottering. And first I will make sure of your companion. He has not given me the securities for your property that I required, the respite that I allowed him is past, the twenty-four hours for reflection have gone." He turned towards the door.

"Dr. Moellner, what are you about to do?" cried Ernestine.

"Give him up to justice."

Ernestine placed herself in his way. "You must not do that!"

"And why not?"

"You will not attempt to avenge what I have forgiven. You will not so intrude into my life as to make it impossible for me to decide whether I will punish or forgive a crime that affects me alone. You are about to publish abroad my affairs, and I demand for myself the right to regulate my own private affairs as it may seem to me best. I cannot allow a stranger--yes, I say, a stranger--to meddle thus with the concerns of two human beings, as if he were an emissary of the Holy Vehm!"

"Ernestine!" gasped Johannes.

"I repeat it," she continued, "I am grateful for your kind intentions. But the best intentions result in unwelcome violence when they would rob a human being, of the right of free choice. I insist upon this most sacred of all rights, and forbid you any further interference with my fate, and, as my uncle's lot is so closely allied to mine that in striking him you would harm me, I hope you are sufficiently chivalric to desist from further persecution of him." Almost fainting, she leaned against the door.

"Fraeulein von Hartwich," replied Johannes, controlling himself with difficulty, "you propose a hard trial for my patience. But I can forgive you, for you are a true woman." Ernestine started at these words, but he entreated silence by a gesture. "You are a woman, and, as such, easily aroused, easily deceived. Your uncle has taken advantage of this fact. You do not dream what you are doing in following the fortunes of this bad man. I thought I had opened your eyes yesterday, but I was mistaken. You saw, but I did not teach you to understand what you saw. I will retrieve my error. I will explain to you the motives for your uncle's course of action."

"I have already told you," replied Ernestine, "that I know them. I need no further explanation. He has sinned, grievously sinned,--who can deny it? Not he himself. But his life has been dedicated to me with a devotion rare enough in our selfish world. He has lived for me ever since I was a child, and all his errors sprang from the dread of losing me. This is, perhaps, incredible to you, because from your point of view it is inconceivable that a man should entirely give himself up to the training of a woman's mind. To you a life spent solely in intellectual association with a woman seems impossible, and of course you would accuse of falsehood a man who professes to prefer such a life to all others. Therefore I know beforehand all you would say, and would be spared the listening to it now."

"Ernestine," cried Johannes, fairly roused, "you must hear me, or, by Heaven, I do not know you!"

He paused for one moment. Ernestine looked down, and apparently awaited what he had to say.

