CHAPTER VI.

SOUL-MURDER.

A fresh autumnal breeze was shaking the heavy boughs of the fruit-trees in the Hartwich kitchen-garden. Beneath a spreading apple-tree a new bench, painted green, had recently been placed. Some white garments, hanging upon a line to dry, fluttered like triumphal pennons in the direction from which a number of persons was slowly approaching the apple-tree. Rieka was carefully pushing along the rolling-chair, which, after so long affording shelter to the cats and chickens, had lately been recushioned and repaired. By its side walked good old Heim and Leuthold. Ernestine's frail little figure, with head still bandaged and hands gently folded, reclined in the chair; and if her large, dark eyes had not been riveted with an expression of utter enjoyment upon the distant landscape, she might have been thought smiling in death, so ashy pale was her emaciated countenance, so bloodless were the lips which were slightly open to inhale the pure morning air. The signs of returning and departing life are as wonderfully alike as morning and evening twilight. The child lying there, silent and motionless, might to all appearance be bidding farewell to the world, instead of greeting it anew after her dangerous illness. For to-day Ernestine was, as it were, celebrating her resurrection to life. It was the first time that she had been permitted to breathe the pure, open air of heaven; and her delight was so profound that she could only fold her little hands and pray silently. She had not the strength even to turn herself upon her cushions; but her youthful soul was preening its wings and soaring with the birds into the blue autumn skies.

"How are you now, my child?" Leuthold asked in a tone of tender sympathy.

"Oh, so well, dear uncle!" the little girl whispered with a long-drawn sigh. "I think I could run about, if I might."

"Ah, you could not yet, even if you might," said Heim, looking not without anxiety into the child's face, transfigured by an almost unearthly expression. And he laid his finger upon her pulse, now scarcely perceptible.

"Her spirit, as she recovers, is in advance of her body," he said, lingering behind with Leuthold. "Physically such a child is soon conquered and destroyed, but the heart is a wonderful thing in its power of endurance. I never see an expression of real suffering upon a child's face without the deepest sympathy. For when should we be really gay and happy in this life, if not while we are children?"

"You are right," said Leuthold. "That melancholy mouth, shaping itself now to an unaccustomed smile, those bright eyes, around which the traces of tears are scarcely yet obliterated, touch me deeply."

Heim glanced keenly at the speaker expressing himself apparently with emotion.

"Oh, what a pretty new bench!" said Ernestine in a weak voice, as they reached the apple-tree. "And the boughs droop around it like an arbour."

Her gaze roved hither and thither; the fluttering linen on the line pleased her; the white butterflies, with spotted wings, hovering about the beds, enchanted her; she thought the far stretch of country, with its distant border of forest, magnificent,--everything was so new that she seemed to see it for the first time, and admired it all with intense delight. The long rows of irregular bean-poles opened mysterious, attractive paths to her imagination. Even the tall asparagus and the heads of cabbage, upon which large beads of morning dew were still lying, seemed to her master-pieces of nature.

"Oh, how lovely the world is!" she said to the two gentlemen. "And no one to punish me! You are so kind, Herr Geheimrath, and you, Uncle Leuthold, and you too, Rieka, are so good to me! I thank you all so much!" And she took and kissed the hands of Leuthold and Heim as they stood beside her, while tears filled her eyes.

"You strange child, what Snakes you cry now?" asked Leuthold.

"I cannot tell; I am so happy!" sobbed Ernestine. "If I only had a father or a mother!"

"But if your father were alive he would beat you again," said Rieka, taking a strictly practical view of the matter. "You ought to be glad that he is no longer here; it is much happier for you."

Ernestine's head drooped. "Oh, I am not longing for my father who is dead; I want a father to love me."

"You have an uncle who loves you fondly, my child," said Leuthold.

"Uncle," the little girl began again after a short pause, "how did the first people get here? Every one has a father and mother; but the first men could not have had any. Where did they come from?"

Leuthold and Heim exchanged glances of surprise.

"Ah, now you are going to the very root of the matter, prying into the deepest mysteries of creation!" said her uncle with a smile.

"There is stuff for a scholar in the child," said Heim; "she must be educated."

