CHAPTER XV.

It was quite early morning. Mountains and woods were sparkling in the dewy freshness of the young spring day, and the air was full of balmy odours, as Eugenie Berkow rode alone and unattended along the forest path. She was an excellent horsewoman and passionately fond of riding, yet here in the country she had indulged in it much less frequently than had been her wont.

At first the weather had not permitted of any long excursions, later on she had lacked all inclination for it; but the chief reason, no doubt, was that her beautiful mare had been a present from her husband in the days of his courtship, and that her dislike to the donor was habitually transferred to everything that came directly from him. On her wedding day it had cost her a struggle to put on the costly diamonds which had been his bridal gift, and, since that day, they had never been taken from their cases.

In the midst of the luxury and splendour which had surrounded her since her marriage, she had moved as one constrained and ill at ease. Even the beautiful creature, which had cost a fabulous sum, and had excited the admiration of the whole city when Eugenie appeared on it for the first time, riding by her betrothed's side, was neglected by its mistress in a remarkable manner, and altogether given over to the care of the domestics.

These latter were, therefore, not a little surprised when her ladyship that morning ordered Afra to be saddled, and intimated to the servant who was preparing to accompany her that she wished to ride alone. Though her commands caused no little wonder, they were, of course, obeyed, and she set out on her journey without any attendant.

Arthur, naturally, knew nothing of it. She saw him now more rarely than ever, for he frequently excused himself from dining with her, and their lives were so entirely separate, that it was a most unusual thing for one to know what the other intended doing on such and such a day.

Eugenie trotted quickly through the forest, without meeting a human being. It was, indeed, most solitary up here in the woods, but the freshness and beauty of the morning, the very solitude itself, had a reviving effect upon the young wife, who for several days had not been beyond the park-gates.

The works lay idle; an unnatural calm brooded over the whole settlement, contrasting with its usual restless activity, for now the centre of action was transferred to the master's study, which the latter but rarely left.

The officials came and went, conferences were held, books and papers were examined; Schaeffer was continually on the road between the capital and the estates; letters and despatches flew backwards and forwards; but a shade of sombre gravity hung over all this zeal and busy movement, as though some misfortune were looming in the distance, which they were striving to avert or, at all events, preparing to meet.

Eugenie knew, of course, that a disagreement existed with the work-people; Arthur had told her so himself, and had added that the matter was of no importance and would very soon be settled. He had spoken very quietly and coolly, and had only begged her, if she went out to drive, to avoid the miners' villages as much as possible, a somewhat irritable spirit being abroad just now. The officials must have received hints not to alarm her ladyship, for when Eugenie endeavoured to learn from them something more definite, she was always met by a polite evasive answer, or by some comforting assurance.

They told her there was really nothing to be uneasy about, the difficulty was not of a serious nature, and an arrangement might be looked for any day. Yet Eugenie had a distinct perception of the danger which was thus denied, and a perception as keen of the change which had come over her husband since the elder Berkow's death, though his behaviour to her was just the one point which remained unaltered.

The young wife was of too fearless and too proud a nature not to feel as a sort of offence the being thus shut out, and so obviously spared all unpleasant knowledge. True, she had no right to exact a frank and open statement, no right to share the anxieties and, perhaps, perils, which might assail her husband. That privilege, to which other women could assert a claim, lay immeasurably removed from her.

When once the decisive word of separation has been spoken, when people are only bearing with one another for a few months "for appearances' sake," and in order to give the world as little matter for gossip as possible, there can hardly be any interests in common. She understood this, and, had she not understood it, Arthur's conduct would have made her sensible of the fact. For, as he every day roused himself more and more from his former indolence, and applied himself to the most strenuous exertion, so in proportion did he become colder and more distant in his manner to her. She was grateful to him, really, that by thus treating her already as a perfect stranger, he should seek to render the step they proposed taking easier and less painful to her.

Eugenie did not conceal from herself that Berkow's death had cleared away a great obstacle to the fulfilment of her wishes. He would hardly have consented to the dissolution of a marriage for which he, in his ambition, had so long striven, and which he had bought so dearly. His son viewed the matter in another light. To him the marriage was as indifferent as the wife, whom he, in his former easy passivity, had suffered to be forced upon him.