"Yes, then, yes,--you are perfectly right. It does seem to me an impossibility that a man should make it the sole aim of his existence to develop the intellect of a woman. I can love as deeply as man can love. You know that I love you, and, were you mine, I would adore you, and you only, with my whole heart and soul, truly and unchangeably, until death separated us. But, in my love for you, to forego all other interests and duties in life, to idle away in delicious intercourse with you all opportunities for true manly exertion,--that I could not do, truly and warmly as I love you. It would be the part of a woman,--not of a man, who has public as well as private duties to fulfil. I have no confidence in a man who pretends to lead such a life out of simple affection for a relative. He must have some other purpose in view, and I believe that your uncle's purpose in this matter was a detestable one, leading him to sin against you in a way that God alone can justly punish. He would sacrifice everything for money--he would murder alike body and soul. Stay--be calm for a few moments. I will justify these terrible accusations. The theft of your fortune has been the purpose that he has kept steadily in view ever since he was your guardian. The possession of this property seems to have been the fixed idea of his life, for he induced your father at one time to bequeath it to him, leaving you, notwithstanding his boasted affection for you, only what the law accords to you. Heim prevailed upon your father to destroy this will and to reinstate you in your rights. But he was not sufficiently prudent, for the will that your father then dictated left too much margin for your uncle's administration. He longed to recover what he had lost, and circumstances favoured his desire. Your father, in his will, as you can see from this copy of it, stated that in case of your dying unmarried your entire fortune should go to Gleissert or his children. When your father died, matters looked propitious for Leuthold, for little Ernestine was such a frail, sickly child that he cherished a hope almost amounting to a certainty that the delicate cord of life that kept him from his inheritance would soon break, and give him all that he coveted. But the pale, quiet child confounded his plans by recovering her health Und strength. Hers was a rare nature, and recuperated quickly, both physically and mentally. The hope that she would die grew fainter and fainter, but he could not so easily relinquish the prospect of possessing her fortune. If he might not secure the inheritance, he could at least secure the person of the heir, and contrive to keep you, Ernestine, from marrying, since the money could be his only in the event of your dying single. To this end, you must be secluded from the world, and, that you might not miss its amusements, your restless spirit must be introduced to a new realm,--the realm of the intellect. Therefore he studiously concealed from you your coming of age, lest it should occur to you to break the bonds of the strict control to which you were subjected, and mingle with your kind. This was the plan of your education, this the reason of your uncle's tender solicitude for you. The time and trouble expended upon you were all in the way of business, a fair exchange for the ninety thousand thalers and the contingent advantages that he trusted to obtain thereby. He could never have attained such a competency as a German professor. This is criminal legacy-hunting. And now for my accusation of murder. I do not mean by it a murder with poison or dagger,--he is too cowardly and too prudent for that,--but he made use of a poison which, if it were not as quick in its effects as arsenic, at least possessed this advantage over it--no chemist could detect it, and no law punish its use. The body was to be destroyed through the mind. He knew how to foster in your passionate heart an ambition that dreaded no labour, that, in its burning desire to attain its ends, pursued them with a feverish haste that never heeded whether the physical frame were equal or not to such unceasing exertion. Oh, the plan was ingenious, but there were eyes, thank God! that saw through it. It is true he did not stand at your back with a rod, like a severe schoolmaster, to urge you on,---he did not compel you to work all night long, denying yourself the only refreshment that could strengthen your shattered nerves,--sleep,--but he contrived that you should do all this voluntarily. He saw you droop, and took no notice of it. He would not kill you with his own hand, but he put into yours the poison with which you should do it yourself, and, when the natural love of life in you spoke out and entreated aid, he forbade you to summon a physician, lest he should save you by an antidote! Thus, consciously and voluntarily, he has let you sicken and languish, and now he would carry you to America to bury you there. So much for the grounds of my accusation of physical murder. And now as to his murder of your soul. I said before that your uncle had secluded you from the world to make sure of your never marrying. How could he do this? By making you an object of aversion to society at large--by hardening your heart, so that you might never feel the desire for loving intercourse and companionship stirring within you. He accomplished these ends by making you a skeptic. And were this the only crime that he is guilty of towards you, it would justify any punishment, however severe,--any contempt, however profound."

"If this is all that you have to say, I can only reply that you talk like a theologian, not like a physiologist," said Ernestine, vainly endeavouring to conceal her horror. "It is possible that there is some foundation for your other accusations of Doctor Gleissert,--I will not decide upon them at present,--but for this last there is none, or, at least, none in the degree that you mean. Yes, he did take from me my faith, but in its place he gave me that philosophy which is the resting-place of all thought, and wherein alone the doubting spirit can find peace."

"Oh, what a miserable mistake!" cried Johannes. "Do you suppose that anything can take the place of faith in the world? Can a soul as lofty as your own be content with the mere knowledge of the laws that rule the universe, without raising reverential eyes to the Power whom those laws represent? Forgive me if I talk like a theologian. Let me be clear with you upon this point too, before we part. I would at least restore to you one possession of which your uncle has robbed you, and that belongs to women in an eminent degree, far more than to men,--the power of seeing heaven open when the earth does not suffice us!"

Ernestine gazed at him in utter amazement: "Do you speak thus, you, a man of exact science,--a science that teaches how everything in existence is developed from itself! What is left for us to reverence in the God whom you would seem to declare, after we have learned that nature of itself alone creates and achieves everything?"

Johannes shook his head. "Oh, Ernestine, can we believe in Him only by believing that his Spirit hovered over the face of the waters and created the heavens and the earth in six days? I think we have learned to separate this gross material representation from the actual being of God! Thus only can faith and knowledge join hands, and I am one of those in whose minds they have thus formed an alliance, although perhaps not without a struggle. I can give my belief no concrete shape, I have not the simplicity that is satisfied with a Deity compounded of human attributes and powers, but the fervent aspiration that looks up and holds fast to my formless God,--this aspiration is my rock of safety."

"That is only a subjective emotion. What does it prove?"

"Nothing!" said Johannes. "For the existence of a God can be as little proved as disproved. I might say He is to the world what the soul is to the body, and we cannot give form to the soul in our minds. The organs of the body work in obedience to unchangeable laws, but, although they thus work, they are under the control of the soul, and, although we can explain never so exactly the mechanism that the soul puts in motion at its good pleasure, we cannot explain how it thinks and desires. Are we therefore to deny that it does think and desire? But I know what little value will attach to such comparisons in your eyes, for you will demand logical proof of the truth of my parallel, and this I cannot give you."