"Most certainly!" cried Leuthold with unwonted vivacity; "something must be made of her. In two years she will read Darwin." And he became lost in reverie.

Heim plucked two pansies that were growing among the weeds, and handed them to Ernestine. "Don't trouble your little brain with such thoughts," he said with an attempt to laugh. "When you are grown up you can learn all you wish to know. How few flowers you have here! Not enough for a nosegay!"

"No matter for that, Herr Heim," said Ernestine gaily. "Although there are so few flowers here, it seems to me as lovely as Paradise."

"The child is imaginative," Heim observed to Leuthold. "She finds Paradise in a neglected kitchen-garden; there is poetry there." And he pointed to her head and heart.

Leuthold took the child's hand. "If you wish for flowers, my darling, you shall have them. You are now"--and a spasmodic smile hovered upon his lips--"so rich that you need deny yourself nothing."

"I am rich!" Ernestine repeated, as though she could not grasp the idea. "Does the chair in which I am sitting belong to me?"

"Most certainly."

"And this garden, and the fields?"

"Everything that you see."

"Oh, how delightful! But, uncle, have I money enough to buy me a telescope like yours?"

Leuthold looked surprised at this question "Is that the end and aim of your desires? Well, then, you shall have a far better one than mine. You shall have an observatory, whence you can search the heavens far and wide, and, if you choose, I will be your teacher. Would you like that?"

"Oh, uncle!" sighed Ernestine, "God is so kind to me--how shall I thank him for all he is giving me?"

An ugly smile appeared on Leuthold's face; she looked up at him in surprise, and so fixedly that he involuntarily turned aside.

It was strange! Why had her uncle smiled at those words. Was what she had said so stupid, then? Was he laughing at her, or at--what? Suddenly there was an alloy in her happiness, as if she had found an ugly worm in a fragrant rose or discovered a flaw in a clear mirror. A pang shot through her heart. Yes, little Kay in the story-book must have felt just so when a splinter of the evil mirror got into his eye and heart and nothing seemed perfect or stainless to him any more. Instinctively she looked up into the sky, as if to see the demon flying there with the mysterious mirror that cast scorn and contempt upon the works of the good God; and when she glanced again at her uncle, who had just smiled so disagreeably, he seemed to her to look as she had fancied an evil spirit must look, and she shrank from him in a way that she could not herself comprehend. She leaned back in her chair exhausted, to rest after all these wearisome thoughts that had chased one another through her brain, and Heim, observing this, took Leuthold aside; she heard him say, "Come, we will leave the child to take a little sleep."

Rieka sat down quietly upon the bench beside her. Ernestine nestled comfortably among the yielding cushions, and the fragrant breeze stroked her cheek like a gentle, caressing hand. The birds were softly twittering in the boughs overhead. All nature breathed in her ear: "Sleep, sleep on the tender breast of the youthful day. Rest! you are not yet rested, after all that you have suffered!" And she closed her eyes and tried to sleep, but she could not. Why had her uncle smiled when she spoke of God? This question kept her awake, and scared away rest from her trusting, childish soul.

Meanwhile Helm and Leuthold walked on through the garden. "Herr Professor," the former began to his companion, who was lost in thought, "I must speak with you about the future of our protege. I have plans for her, depending upon you for their fulfilment." Leuthold looked at him attentively. "I had a desire," Heim continued, "the first time I saw this strange child, to adopt her for my own; and this desire has become stronger since chance has brought me into such intimate association with her. My request of you now is: Abdicate--not your rights, but--your duties as her guardian in my favour, and let me take her to the capital with me, and have her educated and trained so that full justice may be done to her physical and mental capacities."

Leuthold was silent for a few moments, and then said with some hesitation, as he drew a long strip of grass through his slender white fingers, "That looks, Herr Geheimrath, as if you did not give me credit for the ability or the will to educate my ward suitably."

Heim shrugged his shoulders impatiently. "There shall be no wire-drawing between us, Herr Gleissert; we both know what we think of each other, and a physician has no time to waste in complimental speeches. Be kind enough to signify to me, as briefly and decidedly as possible, your acceptance or refusal of my proposal."

