CHAPTER XXIII.

Early in the forenoon of the following day a postchaise, travelling along the road from M----, came to a halt at the entrance of the valley where lay the Berkow works, the first outlying buildings of which were already to be seen quite close at hand.

"Don't do it, my lady," said the driver, speaking to some one inside the carriage.

"You had far better turn back with me as I begged you to do at the last station; I heard of it there, and the peasants we just met on the road told us of it again. There are battle and murder up on the works to-day. Quite early this morning the men were pouring in from all the villages around, and there is the devil to pay now out yonder. With the best will in the world, I can't take you up to the house. I should be risking my horses and the chaise too. When these fellows are once in revolt, they spare neither friend nor foe. Must you go up there just to-day? Could you not wait until to-morrow?"

The young lady, who was the sole occupant of the carriage, made no reply, but opened the door and stepped out.

"I cannot wait," said she gravely, "but I will not endanger you or your property. It is not more than a mile, I can easily go there on foot. You can turn back."

The driver renewed his warnings and remonstrances. It seemed very strange to him that this unknown and elegant lady, who had paid him so liberally, urging him at the same time to use the utmost speed, should now venture alone into the tumult. He obtained nothing from her, however, by his entreaties. She impatiently signed to him to turn back, and at last, shrugging his shoulders at her persistency, he made up his mind to obey.

Eugenie took a footpath which did not lead direct to the works, but ran across the meadows towards the upper entrance to the park, and where she would in all probability be safe. If it came to the worst, she would, at all events, find protection and an escort in one of the officials' dwelling-houses, which lay in that direction. How necessary both might be, she certainly had not known when, yielding to a sudden impulse, she had set out on this journey alone, and even now she did not understand the full extent of the peril to which her present expedition exposed her.

It was not the possibility of danger which brought that heightened colour to her cheeks, that restless sparkle to her eye, which made her heart beat so violently that she was forced to stop every now and then to take breath. It was the fear she felt of the coming decision. That heavy dream-like feeling, which had come upon her on leaving her husband's home, had hung about her during all the weeks of the separation.

Neither the old home, nor her people's love, nor the bright and happy prospects opening out before them all, had sufficed to rouse her. That dreamy sense of unreality had clung to her with painful oppressiveness and with many a vague longing. Now the awakening had come, and all her thoughts were bent on the one question.

"How would he receive her?"

She had just reached a small solitary house, forming, as it were, the extreme outposts of the works, when she saw a man hurrying towards her. He started with a look of terror as he recognised her.

"My lady! For Heaven's sake, how did you come here, and to-day of all days?"

"Oh, Manager Hartmann, is it you?" said Eugenie, going up to him. "Thank God I have met you! Troubles have broken out on the works, I hear. I had to leave my carriage out yonder, the driver dared not bring me on. I am going on foot up to the house."

The Manager shook his head, and replied hastily:

"You cannot, my lady, you cannot go up now. To-morrow perhaps, or perhaps towards evening, but not now."

"Why not?" cried Eugenie, turning very pale. "Is our house threatened? Is my husband" ...

"No, no, Herr Berkow is not mixed up in it today. He is up at the house with all the officials. This time the trouble is among themselves. Some of the men wanted to take to their work again this morning, and my son" ....

Here the old man's face worked with agitation.

"Well! you must know it before long! My son was furious about it. He and his party have driven them back, and set a guard round the shafts. The others won't put up with that, and now they are banding themselves together. The whole works are in revolt, every man against his neighbour. Merciful goodness! what will happen next?" cried the Manager, as, in spite of the distance, rumours of the wild clamour and uproar were borne distinctly over to them.

"But I intended to avoid the works," urged Eugenie. "I was going to try and gain the park by the path across the meadows, and so on to" ....

"For Heaven's sake, don't go there!" interrupted the old man. "Ulric and all his followers are holding a meeting out in the meadow yonder. I was on my way to try once more if I could not make him listen to reason, and induce him, at all events, to set the shafts free. We are going against our own flesh and blood now, but he has neither eyes nor ears for anything in his fury. Not that way, my lady, it is the most dangerous of all."

"I must go up to the house," Eugenie declared resolutely. "I must go, cost what it may. Come with me, Hartmann, only as far as the houses. In case of the worst, I can stay there until the road is clear again. At your side I shall be secure at least from open violence."