Ernestine was lost in thought. "I never should have conceived it possible that such a man as you are could believe in the existence of a God!"

"If you will listen, I will tell you how faith first entered into my heart. I was a wayward lad, just emancipated from the ignorant illusions of childhood, with a living desire for the Infinite in my heart,--longing to prove scientifically the existence of the God in whom I no longer believed. In my ignorance of myself, I naturally fell into the way of that spurious philosophy which the science of to-day looks back upon with contempt, and--to use Du Bois' words--racked my brain for awhile over the riddle of Being, human and divine. My affections were warm,--I loved those belonging to me, and especially my little sister Angelika. One day the child was taken dangerously ill, and, as she was more devoted to me than to any other member of the family, I watched with her through long nights with fraternal tenderness. The child suffered greatly, and one night in particular her cries fairly broke my heart. My mother at last took her little hands in her own, clasped them, and said, 'Pray, my darling,--pray to God. He may grant your prayer!' And the child, suppressing her sobs, cried, 'Ah, dear God, take away my pain!' And I--I flung myself upon my knees and prayed fervently, I knew not what,--I knew not to whom,--no matter! I prayed. I heard my mother's voice say Amen, and I repeated Amen,--almost unconsciously. The child was soothed, grew calm, looked up to heaven with childlike trust, then smiled upon us and went to sleep with her head upon my breast,--her first sound sleep after a week of suffering. I listened to her breathing, it was soft and regular. I was filled then with an emotion such as I had never before experienced,--tears came to my eyes. I could have embraced the world in my delight,--no, a world would not suffice me, I needed a God beside. What shall I say,--how explain it in words? Like the girl born blind, in the poem, that believed she _saw_ when she _loved_, I loved the God to whom I had prayed, and because I loved Him I saw Him with my heart!"

He paused, and looked at Ernestine, who had listened with sympathy.

"That is the very essence of faith," he continued. "No reason can give it to you or take it from you. One single agonized moment taught me what science and philosophy had failed to teach. I found by the bedside of a child the God for whom my intellect had vainly searched earth and skies. From this time I learned to keep myself open to conviction. I now first became an exact physiologist. I no longer set fantastic bounds to science, I no longer adulterated my pure contemplation of nature with metaphysical notions, but confined myself strictly to the actual, and it never conflicted with my feelings, for Science itself pauses before the first cause of all Being, and says, 'Thus far, and no farther,' and here, where my knowledge ceases, my faith begins!"

"You speak well, but you do not convince me," said Ernestine sadly.

"I see. I know that the remedy for your disease does not lie in the words or the example of others, but in your own experience. I prophesy, if you are ever overwhelmed by a moment of despair, that you will waken to the need of that God whom you now ignore. Even were it not to be so, I could only pity you, for a woman who cannot pray is a bird with broken wings. I maintain that there is no woman who does not believe,--for there is none who does not _fear_, and fear looks in reverence to God, whether as avenging justice or protecting love, to which to flee when all other aid fails. Can you be the sole exception to this rule?"

"I hope so," said Ernestine proudly. "I am not one of those weaklings who dread danger in the dark. I look every phantom of terror boldly in the face, and can recognize its natural origin. I fear nothing, and have no need of a God."

"You fear nothing?" asked Johannes, and then, struck by a sudden thought, added, "Not even death?"

"Not even death! I know that I am but a part of universal matter, and must return to it again. What is there to fear? The dissolution of a personal existence in the great sum of things,--the transformation of one substance into another? Since I learned to think, I have constantly pondered this great law of nature, and have accustomed myself to consider my insignificant existence only as part and parcel of the wondrous transmutation of matter perpetually taking place in the universe. Only when we have attained this conviction can we smilingly renounce our vain claim to individual immortality, and see in death the due tribute that we pay to nature for our life."

"Indeed? And you imagine that this consolation will stand you in stead when the time really comes for you to descend into that dark abyss which is illuminated for you by no ray of faith or hope?"

"I am sure of it."

"And if you were plunged into it before the appointed time?"

"I should not quarrel with the measure of existence that nature accorded me."

"You would not, however, curtail that existence intentionally?"

Ernestine looked at him in surprise. "No, assuredly not."

"Are you not afraid of doing so by going to America?"

"Why should I fear it?--on account of the dangers of the sea, perhaps? Oh, no. It has borne millions of lives in safety upon its waves,--why not mine also? It will be more merciful than my kind, I think."