"Well, then," Leuthold replied with a keen glance, "I must reply to you with a brief and decided 'No!'"

"Indeed!" was all that Heim in his chagrin rejoined.

"Look you, Herr Geheimrath," Leuthold began after some moments of reflection; "I will be frank with you. You know the dark stain that sullies my past, and the fault of my nature,--ambition. But, for all that, Herr Geheimrath, I am not heartless! In my childhood I was repelled on all sides, just as Ernestine has been. I was always cast in the shade by Hartwich, the son of my wealthy step-mother. You, as a student of human nature, well know what power there is in early surroundings to mould a man's future,--perhaps this may make you more lenient to my faults. Neither affection nor interest was shown me, and so kindly feelings faded away within me,--I could not give what I never received. Thus, Herr Geheimrath, I grew up an embittered, hardened man. The severity and sternness with which I was treated caused me to cultivate a sort of plausibility that won me friends, although I had no qualities to enable me to retain them. Therefore I was accounted a flatterer and a hypocrite. But the worst of all was, I was never taught the nice distinction between honours and honour, and thus it was that, in my blind grasp after honours, I sacrificed my honour!" He covered his eyes with his hand and paused for a moment. Old Heim shook his huge head, vexed with himself for the emotion of sympathy that he could not suppress.

"My step-mother," Leuthold continued, "was an imperious, masculine woman, who tyrannized over her husband and made him as unhappy as her son and step-son. You have seen the effect of her training upon Hartwich,--he became a drunkard, sinning in the flesh; I, of a less sensual nature, sinned in spirit!"

"Forgive me for interrupting you," Heim interposed here; "but I am constrained to observe that if you had sinned no further than in robbing poor Hilsborn of his discovery, you would indeed have coveted only spiritual things, and there might have been some excuse for you; but you longed for earthly possessions,--you even grasped after the property of the poor child who has been left to your care. Judge for yourself whether such a helpless little creature can be confided without anxiety to the charge of a guardian who has not scrupled to endeavour to possess himself of her inheritance!"

Leuthold stood confronting Heim, without betraying, by a single change of feature, the emotions of his mind. "Herr Geheimrath," he said with dignity, "I understand perfectly how all that must appear to a stranger entirely unacquainted with the circumstances of the case, and I cannot wonder that you think your accusation of me well founded. So be it. I did endeavour to possess myself of Hartwich's property, for two-thirds of it were mine by right. Are you aware, Herr Geheimrath, that when I first took my place in the factory here, Hartwich was on the brink of bankruptcy? Are you aware that entirely through my exertions the business is now free from debt, and that the income which in the course of ten years made Hartwich a wealthy man was the result solely of my improvements? He contributed nothing but the raw material, which my efforts converted into a means of wealth. Had I not a sacred right to the fruits of my exertions?"

Again the Geheimrath shrugged his shoulders and did not speak.

"Time is money," Leuthold continued; "and I frankly admit that I do not belong to the class of men who give without any hope of a return. I am a poor man, compelled to depend upon myself. I receive nothing gratuitously; why should I give anything? Hartwich owed me for the time I sacrificed to him. I do not claim too much when I aver that, with my capacity, I could have earned three thousand thalers yearly as the superintendent of any other extensive manufactory, while I received from Hartwich the small salary of a mere overseer. And three thousand thalers yearly amount in ten years to thirty thousand thalers, without counting the interest. There you have one-third of the property that I 'coveted.'"

Heim assented with an expression of surprise.

Leuthold continued more fluently: "Now for the remaining third. The man who is capable of introducing inventions and improvements into the establishment, producing in ten years a dear profit of ninety thousand thalers, can easily dispose of such inventions for twenty thousand thalers; and if I add the accumulated interest of ten years, it amounts to exactly thirty thousand thalers again. If my step-brother had paid me this sum, he would still have possessed thirty thousand thalers clear, which would have belonged of right to his daughter. I might have offered my services elsewhere, but it seemed to me more fitting that I should serve my brother than a stranger; I might have insisted upon payment, but I knew well my brother's avarice, and that it would be impossible to extort money from him except at the risk of such excitement on his part as might cost him his life. Therefore! thought it best, as I foresaw that he could not live long, to suspend my claims and allow him to devise to me by will what was really my due. How utterly I have been the loser by my--I do not scruple to say--magnanimous conduct, you well know; and now pray point out wherein I have unjustly claimed a single groschen!"