He had voluntarily offered her the separation before she had made any attempt to obtain his consent to it, and the step, which almost invariably costs so many a struggle, such tears and bitterness of feeling, which, not unfrequently, rouses from their depths all the passions of the human heart, would, in this case, be taken quietly and temperately, with perfect mutual accord, and in so thoroughly cold, polite and heartless a manner, it was really worthy of all admiration.

All at once Afra reared high in the air. She was not accustomed to the touch of the whip, much less to so very smart a cut as she had just received. Her mistress's impatience tried her greatly this morning, and if Eugenie had not been perfectly at home in the saddle, the fiery excitable animal would have given her trouble enough. As it was, she bridled in her horse with some little effort, but her delicate eyebrows were knitted and her lips firmly set, as if in anger. Whether this anger were aroused by Afra's opposition, or by the failure of opposition in another quarter, must remain undecided.

Meanwhile she had reached the farm, distant a mile or two from the works, and lying farther up the valley. Now she must begin to climb, not indeed by the steep footpath by which she and Arthur had made their descent, and which would have been impracticable on horseback, but by a carriage-road leading not far from thence up, by long but easy windings, to the not very elevated summit. Her horse, unused to mountain-climbing, chafed at the exertion required, and on reaching the top of the hill, she was obliged to halt to give it time to recover itself.

The veil of mist, which had hovered over the country when last she was there, had vanished now, and the clear sunshine flowed down brightly warm upon the earth, as though there had never been a time when the rain and the wind had here striven for the mastery, and when the whole landscape around had been shrouded in one grey shapeless mantle of fog.

The valleys lay once more blue and vaporous in the cool morning shade, and the mountains stood out in bolder relief by the contrast, their countless crests rising one above the other, seeming to press each other into the background; nothing but one great sea of forest, stretching right away to the range of blue peaks in the horizon. The dark pines had dressed themselves in a tender light green. Blossoms of a thousand hues and forms bloomed, not only in the fruitful soil within the woods, but in the rocky ground without, in every nook and cranny where a reed could find room for itself or a tiny plant take root, and the air was full of their sweet fragrance.

Then the brooks ran foaming down into the valleys below, the springs rippled gently, and overhead was spread a cloudless azure canopy of sky. All around was so golden clear, so grand and free, it seemed as though the newly awakened life of Nature must have power to heal every wound, to break every fetter, as though here nothing could draw breath that was not allied to freedom and to happiness.

And yet Eugenie's look was strangely thoughtful. There was a tension of pain in her face, as if for her there lay some secret torture in all this surrounding beauty. She should have breathed freely now, remembering the promised liberty which would be hers before the earth had been greeted by another spring.

Why could she feel no relief? Why, at this thought, did a sensation nearly akin to pain dart through her soul? Was the memory of that troubled hour still so potent within her, of that hour when, for the first time, the word of separation had been spoken and accepted? She longed so ardently for this separation, to be free to go back to her own people; she suffered so cruelly from her chains, she felt as if she could hardly bear them any longer; since their conversation up here it had become impossible for her to bear them.

Up to then she had been firm and steadfast in her self-sacrifice for her father's sake, in her resignation to the lot forced upon her and in her hatred to those who had so forced it, but, from that hour, all her feelings seemed to have undergone a change. From that hour dated the secret contest within her, the struggle against something which lay obscure and unexpressed down in the farthest depths of her soul, and which, she was determined, should never gain dominion over her.

Yet it was this indefinite something that had driven her out this morning and dragged her almost against her will up to this spot; it alone was to blame for the fact that Baron Windeg's daughter had so far lost sight of all etiquette as to leave behind the groom who always attended her on her expeditions.

She neither could nor would have any observant eyes upon her to-day, and it was well that she had none, for, as she halted there alone upon the heights, there came over her, in the midst of all this bright spring sunshine, a sort of vague longing for the mysterious charm of that hour when clouds and fog encircled her, when the pine crests rustled above them and the storm raged in the ravines and valleys below, when those great brown eyes, unveiling themselves for the first time, awakened within her a dim intuitive consciousness that of the man before her much, nay almost anything, might perhaps have been made, if only--before his own father's hand had drawn him down into that vortex where so many a life is wrecked--if only he could have loved and been loved in return.