"Then you are still determined to go, after all that I have told you of your uncle?"

"With him or without him, I shall go," said Ernestine.

"Well, then, God is my witness that I have tried my best! Now,--you will think me cruel, but I cannot help it,--one remedy still is left me,--a terrible one, but your proud courage gives me strength to use it. Ernestine, if you persist in your determination to undertake this voyage, I fear the time is close at hand when the genuineness of your philosophical consolation will be tried indeed. You will hardly live to reach New York."

Ernestine grew, if possible, paler than before at these words. "What reason have you to say so?" she faltered.

"I will tell you, for there is no time left for concealment." He looked at the clock. "I cannot understand how, with your understanding and the knowledge that you possess, you should fail to see that you are ill,--not only nervous and prostrated, but seriously ill."

Ernestine looked at him in alarm.

"I am firmly convinced that you are lost if you continue your present mode of life, as you will and must in America. Notwithstanding all your uncle may have told you, I know that, once in New York, you will have no chance of recovering from him one thaler of your fortune, even supposing that, in accordance with your wishes, I allow him to leave this country. You will be forced to earn your daily support, and, I tell you truly, your life, under such conditions, will not last one year. You will die in your bloom in an American hospital, and be buried in a nameless grave!"

Ernestine turned away.

"Are you still determined to go?" Johannes asked after a pause.

Ernestine pondered for one moment of bitter agony. She knew only too well that he was right. But what should she do? He had no idea that her fortune was actually lost,--that she would be forced to earn her bread if she stayed as surely as if she went,--that she must labour incessantly, if she would not be a dependent beggar. Think and reflect as she might, she saw nothing before her but death in a hospital! And she would far rather perish in a foreign land than here, where all knew her, and where all would triumph over her downfall, that they had prophesied so often. No! she must fly! Like the dying bird in winter, hiding himself in his death-agony from every eye, she would conceal, in a distant quarter of the globe, her poverty, her degradation and disgrace, from the arrogant man of whom she had been so haughtily independent in the day of her prosperity.

At last she raised her head, and, with a great effort, said, "There is no choice left me. I must fulfil my contract,--I _must_ go to America!"

Johannes had awaited her decision with breathless eagerness. He lost almost entirely his hardly-won self-control. "Ernestine," he exclaimed, seizing both her hands, "Ernestine, I plead for life and death. Do you not hear?--I tell you there is no hope for you but in absolute repose. Will you voluntarily hurry into the grave yawning at your feet? I have watched you with the eyes of a physician and a lover, and I swear to you, by my honour, that I have been continually discovering fresh cause for anxiety. You look as if you were in a decline at this moment. You have the feeble, capricious pulse and the cold hands of a victim of disease of the heart. Yesterday I heard from Frau Willmers of symptoms that filled me with alarm for you,--I grasp at the hope that they may be only the effects of your unnaturally forced manner of life. But these effects may become causes, in your present exhausted condition, causes of mortal disease, if you do not spare yourself I cannot, in duty or conscience, let you go without, hard as it is, enlightening you with regard to your physical condition. I would have spared you the cruel truth, but your determined obstinacy extorts it from me. Have some compassion upon me, and do not go before you have seen Heim. He is a man of experience, let him judge whether I am right or not. I entreat you to see him. Do, Ernestine, do, for my sake, if you would not leave me plunged in the depths of despair."

Still he held her hands firmly clasped in his. His chest heaved, his cheeks were flushed with emotion. All the strength of his passionate affection for her seethed and glowed in his imperious and imploring entreaties.

Ernestine stood pale and calm before him. No human eye could divine her thoughts.

Whilst they stood thus silently gazing into each other's eyes, there was a sound as of a carriage driving from the door below. Johannes, in his agitation, never heard it. Ernestine thought it was possibly her uncle, but she did not care. She had suddenly grown strangely indifferent to everything in the world.

"Ernestine, have you no answer for me?" asked Johannes.

"I will--reflect--until to-morrow."

"Thank God!" burst from the depths of Johannes' heart. As he dropped Ernestine's hands, he fairly staggered with exhaustion.

Again a few moments passed in gloomy silence.

"Ernestine," he then said, "you have in this last hour punished an innocent man for all the sins of his sex. Let it suffice you--indeed you are avenged."

Ernestine did not speak.

Johannes continued. "I will intrude no longer. May I come with Heim to-morrow?"

"You shall learn my decision to-morrow."