The old man shook his head sadly.

"I cannot help you, my lady. Now that we are all in arms, one against the other, my own life is hardly safe in the midst of this strife and turmoil, and if once they get to know who you are, my being at your side would be of very little use. There is only one man now they feel any respect for, who can make himself obeyed in case of need, and that is my Ulric. But he hates Herr Berkow mortally, and he hates you too because you are the master's wife. Good God!" broke off the old man suddenly, "here he comes! There has been mischief doing again, I can see it in his face. Go out of his sight just for the present, I implore you."

He pushed her through the half-opened door of the little cottage, and he had hardly done so, when steps and loud voices were heard approaching. Ulric was coming up the road followed by Lawrence and several other miners. His face was crimson, and on his brow lay a thunder-cloud ready at any moment to explode. He was talking excitedly as he came along, and he did not notice his father's presence.

"If they are our mates and our brothers, no matter! Down with them directly they turn traitors to us. We gave our word to stand by each other, and now they crawl up to the old collar like cowards and desert us and our cause. They shall be made to pay for it. Are the shafts well guarded?"

"Yes, but" ...

"I'll have no buts," cried the leader imperiously to the man who would have ventured to hazard an objection. "That was about the one thing wanting, treason in our own camp, just as we are on the eve of victory. They shall be driven back by force, I tell you, if they make the least attempt to go below. We will teach them their duty and their proper place, if they have to learn it at the cost of a few broken heads."

"But there are two hundred of them," said Lawrence gravely, "and to-morrow there may be four--and, if once the master steps in and begins to talk to them--you know how that tells! We have seen it often enough of late."

"If there were four hundred," shouted Ulric, "if half our people were on their side, we would fight them with the other half and beat them too. I'll see if I can't make myself obeyed! But now, forward, lads. Karl, you go over to the works and bring me word if Berkow is meddling in the matter and talking to the men in that cursed way of his, getting hundreds to desert from us again. You others, back to the shafts. See that the way to them is thoroughly blocked, I will come myself presently. Off with you!"

His command was at once obeyed. The miners hurried off in the prescribed directions, and Ulric, seeing now for the first time that his father was standing by, hurried up to him and said,

"You here, father? Why, you ought to be"----all at once he stopped, rooted to the ground; his face grew deadly white, every drop of blood slowly receding from it, and his eyes were fixed and dilated as though he had seen a ghost. Eugenie had come out of the house and was standing before him.

A sudden thought had flashed into the young wife's mind, and instantly she acted on it without staying to reflect on the boldness and the peril of her venture. She was bent on going to her husband at any cost, and now she must overcome the horror with which this man had inspired her ever since she had discovered the true reason of her power over him. She had often put this power to the proof; now the time had come to turn it to account.

"It is I, Hartmann," said she, mastering an involuntary shudder and appearing before him calm and composed. "Your father was just warning me not to go on my way alone, and yet I must go on."

At the sound of her voice, Ulric seemed first to realise that it was actually Eugenie Berkow who stood before him, and no mere vision of his heated fancy. He would have rushed up to her, but that look and tone still kept their old influence over him. As he listened, a calmer and milder expression came over his face.

"What are you doing here, my lady?" he asked uneasily, his rough imperious manner softening into one that was almost gentle. "There is ill work among us to-day, which is not for women to see, least of all for you. You must not stay here."

"I want to go to my husband," said Eugenie quickly.

Formerly she had almost invariably spoken of Arthur as "Heir Berkow;" now she called him her husband, in a tone which seemed to make Ulric understand all that was implied in that one word.

In the first moment of his surprise he had not reflected how or why she had come there so suddenly; now he glanced quickly, first at her travelling dress, and then around, as though in quest of her carriage and attendants.

"I am alone," said Eugenie, catching this glance, "and it is that which prevents my going on. I am not afraid of any actual danger, but of the insults I might be exposed to. You offered me your escort and protection once, Hartmann, when I did not need them. Now I mean to make a claim on both. Lead me over to the house. You can, if you will."