Heim, his hands crossed behind him and his head sunk upon his breast, walked slowly along by the side of Leuthold, whose slender figure had recovered all its former elasticity as he easily wound his way among the tangled bushes and weeds in the neglected path.

"I cannot tell how a lawyer would designate your conduct," the old man said meditatively. "I should not call it magnanimous; but you may be able to justify it from your point of view. Still, one never knows what to expect of such long-headed, calculating people."

"Yes, Herr Geheimrath, it is the destiny of those who depend upon themselves alone for whatever of good life may bring them, to be regarded as covetous,--they must grasp after what falls unsought for into the lap of others. In this matter I not only did what I could for myself, but for the future also. Herr Geheimrath, I am a father!"

"Yes, yes; but you were not a father at the time that you arranged with Hartwich his testamentary dispositions," Heim briefly interposed.

"Only two months afterwards my wife gave birth to a dead son. From the first moment when I dreamed of one day possessing a child for whom I could prepare a future, I cherished a determination to hold fast to whatever was mine by right. I think you cannot refuse to bear witness that I have endured the destruction of all my hopes with fortitude. My wife has left me, refusing to share with me my cheerless future. I stand alone with my helpless child. You have heard no word of complaint from my lips. Examine yourself, and your upright nature will compel you to acknowledge that I do not deserve your distrust. And now, as regards the last and weightiest consideration,--my relation to my ward,--ask any one whom you may please to interrogate here, whether I have not always been Ernestine's advocate and protector. Every servant in the house--the child herself--will tell you that it has been so. Upon this point my conscience cannot accuse me. For, look you, Herr Geheimrath, this child is the only living being in this world, besides my own daughter, whom I have to love. There is one spot in my nature, hardened as it is by the rough usage of life, that has always remained soft,--the memory of my unhappy childhood. In Ernestine I am reminded of my own early youth, and there is a tender satisfaction in providing her with so much that at her age I was obliged to deny myself. Leave me this child, Herr Geheimrath; I am a poor, unhappy, disappointed man. Do not take from me the last thing that stirs the better nature within me,--it would be too hard!"

Heim stood still for an instant, and seemed about to speak. He bethought himself and walked on a few steps, then paused again: "The case is not psychologically improbable. You may feel as you say, and you may invent it all. What guarantee have I for its truth?"

"I am sorry to say, none, if you do not find it in the honesty of my confession. But, Herr Geheimrath, by what right--pardon me--do you require such a guarantee from me?"

"My anxiety for the child's welfare, I should suppose, would be allowed to give me such a right,--a right that, if you are not dead to human feeling, you would respect even although it has no legal grounds."

"Oh, certainly, certainly,--I do respect it, and thank you for your interest in the child. But I cannot deny that your persistent distrust of me surprises me exceedingly, and prompts me to force you by my conduct to a better opinion of me."

"That is, you will let me have the child?" Heim asked quickly.

"That is, I am more determined than ever to undertake the charge of her education myself, that I may one day convince you of the injustice that you are doing me."

Heim regarded the smiling speaker with a penetrating glance. "You rely upon the fact that I can legally urge nothing against you. Well, then, I can do no more. I confide the fate of this strange child, who has become so dear to me, to a loving Providence, that will watch over her and over you, sir, however you may contrive to withdraw yourself and your designs from the eye of human scrutiny."

As Heim spoke these words, the two gentlemen reached Ernestine's chair. The little girl sat perfectly still, lost in thought. Her uncle laid his hand upon her white forehead, and said to himself, "I will keep you!"