"Your hand upon it. No? Then farewell!"

Ernestine was alone. She stood motionless for awhile, never thinking of Johannes, nor of her uncle, who, strangely enough, did not appear, but with one sentence ringing in her ears,--"Your pulse is that of a victim to disease of the heart." Those words had stung like a scorpion. There was no doubt, then, that Johannes considered her past all hope of recovering,--he had plainly intimated as much, although he had refrained from bluntly telling her so. But was Dr. Moellner capable of forming a correct judgment in her case? Yes, certainly, both as physiologist and physician, he was thoroughly able to form a just diagnosis. She did not understand how she could so long have ignored the signs in herself of physical decline. He was right,--her uncle was her murderer. She shuddered at the thought. How near death seemed to her now! She thought, and thought called to mind every peculiar sensation that she had lately been conscious of, weighed the evidence, and drew conclusions.

It was remarkable how everything betokened trouble with her heart. Johannes wished to consult Heim. He would not have done that, had he not thought her dangerously ill. What could he or Heim tell her that she did not know herself? Had he any means of obtaining knowledge that were not hers also? Had she not a pathological library, filled with all that a physician needed,--the same that she had destined for Walter, but had not yet sent to him? She would consult it and know the truth that very day.

Night had fallen--the rain was dripping outside--the room lay in dreary shadow. She rang for lights. Frau Willmers brought a study-lamp with a green shade, and left her alone again.

Ernestine placed a small library-ladder against one of the tall, heavily-carved bookcases, and mounted it, with the lamp in her hand. She took out one book after another, without finding the one for which she was searching. Impatiently she rummaged among the dusty folios, that had not been touched for months. At last, by the dim light of her lamp, she saw the title that she was looking for, but it was beneath a pile of books hastily heaped above it. She dragged it out with feverish impatience. The volumes tumbled about, some hard, heavy object, lying among them, fell upon her head, almost stunning her, and then shattered the lamp in her hand, falling afterwards upon the floor with a dull noise amidst the broken glass that accompanied it. Ernestine, her book under her arm, got down from the ladder with trembling knees, to see, by the expiring flame of the wick of the lamp, what it was that had caused the mischief. As she stooped to pick it up, a fleshless, grinning face stared into her own. She started back with a cry. It was one of the skulls that she had put away in the library and long forgotten. The dim light of the lamp died out, but through the darkness the white jaws still grinned horribly. Almost insane with horror, she called again for lights. To her overwrought nerves, the trifling accident was in strange harmony with the thoughts that were tormenting her. It was as if nature thus gave her ominous warning of her fate.

When lights were brought, she forced herself to look the hateful thing in the face again. She picked up the head by its empty eye-sockets. "Thus shall I shortly look,--no fairer than this horror!" And she went up to a mirror, and, in a kind of bravado, compared her own head with the fleshless thing. "You must learn to recognize the family likeness," she said to her own reflection, and in feverish fancy she began to analyze her own fair, noble features and imagine all the changes that they must pass through before their resemblance to their mute, bleached companion should be complete. Disgust and dread mastered her again, and she feared her own reflection in the mirror as much as the skull. She threw it from her, and then started at the noise it made as it fell into the corner of the room. The blood rushed to her head, and she was deafened by the whirr and singing in her ears, although, through it all, she seemed to hear something, she knew not what, that she could not comprehend, and that increased her terror. The death's-head in the corner would not--so it seemed to her--keep quiet; it was rolling about there. She could not stay in the room,--there was something evil in the air. She took the book that she had found, and the candle, and fled like a hunted deer to her own apartment, never looking around her in the desolate rooms, in fear lest the formless thing that so filled her with dread should take visible shape and stare at her from some dim recess. But it followed at her heels, dogging her footsteps, surrounding her like an atmosphere, and with its hundred arms so oppressing her chest and throat, even in the quiet of her own room, that it scarcely left space for her heart to beat. How strangely it did beat,--so irregularly! now faint, now strong, as only a diseased heart can beat! And she opened the book and read her doom,--read the pages devoted to diseases of the heart, hastily, feverishly, with little comprehension of their meaning, for by this time thought was merged in fear, and of course she gave the words a meaning they did not possess, in dread of finding what she wanted to know and yet greedily searching for it. Yes, it was just as she feared. Not a symptom here described that she had not felt. Now it was beyond all doubt, she was lost,--no cure was possible,--only delay, and even that, in her present state of weakness, was hardly to be hoped. She tossed the book aside, and went to the window for air. Damp with rain and close as it was, still it was air,--freer and purer than any that she would have in her coffin. Then, to be sure, she would need it no more, but it was still delightful to breathe, and the thought of lying beneath that close coffin-lid was suffocation!