The Manager had stood by, anxiously looking on, expecting that at any moment his son might attack the wife of a master he so hated, and ready to rush in between them. He could not understand Eugenie's tone of quiet assurance towards a man whom she, like every one else, must know to be the real instigator of the whole rebellion. Now as she made this request wishing to entrust herself to the rebel leader's safe keeping, the old man's bewilderment knew no bounds. He looked at her in horrified amazement.

As to Ulric, he was roused to violent anger by the demand made upon him. That milder gleam had vanished, and the old imperious defiance had come back to him.

"I am to lead you over?" he said in a low hoarse voice. "And you ask that of me, my lady, of me?"

"I ask it of you." Eugenie kept her eyes steadily fixed on his face, feeling that so her power over him would be greater. It seemed now, however, to have reached its limits. He burst out like a madman.

"Never, never! I would rather see the house stormed, see it pulled to the ground, than take you there again. What? he up yonder is to have you at his side again, so that he shall take courage and resist to the last? He is to have the triumph of knowing that you have come away from the city by yourself and made your way through the whole place in revolt, just that he should not be left alone? But you may look for another guide for that, and if you find one"--with a threatening look at his father--"he shall not go far with you, I'll take care of that."

"Ulric, control yourself, you are speaking to a lady!" cried the Manager, stepping between them in mortal fear. He naturally saw nothing in this scene but an outbreak of that unrestrained enmity which his son had long cherished towards the whole Berkow family, and he took up a position before his master's wife, determined, come what might, to protect and shield her. She pressed by him, however, gently but resolutely.

"So you will not go with me, Hartmann?"

"No, a hundred times, no."

"Well then, I shall go alone."

She turned away in the direction of the park, but with two strides Ulric reached her and placed himself before her, barring the road.

"Back, my lady, you can't get through, I tell you, least of all, this way where my men are. Lady or not, it is all the same to them now. Your name is Berkow, and that is enough. As soon as they find out who you are, you will have them all upon you. You cannot and shall not go over there now. Stay here where you are."

These last words were spoken imperatively and in a tone of menace, but Eugenie was not accustomed to submit to orders, and the almost delirious violence with which he was striving to keep her from Arthur called up in her a vague anxiety and dread lest things should be worse with him than she had been led to believe.

"I shall go to my husband," she repeated very resolutely, "and I shall see whether on my way to him any one dares stop me by force. Let your friends assault a woman, give the signal for it yourself, if you care to take the credit of the heroic deed. I shall go."

And she went; darting by him and taking the path which led across the fields.

Hartmann stood gazing after her with eyes which glowed again, paying no heed to his father's prayers and remonstrances. He understood better than the old man what she intended by this venture, what she wished to compel him to. But this time he would not yield to her. She might perish on the threshold of her own house, in sight of her husband, before he would take her back to the arms of a man he hated, before he ...

At this moment a troop of miners made their appearance, excited and uproarious, coming from the place of meeting to rejoin their leader. The foremost of them was only some hundred paces off. They had already noticed the solitary female figure before them; in another minute she would be recognised, and he himself had, but half-an-hour ago, been goading on these men to blind fury against all that bore the name of Berkow.

Eugenie went forward to meet the danger, not attempting even to conceal her face. In his desperation Ulric stamped on the ground; then he tore himself free from his father, and in an instant was at her side.

"Put down your veil," he said, and grasped her hand with an iron grasp.

Eugenie obeyed, drawing a deep breath of relief. She was safe now; she knew he would not loose his hold on her hand again, if all the men on the works were to attack them at once. She had gone on deliberately to meet the danger, with full consciousness of what she was doing, but also with the conviction that nothing short of her visible and imminent peril would win for her that protection which had been refused.

They now came up to the troop of insurgents, who at once attempted to throng round their leader so as to place him in their midst, but he briefly and emphatically bade them make way, and ordered them over to the shafts without loss of time. They obeyed at once as their comrades had done previously, and Ulric, who had not halted for so much as a second, drew his companion on more rapidly than ever. She began to see plainly how impossible it would have been for her to force a passage through by herself, and how idle any other protection would have proved than that which was at her side.

This stretch of meadow-land, usually so peaceful, was to-day the scene of busy surging tumult, although the actual strife was confined to the neighbourhood of the shafts. Knots of miners were trooping about, or standing closely grouped together in noisy conference. Everywhere angry faces and threatening gestures were to be seen, everywhere turmoil and confusion reigned paramount, an object only seemed wanting for them to give vent to their wild excitement by some deed of violence.