On the evening of the same day, Leuthold sat before his writing-table at the open windows. The cool night air made the flame of the lamp flicker behind its green shade. From the adjoining room came the low sound of the plaintive air with which the nursemaid was soothing little Gretchen to sleep. A cricket upon the window-sill chirped continually, and a singed moth would now and then fall upon the white, unwritten sheet that lay on the table before Leuthold. It was a calm, mild, autumn night,--a night when darkness hides the yellow leaves and one can dream that it is still summer. And yet the solitary man sat there gazing into vacancy, with as little sympathy with nature as though he had been banished utterly from her communion. In the corner of the window-frame there fluttered a large cobweb, and its proprietor was lying in wait for the insects that were attracted by the lamp. But the man's brain was weaving still finer webs in the stillness of night, and in the midst of them lurked the ugly spider of greed of gold, also lying in wait for prey. Ernestine must be ensnared; but she had protectors who were upon the watch. No human being must suspect that her guardian was her worst enemy.

The will had been opened, and two clauses in it had given Leuthold renewed life and hope. He was Ernestine's guardian,--and her heir in case of her dying unmarried. By the time that his light began to fade, he had laid all his plans, and arose from his seat with the feeling of satisfaction experienced by an author who has just thought out successfully the plot of a new work. Ernestine was no more to him than a character in a novel is to its author,--a character which is indispensable to the plot, and which the author treats with care as a necessary evil, but never with affection. Thus he had planned with great precision the child's future; and, unless he utterly failed in his designs, the figure that now hovered before his imagination would greatly conduce to the successful conclusion of the romance for his child and himself.

The lamp died down. Leuthold slipped out upon tiptoe, and, undressing in the next room in the dark, lay down in the bed beside which stood Gretchen's crib. Soon after the child awoke, and stretched out her hands towards her father. He drew her towards him, and laid her head upon his breast, that was chilled as though from the influence of his own icy heart. She nestled up to him, and put her little arms around his neck. He listened to her quiet breathing as she fell calmly asleep again, and gradually his own heart grew warm beside hers, beating there so peacefully. He scarcely ventured to breathe himself, for fear of wakening her. It was a happy moment for him. Upon the breath of the slumbering child an ineffable delight was wafted into his soul. He held in his arms the only being whom he loved and who really loved him,--his child, his own flesh and blood! Suddenly there was a loud knocking at his door, and Rieka's shrill voice cried, "Herr Doctor! Herr Doctor! pray get up quickly and come to Ernestine!"

Leuthold started up and gently laid the child in her crib again. Every nerve in his body vibrated, his heart beat wildly, and his hands trembled as he dressed himself hurriedly. Something extraordinary must have occurred: was Ernestine worse?--perhaps dying? Was fate to atone so soon for Hartwich's injustice? Were his hopes to be--the thought made him giddy, breathless, and, almost tottering, he reached the door where Rieka was waiting to light him down the stairs.

"What is the matter?" he asked.

"Oh, Herr Doctor, it is our fault," Rieka began: "Theresa and I were sitting by Ernestine's bedside and talking; we thought she was sound asleep, we were talking about master who is dead; and we told about the dairy-maid's refusing to sleep in the barn-loft any more, because she says he walks. And we spoke of his death, how he called for his child, and declared that he could not find rest in his grave if Ernestine did not forgive him. And we said we were sure that he would appear to her some day, for when any one dies with such a burden on his soul, there is no rest for him until he has the forgiveness that he craves. Then Ernestine suddenly began to cry, and we saw that she had heard everything. We tried to quiet her, but she grew worse and worse, and nothing would content her but that she must be taken this very night to the church-yard, to her father's grave, that she might forgive him. We can do nothing with her; she insists upon it; she is almost in convulsions with crying and obstinacy!"

They entered Ernestine's room, where Theresa, the other maid, was trying to keep the struggling, desperate child in bed. Leuthold went softly up to her, and laid his cool, delicate hand upon her burning forehead. His touch soothed her; she became quiet, and looked up at her uncle with a piteous entreaty in her large eyes.

"Leave me alone with her," he said to the servants, who obeyed with a mutter of discontent. He then trimmed the night-lamp so that it burned brightly, and seated himself beside Ernestine's couch. "My child," he began, in his low, melodious voice, "you are quite clever enough to understand what I am going to say to you, but you must promise me that you will never repeat it to any human being. Do you promise?"