And she was to die soon! Johannes had not been mistaken. It was true. And her strength had been failing for a long time. What was she afraid of? What was there to fear? The pain that she might suffer? Thousands had suffered the same agony, and the hour of her release was perhaps closer at hand than she thought. Then she would be strong,--this hope should sustain her. She would not falsify, even to herself, the declaration that she had made to Johannes scarcely an hour before. Fear? What? Annihilation,--to cease to be,--it was not cheering, and certainly not sad,--it was simply nothing! It was not annihilation that she feared, but a continuation of existence that might be worse than death,--the uncertainty whether the soul perished with the body. "True," she said to herself, "if our eyes are blinded they are not conscious of light, our closed ears cannot hear. Let this physical mechanism, that is our means of communication with the exterior world, pause in its working, and communication ceases. But suppose thought should be independent of this mechanism? Oh! horrible, horrible! why is there no proof that it cannot be so? What if memory lives on and there are no eyes for seeing, and of course no light,--no ears for hearing, and no sound, no body sensitive to touch, no time or space,--nothing but eternal night, eternal silence, only informed by the memory of what we have seen and heard, and the longing for light, sound, and feeling?"

This was the worst of all,--more dreadful than personal annihilation; this was what she feared. Eternal night, eternal silence, and eternal solitude! Whose blood would not curdle at the thought, except theirs, perhaps, who were weary and worn with existence, or who, looking back upon life's long labour well performed, needed not shun an eternity of remembrance? But she? She was not weary of the world, she had not yet began to enjoy it,--she was not old, she was just beginning to live. She had done nothing towards fulfilling her high purposes, nothing that she could look back upon with satisfaction. It was too soon,--if she must go now, she had nothing to look forward to but an eternity of remorse! And how long must she endure this dread before the horrible certainty came upon her? "Oh, cruel death!" she moaned, "to assail me thus insidiously in his most horrid shape,--of slow, languishing disease! If he would only attack me like an assassin, that I might do battle with him,--meet me in the shape of some falling fragment of rock that I might try to avoid, or in engulfing waves that I could breast and strive against,--it would be kinder than to steal upon me thus, invisible, impalpable, inevitable! Let me flee across the ocean to the farthest ends of the earth, I cannot escape him, I take him with me! Let me mount the swiftest steed and be borne wildly over hill and valley, I cannot escape him, he will ride with me! Let me climb the loftiest Alps,--in vain! in vain! He nestles within me." She fell upon her knees. "Oh, omnipotent nature, cruel mother who refusest me your bounteous nourishment, have compassion upon me, and save your child,--do not give my thought, my life, to annihilation, and its garment to decay! Millions breathe and prosper who are not worthy of your blessings,--will you thrust out me, your priestess, from your grace?" And she lay prostrate, wringing her hands, as if awaiting an answer to her entreaty. All around her was silent. There was no pity for her. She bethought herself, "Oh, nature is implacable, why should I pray to her? she does not hear, she does not think or feel, but sweeps me from her path in the blind despotism of her eternal mechanism. Is there no hand to aid? no judge of the worth of an existence, to say, 'Thou art worthy to live, therefore live?' There is, there is! By the agony of this hour, I know there must be a higher justice, a Divinity other than nature. The spirit that now in dread of death wrestles with nature must have another refuge, a loftier destiny than the life of this world!" She clasped her hands upon her breast. "Oh, Faith! Faith! and if it be so,--if there be a God, what claim can I have upon His pity? Could my vain pride sustain me before such a judge? What have I done to make me worthy of His compassion? Have I been of any use in the world,--conferred happiness upon a single human being, formed one tie pleasant to contemplate? Have I not all my life long denied His existence, and now, like a coward, do I fly to Him for succour? Can I expect aid, and dare to raise my eyes to heaven and seek there what the earth denies me? No! I will not deceive myself; there is no pity for me,--none in nature, none in mankind, none in God!"

And Faith overwhelmed her with its terrors, for only to the loving heart is Faith revealed as Love. To those who have shunned and denied it, it comes like an avenging blast. It bore her poor diseased mind away upon its wings like a withered leaf from the tree of knowledge, and tossed it down into the night of despair.

A cry, "Johannes, come! save me!" burst from Ernestine's lips, and, in a vain effort to reach the door, she fell senseless upon the ground.