Happily, the footpath skirted the edge of the fields where the tumult was relatively less, but even here Ulric no sooner showed himself than he became the centre of observation, and was greeted everywhere with loud shouts, in which there mingled a certain note of surprise. A host of astonished, distrustful, suspicious glances were levelled at the female figure by his side. No one guessed that, attired in that dark travelling-dress and thick veil, the master's wife was passing through their midst. Had any one fancied he recognised her gait and bearing, such a notion would have been scouted by the others.

Ulric Hartmann was protecting her, and he would most surely never have accorded his protection to any one connected with the house of Berkow; still it was a lady who was walking with him, the Manager's rough, uncourteous son, though he cared nothing for women generally, not even for Martha Ewers, who was cared for, in some degree, by almost every unmarried man in the place.

Ulric, who, at a time like the present, looked upon and treated his comrades' wives as an unnecessary burthen to be shaken off as much as possible, Ulric was now playing the guide to this stranger, and there was a look on his face as though he would strike down any one who ventured a step too near her. That short walk, which lasted barely ten minutes in all, was a bold experiment even for the young leader himself, but he showed that here, at least, he was master, and that he knew how to make use of his power.

Now, by a few imperious words, he dissolved a group which stood in his way; now, again, he issued orders and instructions to a troop of miners bearing down upon him, which took them off in another direction; to those who would have pressed round with questions and reports of what was going on he cried,

"By and by, I am coming back!" and all the time he never lost a moment, but drew his companion swiftly on, so as to prevent discovery or delay.

At last they reached the park, closed at this spot by a wooden gate only. Ulric pushed it open, and stepped inside with her under the sheltering trees.

"That is enough," he said, letting go her hand. "The park is safe still, and in five minutes you will be at the house."

Eugenie was still trembling at the danger they had passed through, and her hand ached from the iron pressure of his. She put back her veil slowly.

"Make haste," said he with bitter sarcasm. "I have honestly done my part towards helping you back to your husband. You will not keep him waiting now?"

Eugenie looked up at him. His face betrayed the torture she had inflicted, by placing before him the alternative of witnessing an attack upon her, or of himself leading her to her husband.

She had no courage to thank him, but she put out her hand in silence.

Ulric pushed it away.

"You asked much of me," he said. "So much that it was within a hair of miscarrying. Now you have your will. Do not attempt to compel me again as you did to-day, especially when _he_ is by; for, if you do, I swear I will give you both up to your fate."

On the terrace before the house stood the two servants, Frank and Anthony, gazing over in the direction of the works with anxious yet curious looks. They started back no less affrighted than the old Manager had been, for, without the sound of carriage wheels to announce her coming, and unattended even by her maid, they suddenly saw standing before them their mistress, whom they supposed to be far away in the distant capital.

She could not possibly have come through the works, still less by way of the park, for out on the meadows at the back things were even worse--yet she was there! They were both so confounded, they could hardly answer her hasty question, but she managed to find out that Herr Berkow was at that moment at home, and hurried past them up the steps.

Frank, who followed her, had even more ground for astonishment, for she hardly allowed him to take her hat and shawl, and, when he would have hastened with the news of her arrival over to the wing occupied by his master, she bade him stay, and said she would go and announce herself. The man stood with the cloak in his hand, staring after her with open mouth. It had all passed like a whirlwind. What could have happened in the city?

Eugenie passed rapidly through the several rooms in succession, until all at once she stopped. Arthur's study was near at hand, and from it the sound of voices met her ear. She had so surely reckoned on finding her husband alone, had wished to come to him thus unexpected, unannounced, and now she found him in the company of a stranger!

Ah! she could not meet him in the presence of another! Eugenie stood undecided whether to stand back or to remain. At last she stepped noiselessly behind the heavy _portiere_, the folds of which almost hid her from view.

"It is impossible, Herr Berkow," said the sharp clear voice of the chief-engineer, "If you push forbearance further, you will do it to the injury of those who are beginning to take to their work in an orderly manner. They beat a retreat on this occasion, because they were the weaker, but we shall have worse and bloodier scenes than what took place this morning. That was only a hand-to-hand skirmish. Hartmann has shown that he will not spare his own people if they rebel against his system of terrorism. Friend and foe may suffer alike, but his principles must be upheld."