"Oh, I will promise, uncle," sobbed Ernestine, "if you will only help me to let my poor father know that I forgive him,--oh, with all my heart!--and that my head is well again, and does not hurt me any more! Oh, my poor, poor father,--your little Ernestine wants so to tell you that she is not angry with you; but she cannot!"

"You are a good child, Ernestine, but you are only a child!" Leuthold continued, while the same strange smile that had so troubled Ernestine in the morning again played around his mouth. She looked up in surprise. Was what she had said so foolish again?

"You are too clever, young as you are, to be allowed to fall into the vulgar belief shared by the maids; and therefore I must tell you what it would not be best for them to know,--that the dead do not live in any form whatever."

Ernestine started, and gazed at her uncle.--"What?"

"Yes, yes; I tell you truly, whoever is dead is dead; that means, he has ceased to be; he neither feels nor thinks; a few bones are all that there is of him; and they are good for nothing but to convert into lime or manure for the fields."

Ernestine hearkened breathless to his words. "But where then are the spirits, uncle?"

"There are no spirits."

"Then shall we never go to heaven?"

"Of course not; those are all fables, invented to induce common people to be good. They must believe in rewards and punishments after death, to enable them to bear the trials and deprivations of their lot in life. They would rebel against all control, and be in perpetual mutiny, without the prospect of compensation after death. So there are wise philosophers in every country, composing what is called the Christian Church, who have invented many beautiful legends,--which you call the Bible. Superstition is founded upon the weakness and folly of mankind, upon ignorance of the true laws of nature; and the churches of every age and clime have used it as the stuff of which they have made leading-strings for the people. But the educated man, breathing only a pure, intellectual atmosphere, is free from such fetters. Science leads him with a loving hand to heights whence she points out to him the natural laws of the universe, and, in place of the prop of which she deprives him, gives him strength to stand alone."

Ernestine was ashy pale; her lips moved, but no sound issued from them; she clenched her hands, and felt as if crushed by some terrible, unheard-of mystery. She could hardly bear to listen to what her uncle was saying, and yet she caught greedily at every word; she could not bear to believe him, and yet she could not but distrust, now, what the pastor had taught her. She was ashamed not to be as clever as her uncle had called her: the poison that he had instilled into her mind worked quickly.

"But, uncle, can what so many people believe be all false? Old people and children, kings and emperors, beggars and rich men, all go to church:--is there any one except you who does not go?"

Leuthold laughed louder than was his wont. "It is easy enough to answer you, dear child. In the first place, there are multitudes of men besides myself who belong to no church. In the second place, the number of people who profess to believe a creed is no proof of its truth, but only of the ignorance and narrow-mindedness of those professing such belief. Millions of men have been pantheists, and counted all those who did not share their faith criminal. Every religion condemns all others as erroneous. Which is right? As long as all were ignorant of the causes of the mighty and glorious operations of nature, these were ascribed to supernatural agencies and regarded as revelations of the divine. Thunder and lightning, light and air, all were governed, according to the ancients, as among savages at the present day, by their own several deities; every natural event was ascribed to some being, half man, half god; and thus heaven and earth were peopled with good and evil spirits, friendly or hostile to mankind. This superstition fled at the approach of science, or at least it became weakened,--etherialized. With increasing knowledge of natural laws, the sensual gods of Greece and Rome lost form and substance, and finally vanished, to be replaced by a true appreciation of the elements as such, and a faith in a central Providence ruling all things wisely and well. This is a great improvement; but it is not enough. We still have a Trinity,--a Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; we still have angels, demons, and saints,--a multitude of good and evil deities, who have followed us down from old pagan times, and who, although more respectably apparelled, are still prepared to work all kinds of miracles. The more fully the laws of matter are laid bare to our searching eyes, the dimmer grows our religious belief,--as the shadow, which in the darkness we have taken for the substance itself, fades before the first ray of sunlight, which reveals the substance distinctly. The various gods of all ages and climes were only the shadows cast by the operation of natural laws; as soon as the light of science fell upon them, they vanished. Thus, religious fancy was driven away from this physical world, as the laws ruling it were discovered, and obliged to seek a more abstract domain; but even there it is not secure; for scientific inquiry, climbing from height to height, and gaining in vigour with every fresh advance, long ago began to follow it thither; and it must consent to still greater concessions, if it would not be driven from its last foothold,--its self-created heaven!"