And, with the remembrance of this, there welled up within her a feeling which Eugenie Windeg had never known, which it was reserved for Arthur Berkow's wife to experience, a sorrow far quieter, but also far deeper, than any she had yet endured. She laid her hand over her eyes, as a torrent of hot tears burst irrepressibly from them.

"My lady!"

Eugenie started, and, at the same moment, Afra, taking fright at the sound of a strange voice, sprang violently to one side. In an instant a powerful hand had seized her bridle, forcing the animal to be still. Ulric Hartmann stood close by its side.

"I did not know the horse was so easily scared, but I caught hold of the bridle at once," said he apologetically, casting a look half anxious, half admiring, at the young rider who had kept her seat so steadily in spite of the surprise.

Eugenie brushed her hand quickly across her face, trying to wipe away all trace of tears, but it was too late, her fit of weeping must already have been observed, and the thought of this drove a deep crimson to her cheeks and lent a tone of vexation to her voice, as she said quickly and rather imperiously:

"Let go the reins. Afra is not accustomed to be held by strangers, and it frightens her to feel their touch. You are bringing danger on me and yourself too by standing so near."

Ulric obeyed and stepped back. Eugenie passed her hand caressingly over the animal's neck, and Afra, who had never ceased snorting and fretting while she felt a strange hold on her rein, a hold too powerful, as she at once knew, to be resisted, soon quieted down under the influence of her mistress's petting.

In the meantime Hartmann's gaze had never swerved from the young horsewoman, and, in truth, few of her sex, when mounted, could show to such advantage as she. The dark habit, the little hat and veil set lightly on the rich plaits of her fair hair, and crowning becomingly the beautiful face with its heightened colour, her easy and assured bearing, quite unruffled by Afra's restlessness, all served her admirably and brought the just proportions of her slender figure into fullest evidence. As she sat her handsome horse there in the bright full sunlight, she looked a perfect picture of graceful strength.

"You were up here, Hartmann?" asked she, in the faint hope that he might only just have reached the heights at the moment he had first addressed her, and so not have seen her tears. "I did not notice you before."

"I was standing up there," he pointed to an opening in the forest which had certainly not attracted her attention. "I saw you riding up and stayed waiting for you."

Eugenie, about to ride past him into the wood, stopped at these words in surprise.

"Waiting for me?" she repeated. "And why?" Ulric evaded a reply.

"You are alone, my lady, quite alone? you have not even a servant with you as usual?"

"No, you can see I am by myself." Ulric stepped up quickly, but more cautiously this time, to the horse's side again.

"Then you must turn back at once. I will go with you, at all events until we come in sight of the works."

"But why all this?" asked Eugenie, more and more amazed at the proposal and at the young miner's darkly knitted brows. "Is there any danger here in the woods, or what else is there to be afraid of?"

Ulric cast a scrutinising look at the road below, which could be seen in most of its windings from the spot where they stood.

"We have been up to the forges in the hills, I and some of my mates," he said at last slowly. "I took the shorter cut because I wanted to get back sooner, the others followed the high road. You might come upon them, my lady, and I would rather be with you--any way."

"I am not timid," Eugenie declared firmly, "and I should suppose they will hardly go so far as to insult me. I know there is a disagreement with the miners on the works, but they tell me it is of no importance and will soon be settled."

"Then they lie to you!" broke in Ulric roughly. "It is no trifling matter, and it is not likely to be settled. Herr Berkow has declared war upon us, or we upon him, it comes to the same thing; any way, we are at war, and there will never be an end to it until one side or the other is fairly worsted. I tell you so, my lady, and I ought to know."

A slight pallor overspread the young wife's face as she heard this confirmation of the fears which had so long haunted her; but his arrogant tone and rough manner of disclosing facts offended her, and she replied with some haughtiness:

"Well, if that is the case, I cannot possibly accept the company, still less the protection, of a man who so openly avows himself to be my husband's enemy. I shall go on alone."

She would have given her horse the rein, but Ulric started forward at the movement, and, with a hasty imperious gesture, placed himself before her, barring the road.

"Stay, my lady, you must take me with you."

"I must?" Eugenie raised her head proudly. "What if I will not?"

"Then .... I implore you to yield."

Again there was the same abrupt transition from ruthless menace to almost supplicating entreaty which had disarmed her once already. It melted her anger now as she looked down on the young miner, dark and wrathful, but yet gazing up at her in unmistakable anxiety.