Eugenie could see through the open door into the room. Just opposite her at the open window stood Arthur, the full light falling upon his face, which had grown so much more sombre since last she had seen it. Even then the shadow of care had lain on his brow; at that time, however, it had been new to him and had not marked itself there indelibly, but now two deep furrows were graven which probably would never again be effaced.

Each separate line in his face was sharper, more severely defined; the look of energy, which then had but newly dawned and was only distinctly visible in moments of excitement, had now become the dominant expression of his countenance even when at rest, and had altogether replaced the old dreamy air; his voice and manner were alike firm and decided. It was evident that he had learned in a few weeks that which it takes others years to acquire.

"I should certainly be the last to advise seeking help from without, if it could be avoided, but I do think that now we, and you in particular, have abstained from it long enough. There really can be no blame to us if, at length, we have recourse to measures which were employed on the neighbouring works long ago without any such pressing necessity as ours."

Arthur shook his head sadly.

"The other works can be no rule for us. A few arrests, a few slight wounds, and matters were settled there. Fifty men and three or four shots in the air were sufficient to quell the whole revolt. Here they have Hartmann at their head, and we all know what that means. He would not yield to a bayonet charge, and all his party are ready to stand or fall with him. They would challenge us to do our worst, and, to buy peace, we must sacrifice some lives."

The other was silent, but his significant shrug showed that he was of the same opinion.

"But if peace is to be had in no other way?"

"If it were to be had at all! but it is not, and the sacrifice of life will be made in vain. I can crush the rebellion for the time being, but in a year, in a few months perhaps, it will break out again, and you know as well as I do that the last chance of keeping on the works would be gone from me then. Elsewhere there are some signs of returning confidence and of a juster feeling; elsewhere the people seem to be coming to their senses again, but that is not to be hoped with us. The distrust sown during long years cannot be speedily overcome. Hatred and hostility was the watchword given out against me when I came here; it is the watchword still, and, if once I cause blood to be shed, all will be over for ever between us."

"Hartmann may venture to bring his recusant followers back to obedience by open combat and to impose his will on them by force, he will still remain their Messiah to whom they look for salvation. If I were to order one shot to be fired, if I take up arms in my own defence, I shall be called a tyrant, ready to murder them in cold blood, and taking delight in their destruction. The old Manager was right that day, when he said: 'If troubles break out here among our people, the Lord have mercy upon us!'"

There was no complaint, no dispirited lament in these words, only the bitterness of a man who finds himself at length borne to the very verge of that precipice to avoid which he has in vain been straining every nerve.

Probably the young master would have so spoken to no other. The chief-engineer was the only person who seemed to have drawn nearer him of late. He had stood by him so steadfastly through all the danger, helping so actively to carry out all the necessary measures, and he was the only one to whom Arthur would occasionally speak freely, passing beyond the mere instructions and encouraging speeches which were all the other officials ever heard from his lips.

"But some of the hands are willing to take to work again already," objected the elder man.

"And that is just what compels me to make war on the rest. There is no making terms with Hartmann. I have tried to do so and failed."

"With whom? You have tried what?" asked the other, with such a horrified expression that Arthur looked at him in surprise.

"To come to an understanding with Hartmann. It was not done officially, it is true, that might have been interpreted as a sign of weakness. It was when we met one day accidentally that I held out my hand to him once again."

"You should not have done it," interrupted the other almost passionately. "Held out your hand to that man! But I had forgotten, you know nothing as yet."

"I should not?" repeated Arthur sharply. "May I ask what you mean, sir? Be satisfied that I am well able to maintain the dignity of my position even on such an occasion as that."

The chief-engineer had already regained his composure.

"Excuse me, Herr Berkow, I intended in no way to criticise your conduct as master of the works, it was in your position as the son that I----but you are ignorant of the reports connected with your father's last moments. We agreed not to mention them before you; it was done with the best intention, but now I see that we were wrong, that you must be told. You would have offered Hartmann your hand, and that, I repeat, ought not to have been."