Leuthold paused. Ernestine's vague look of wonder reminded him that his habit of speech had carried him too far for the comprehension of a child. Nevertheless, it excited him to hear his own voice speaking thus once more, and his gray eyes glittered strangely as he observed the effect of his words, only half understood as they were, upon Ernestine.

"Has the pastor told me falsehoods, then?" she asked at last.

"He did not lie intentionally. He is a very narrow-minded man, and knows no better. He is not one of the deceivers, but of the deceived."

"But he is the wisest man in the village," Ernestine objected.

"In the village, yes! But do you think him wiser than your uncle?"

"No, certainly not!" she whispered almost inaudibly. It seemed to her a crime to think a common man wiser than the pastor.

"Well, then, let me tell you that he is not nearly as clever as you are!"

"Uncle!" exclaimed Ernestine alarmed.

"I tell you the truth, my child. You are now very young; but, when you are as old as the pastor, you will know much more than he does, and take a very different view of things."

"Are you in earnest, uncle?" Ernestine asked eagerly, for this first flattery had not failed in its effect. "Do you think I can ever be as clever as a man?"

"Most certainly! Unless I greatly err, you will be something distinguished, one of these days!"

Ernestine sat bolt upright in bed, looking at her uncle with sparkling eyes. Her pale face flushed, her breath came quick. Ambition kindled in her childish nature to a burning flame. The fuel had been gathering there since her first contact with those who had treated her with contempt. Now the spark had fallen, and she was all aglow with the insidious fire which gradually consumes the whole being unless some terrible misfortune bursts open the floodgates of tears to quench the unhallowed flame.

Leuthold gazed, not without secret admiration and delight, at the illuminated and inspired countenance of the child. Thus, thus he would have her look! He leaned towards her, and held out his hand. She grasped it fervently.

"Uncle," she said with childish emphasis, "will you help me to be as clever and to learn as much as a man? Will you teach me the sciences which you said would make men so strong?"

"Yes," replied Leuthold with seeming enthusiasm, "I will, indeed."

"Promise me, dear uncle."

"I promise you with all my heart that I will teach you as no woman has ever been taught before,--that I will guide and direct you until you have soared far above the rest of your sex. But you must be diligent, and discard all desires but the desire of knowledge."

"Oh, I will, dearest uncle. Why should I not? What else can I wish for? I do not want to play with other children,--they laugh at me. I am too ugly and grave for them. I will live alone, and learn with you; and one day, when I know more than they, I will shame them. Oh, that will be fine!"

"But I hope, my child, that you will remember your promise, and not tell any one what I have said to you to-night."

"Not any one? not even Herr Heim?"

"Not for the world. If I should find that you cannot hold your tongue, I will teach you nothing, and you will be as ignorant as those who laugh at you."

"No, uncle, I will never tell anything; I will not, indeed!" Ernestine cried, "But tell me one thing,--are there really no angels, then?"

"Angels!" and her uncle smiled. "Of what use has been all that I have just said to you, if you can seriously ask such a question?"

"Then I have no guardian angel!" said the child, and her eyes filled with tears. "And I loved my guardian angel so dearly!"

"My child," replied Leuthold, "you are your own guardian angel. Your own strong mind will shield you from all danger far better than any such imaginary creature with wings."

Ernestine was silent. She must take care of herself, then. But she felt so weak and broken; how should she be supported unless she could lean upon some higher power? No guardian angel, no father, no mother, not even their spirits! It seemed to her that she was suddenly standing alone, without prop or stay, upon a rocky peak, with a yawning abyss just at her feet. The moment would come when she must fall headlong. Then there arose before her the last hope of the soul in utter misery,--God! He was all in all,--Father and guardian spirit; He was love; He would not forsake her. Though all else that she had believed in crumbled to dust, He still remained; she would cling to Him with redoubled fervour. She looked up at her uncle; should she tell him her thoughts? No! She could not speak that sacred name before Leuthold; she dreaded the smile she had seen in the morning,--she could not tell why.