"I cannot accept your offer, Hartmann," said she gravely. "If your comrades are stirred up to such a pitch of irritation that I cannot meet them without being exposed to insult, I fear it has been your doing alone, and a man who bears us so deadly a hatred" ...

"Us!" interrupted Ulric impetuously. "I bear you no hatred, my lady, and I'll take care _you_ are not insulted. Not a man among them dares say a word against you when I am by, and if he dared to do it once, he would not a second time. Let me go with you!"

Eugenie hesitated a few seconds, but her fearless nature and the thought of his former hostile tone turned the scale against him.

"I will turn back and avoid the high road," said she quickly. "You must stay here, Hartmann. Consideration for Herr Berkow requires it."

At the sound of this name his long pent-up anger burst forth. His eyes flashed, and a gleam of savage hatred darted like lightning from them.

"Consideration for Herr Berkow!" he broke out, "for Herr Berkow, who shows you such tender care, allowing you to ride out alone, when he knows we have been up at the forges and must be about the woods now. But the truth is, he never has given himself any concern about you. It is all the same to him whether you are unhappy or not, and yet the whole responsibility of it lies at his door."

"Hartmann, how dare you speak so!" exclaimed Eugenie, glowing with anger and indignation, but she strove in vain to stop him. He went on with ever-growing excitement.

"No doubt, it is a great crime to have caught you crying, when you thought there was not a soul about to notice it; but I am pretty sure that you have shed tears enough, my lady, since you came here, only no one has been by to see, as I was just now. I know who is to blame for it, and I will make him" ...

He stopped suddenly, for Eugenie had drawn herself up erect in her saddle, and was looking at him with that air of crushing haughtiness she could assume at times to keep others at a distance. The tone of her voice was sharp and freezing; worse still, she spoke as a mistress addressing an inferior, ordering him now imperiously.

"Be silent, Hartmann. Say one word, one single word, more against my husband, and I shall forget that you saved his life and mine, and answer your outbreak as it deserves."

She turned her horse's head quickly, and would have ridden past him; but Ulric's giant form stood before her in the path, and he would not yield a step. At that tone of command, which he then heard for the first time from her lips, he had grown deadly pale, and the hate burning in his eyes seemed now to include her also.

"Out of my way!" commanded Eugenie still more imperatively than before. "I will pass."

But she was dealing with a man who cared little for orders given him, and who was stung to fury at receiving one from her mouth. Instead of obeying, he took one step forward, which brought him close up to her side, and again, this time with a grasp of iron, seized the bridle, paying no heed to the rearing horse or to its rider's danger.

"You should not speak so to me," he said in a deep low voice. "Don't urge on your horse," he continued desperately, as she was about to touch Afra with her whip, in the hope of breaking free from him and getting away. "You cannot ride me down; but, by Heaven, I will drag the beast to the ground, as I did that day with the other two."

The threat contained in his words was terrible enough, but there was a still worse menace in his look. For the first time Eugenie saw turned against herself that savage temper so feared by all, and she suddenly awoke to a full sense of the danger of her position. Instantly, however, with quick presence of mind, she caught at the only means which could save her.

"Hartmann," said she reproachfully, but her voice had grown gentle and almost soft, "not long ago, you offered me your protection, and now you use threats towards me yourself. Yes indeed, I can see what there might be to fear from your comrades, if you can behave so to me. I should not have ridden out to the forest if I could have had the least suspicion of it."

The reproach and, still more, the voice, brought Ulric to his senses again. His wild fury subsided, when he no longer heard that imperative tone which had exasperated him.

"Up to this time I have never feared you," continued Eugenie softly, "in spite of all the bad things they say of you. Do you wish to make me fear you now? We are close to the edge, and it is very steep below. If you go on irritating the mare in this way, if you attempt to carry out your threat, there will be an accident. Will the man who once threw himself under my horses' hoofs, that he might rescue a perfect stranger, actually bring danger upon me now? Let me go, Hartmann."

A quiver shot through Ulric. He looked down at the steep slope and saw how very near it they were. Slowly he let go his hold on the bridle, very slowly, as though yielding to some irresistible force, he stepped to one side and let her pass.

Eugenie looked back involuntarily. He was standing there silent and still, his fiery eyes fixed on the ground; without a syllable of response or of leave-taking he let her go on her way unhindered.