Arthur looked at him fixedly. His face had grown colourless and his lips quivered.

"You speak of Hartmann and of my father's death. Is there any connection between the two?"

"I fear so, we all fear so. General suspicion rests upon the Deputy, not among us alone, but among his fellow-miners."

"Down there in the shaft," cried Arthur terribly agitated. "A murderous assault on a defenceless man! I do not believe that of Hartmann."

"He hated the deceased," said the chief-engineer emphatically, "and he has never denied his hatred of him. Herr Berkow may have exasperated him by some word, some command. Whether the ropes really broke, and he seized the moment of danger to save himself and hurl the other down into the depths below, or whether the whole thing were premeditated, is all a dark mystery, but innocent he is not, that I'll answer for."

Arthur was evidently deeply moved by this disclosure; he leaned heavily on the table.

"At the inquest it was proved to be an accident," said he in an unsteady voice.

"Nothing at all was proved at the inquest, so they concluded it was an accident and let it pass as such. No one dared make an open accusation, proofs were wholly wanting, and there would have been endless conflicts with the miners if their leader had been taken up on suspicion and then discharged, as he, no doubt, would have been. We knew, Herr Berkow, that, under existing circumstances, a struggle was inevitable between you and him, and we wished to spare you the bitterness of knowing your adversary for what he is. That was why we kept silence."

Arthur passed his hand across his brow.

"I never dreamt of that, never! Even though it be nothing more than a suspicion, you are right, I should not offer that man my hand."

"That man," broke in the official, speaking with much energy, "that man, as leader of the rest, has brought the whole misfortune on us, that man has constantly heaped coals on the fire and kept up the strife, and now that he sees his power is on the decline he is doing all he can to make the breach irreparable, and a reconciliation impossible. Can you, will you, spare him still?"

"I spare him? No! I had done with him when he so roughly repulsed the overture I made him, but I cannot spare the others either after what has happened to-day. I am driven to take extreme measures. There were two hundred this morning who wanted to return to work, and they certainly have the right to require protection at their labour. The shafts must be secured at any cost, and I cannot do it alone, so"----

"So ...? We are waiting your orders, Herr Berkow?"

There was a pause of a minute, then the struggle visible in Arthur's face yielded to an expression of pained but firm resolve.

"I will write to M----. The letter shall go today. It must be."

"At last!" murmured the chief-engineer, half reproachfully. "It was high time!"

Arthur turned to his writing-table.

"Go over now and see that the Director and the other gentlemen remain at the posts I assigned them when I was at the works. It would have been useless to interfere in all the clamour this morning; perhaps now it may be possible. In half-an-hour I shall be with you. Should anything particular occur before send me word over at once."

Before leaving the room the official stepped up to his side again.

"I know what the resolution has cost you, Herr Berkow," he said earnestly, "and we none of us take the thing lightly, believe me, but we must not look on the dark side. Perhaps it may be settled without bloodshed after all."

He bowed and left the room, much too hurried and too preoccupied to notice Eugenie, who, at his approach, retreated still farther behind the sheltering curtain. Without looking to the right or the left, he passed rapidly through the adjoining room and closed the door after him. Husband and wife were alone together.

Arthur had only replied by a bitter smile to the chief-engineer's parting words.

"Too late!" he said to himself, "they will not yield until blood is shed. I must reap what my father has sown."

He threw himself down on a chair and leaned his head on his hands. Now that he had not to meet the eyes of strangers, now that he need no longer play the leader on whose resolution all depended, the look of energy faded from his face, and, in its place, came one of exhaustion, such as may overcome the strongest man when, for weeks at a stretch, his powers of mind and body have been overwrought and strained to the uttermost.

It was a moment of despairing dejection, coming naturally enough to one who had striven on and on, and all in vain, against the curse of a past in which he himself had not been to blame, except in so far as he had held himself aloof from the duties of it. Now the fatal inheritance was his alone, and the weight of it almost crushed him to the earth.

The accusing words against his father, which had escaped his lips, had been silenced in the self-same moment by the terrible suggestions he had listened to respecting the manner of that father's death. Yet to his predecessor was it solely due that he, the son, was now driven to the last terrible necessity, that, with ruin staring him in the face, deserted by his wife, forsaken by all his former friends, he was forced to resort to the only means which might yet save himself and all that he could still call his own from an enmity sown and nourished for many a long year, and whose fruits he was now compelled to taste. Arthur closed his eyes and leaned his head back on the arm-chair. He was worn out.