Her uncle then spoke, and the last drop of poison fell into her soul. "We have in ourselves everything that modern religion has created outside of ourselves," he began. "Angels, devils, God--" Ernestine started and shrank,--"these are all only personifications of our good and evil qualities. It is only the boundless self-conceit of mankind that imagines that the grain of reason that distinguishes them from the brutes is something entirely beyond the power of nature to produce,--something supernatural, immortal, divine,--and that there must be, enthroned somewhere above the universe, an omnipotent being, who is in direct communication with us and has nothing to do but to busy himself with our very important personal affairs! This belief in God, with all its apparent humility and submission, is the veriest offspring of the vanity and arrogance of mankind, and all worship of God, my child, is, in fact, only worship of self. True humility is to acknowledge that we are no 'emanation from the Divine Essence,' as theosophists phrase it, but only nature's masterpieces, and that we can claim no higher destiny than that common to the myriad forms of being that bear their part in the universal whole."

Ernestine had sunk back among her pillows,--she felt annihilated; there was no longer any God for her!

Her uncle arose, for two o'clock had just been tolled from the belfry of the village church. He did not fail to observe the terrible impression that his words had made upon Ernestine. He took her hand; she withdrew it from his grasp. He smiled. "You are sorry, are you not, to give up everything that your childish mind has believed in so firmly? I can easily understand it. But, Ernestine, your powers of mind are too great to allow you to find consolation for any length of time in such delusions. Be sure that sooner or later you would have extricated yourself from such bondage, as the expanding flower throws off the confining hull. You have been ill, and your physical weakness has depressed your mental energy; but, when you are well and strong again, you will rejoice proudly in the consciousness that you are a free, irresponsible being, not dependent upon the will and the doubtful justice of a fancied Jehovah. Study yourself, my child; in yourself lies your future. Believe in yourself, and plant your hopes deeply in your faith in yourself. I will leave you now to sleep; and I am sure that to-morrow I shall find you a little philosopher."

Long after her uncle had left the room and Rieka had retired upon tiptoe to bed in the adjoining apartment, fully convinced that her charge was sleeping, Ernestine was wide awake. She lay perfectly motionless, as if shattered in every limb. She stirred for the first time when Rieka had extinguished the light, so that no ray came through the open door. Then the child drew a deep breath, and stretched her arms out into the darkness as if to clasp the forms of her vanished faith; but her arms encountered only the empty air. There was no more pitiable creature upon earth than she at that moment. What is left for a child without father or mother, who has lost her guardian angel and her God? She is a bird fallen from the nest, stripped by cruelty of its wings and left living on the ground. The child's foreboding soul, precociously matured by misfortune, felt the entire weight of her desolation; and she hid her face in the pillow, that Rieka might not hear the convulsive sobs wrung from the depths of her misery. The tears which she poured forth for her vanished God were all that her uncle had left her,--the only prayer that she was capable of. She longed to pray--but could not in words. "He does not hear me! He does not live!" she cried to herself; and the hot tears burst forth again, and she wept in agony. And, as she wept, her heart grew soft and tender, and as the Crucified, after he had been laid in the tomb, was present invisibly among his disciples, so the God who had just been buried away from her mind came to life again in her heart; she did not hear nor see him, but she felt his presence, and it gave her strength to pray. She kneeled in her bed, folded her hands, and cried inwardly: "Dear God, let me keep my belief in Thee--if Thou art and canst hear me--" --that terrible "if" intruded. She paused to ponder upon it. And then there was an end to her fervent prayer, and God vanished again.

Thus the struggle between faith and doubt continued feverishly, and her soul thirsted for love as did her parched lips for water. Where was there a kind, gentle hand to offer her a cooling draught, and with it the kiss that should refresh her thirsty soul,--such a hand as only a mother has? Ernestine gazed out into the darkness. Her breath came in gasps, her heart beat audibly, but no more kindly tears came to her burning eyes. "O God! my God! why hast thou forsaken me?" was the last moan of her tortured heart; and then she sank into a feverish slumber.