Eugenie had noiselessly left her hiding-place and had stepped on to the threshold. Forgotten now the peril she had passed through, forgotten the accusations she had heard with such feelings of horror, forgotten even the man on whom they rested and all that had reference to him.

Now that she was so near her husband, she saw and thought of nothing but him. The veil, which had so long divided them, would now be torn away. All would be made clear, and yet she hesitated and trembled at the coming decision as though sentence of death were about to be passed on her.

If she had been mistaken, if she were not received as she had hoped to be, as, after the sacrifice she had wrung from her pride, she felt she must be received .... The blood rushed violently to the young wife's heart, and it throbbed in an agony of suspense. Everything for her hung on the next minute.

"Arthur!" she said very softly.

He started up, as though he had heard a voice from the dead, and looked around him. There in the doorway, close to the spot where she had bade him farewell for ever, stood his wife.

In that first moment of recognition all consideration and reflection vanished; he rushed towards her and the cry of joy which was wrung from his lips, the radiant brightness of his eyes, revealed all that up to this hour had been disavowed by the self-restraint of months.

"Eugenie!"

She breathed freely, as though a mountain load had been lifted from her heart. The look, the tone with which he spoke her name gave her at last the long questioned certainty, and even though he stopped short in his hasty advance towards her, trying, as a protection against himself, it seemed, to take up the old mask once more and veiling that tell-tale glance, it was too late, she had seen too much!

"Where do you come from?" he asked at length, recovering himself with difficulty, "so suddenly, so unexpectedly, and how did you get up to the house? The works are in open revolt, you cannot possibly have passed by them."

Eugenie drew nearer slowly.

"I only arrived a few minutes ago. I had indeed to force my way through. Do not ask me how, at present, enough that I forced it. I wanted to be with you before danger reached you."

Arthur tried to turn from her.

"What does this mean, Eugenie? Why do you speak in that tone? Conrad has been making you anxious, though I entreated him not, though I expressly forbade him to do so. I want no sacrifice made from generosity or from a sense of duty. You know it."

"Yes, I know it," she returned steadily. "You sent me from you once before with those words. You could not forgive me that I had once done you a wrong, and in revenging yourself for it, you nearly sacrificed both yourself and me. Arthur, who was the hardest, the unkindest, of us two?"

"It was not revenge," he said in a low voice. "I set you free, you wished it yourself."

Eugenie was standing quite close to him now. The word, which once no consideration on earth would ever have forced from her lips, was so easy to speak now that she knew herself to be beloved. She raised full upon him her dark eyes, all dewy with tears.

"And if I tell my husband that I will have no freedom away from him, that I have come back to share with him whatever may befall us both, that I--that I have learnt to love him, will he once more tell me to go?"

She received no answer, at least not in words, but already she was in his arms, and they held her in an embrace so close and warm, it seemed as though they would never again give up the prize they had won at last.

As she lay there and felt the passionate caresses he showered upon her, she knew how cruel a blow her loss must have been, and all that her return was to him at a moment like the present. She saw a radiance in those great brown eyes, such as she had never before seen there, not even during those old bright lightning-like flashes.

The spell was broken. The world so long lying perdu had risen from its depths up to the broad light of day, and some instinct must have revealed to the young wife all the treasures that world held for her, for she laid her head upon her husband's breast, yielding herself up to him in fullest trust and confidence, as he bent over her whispering,

"My wife! my treasure!"

Through the open window came a breezy rustling greeting from the green wooded heights up yonder. Those forest-voices must have their say and mingle their whispers in the new-found bliss. Had they not helped to create it? Long ago they had understood, these two, before the two had learnt to understand themselves, at a time when they stood face to face in haughty contest, and spoke the word of separation in the very moment when their hearts were meeting.

But the contention and pride of the children of men avail but little when, with their loves and hopes, they come within the magic circle traced by the spirit of the mountains, as, amid the surging mists, he travels through his dominions in that first early hour of spring--and that which meets then, will cleave together for evermore!