Part 14

From under the waterproof hood, which she had drawn so closely round her forehead and cheeks, that only here and there a stray lock of her fair hair escaped, there had shone forth the same sweet, pale face which had once held his senses spell-bound in blissful ecstasy, with the same mysteriously veiled blue eyes, and the same pathetic droop at the corners of the mouth.

She pressed herself closer against the pedestal, and made no attempt to get up, as, bareheaded, he stood before her.

"Felicitas!" he cried. His voice sounded hard and threatening, a little harder, perhaps, than he intended.

The answer he got was a tearless sob, which shook the supple, rounded figure on the steps. Without looking up, she withdrew her left hand from her face and stretched it slowly towards him with a limp, helpless action; the hand seemed to fumble for the one that should meet and grasp it. But the intention of greeting her in so friendly a manner was far from him, and so her hand fell, without having found any support, into her lap, as a wounded bird falls to the ground.

"You wished to speak to me, Felicitas?" he said.

Now she let her right hand, too, slide from her face, and the melting and reproachful look she cast up at him seemed to ask, "Have I deserved this of you?"

"She has aged a little," he thought, looking at her more nearly. She had a slightly worn appearance, although the oval outline of her profile curved in soft unbroken firmness into her rounded chin, and the milk-white forehead, over which the hair curled wildly, was of girlish purity and smoothness. But from the corners of the eyes downwards, delicate crow's-feet extended to the cheeks; the mouth seemed to have sunk, and on the brows faint, carefully drawn lines of paint had caught the moisture which glistened there in a chain of dewdrops.

"Extraordinary!" he thought to himself, repeating the reflections of the night. "How completely one can be cured of love for a woman." And then he said again--

"You wished to speak to me, Felicitas?"

In a low, hesitating voice, she asked, "And you, Leo, have not wished to speak to me?"

"No," he answered bluntly.

The corners of her lips trembled in a sad little smile, which, invulnerable as he felt himself to be, sent a stab to his soul. He must be severe, but not too rough with her.

"You must not misunderstand me, Felicitas," he continued, in a softer tone. "We haven't met here to make sugary speeches, or to burrow in the old ashes. We must be open and frank with each other, however painful it may be. I intend to hurt you very much."

She breathed more freely. This unqualified declaration of hostilities seemed to soothe her. Then she drooped her beautiful head humbly.

"First of all," he went on, "so that there may be no cross purposes between us, I ask you--have you any regrets for what once existed between us?"

"I don't know what you mean," she said softly.

"Have you--have you, in short, an atom of liking left for me?"

She closed her eyes and shook her head wearily and slowly, like a sick woman.

"You may make your mind quite easy on that point," she said, still with half-closed lids. "There is no man in the world I detest as much as you."

"It is not necessary to go quite so far," he answered, with a forced laugh. "What happened between us was only what was bound to happen, as a natural course, after we had once----"

He stopped short, feeling dimly that he was giving confused expression to his thoughts; and then pulling himself together with an effort, he went on--

"The question now is, not what has been, but what _is_; ... and whether you detest me or not is of no consequence. As I am here, I feel that I have the right to put a few questions to you. You certainly must answer them, for I stand before you as your husband's friend."

She smiled up at him, resigned to her fate. "Ask what you like," she whispered.

"Is it true what the gossip of the neighbourhood reports--that you--that you are deceiving Ulrich?"

Simply and quietly, without taking her veiled eyes from his face, she replied, "Yes!"

It seemed to him almost as if the masonry of the pedestal against which she leaned was going to fall on her. He was furious and disgusted, and pointing his outstretched fingers at her, he called her name in a choked voice.

With her perpetual smile, she folded her hands and said--

"I deceive him every day and every hour, Leo. My life is a disgraceful sham. Ulrich at my side is in hell."

"Who is the scoundrel?" he asked, grinding his teeth. "Tell me his name? You shall not go away from here alive, unless you tell me his name."

"Well, why shouldn't I tell you," she answered, with the same mysterious smile. "His name is Leo Sellenthin."

He fell back against the wall of the temple with a deep sigh of relief. After all she was only acting. Thank God! Thank God!

"Listen, Felicitas," he said then. "I am not here to be humbugged.... Still, you have not mentioned my name for nothing. Therefore, you shall answer a second question. Why--how could you dare, at the time when I was as good as dead, keeping dark, you know what, how could you dare to become Ulrich's wife?"

Her smile became more pronounced. It would seem as if she positively gloried in his anger. But she said nothing.

"Were you not afraid," he asked, "that I should ruin you for this deception--when once I came back?"

"I hoped so," she said, raising her folded hands a little off her lap.

"Felicitas," he answered, "I warn you ... let this masquerading alone. You can gain nothing by it, with me. Again I ask you, how could you?"

Then she raised both hands quite, and entreated. "Don't bully me--don't bully me!"

"Well, then, speak!"

"I will tell you everything--everything," she assured him. "Only you will have patience with me. Say that you will, Leo?"

"Of course. Yes."

"You see, at that time--I must confess it to you--at that time my love for you was not yet plucked out of my heart, and as--you see, it was impossible that we should come together after Rhaden's death----"

"Why was it impossible?" he broke in. "Did I not, on the night of the duel, go down on my knees, and conjure you to fly with me? Why shouldn't we have begun a new life together over in America, or some other part of the world, if our love was serious? I had resolved to sacrifice all for you--but you. Well, all that is over. Let us not refer to it again. As it was impossible that we could come together, you were saying?"

"So I wanted at least one thing," she confessed. "Don't look at me, please. I wanted at least to be near you."

He could scarcely grasp what he heard. It was so horrible,

"As Ulrich's wife?" he stammered. "Felicitas, think what you are saying."

She shook her head, smiling. "I didn't mean that," she whispered. "Don't think so badly of me. All I wanted was sometimes to see you, to hear your voice, to refresh my ears with your old laugh. For don't forget, _then_ I still loved you. If I sinned, it was out of love for you. Reproach me for it if you can."

He could not. His sister had been right, it was not easy to play the judge when one was a fellow-prisoner at the bar.

"Let us leave that time out of the question," he said after a silence. "I have got my answer--and that is enough. But we have more before us. Now it is the present, not the past, that we are concerned with. Is it true, Felicitas, that you have a train of admirers hanging after you, and that you encourage them to make love to you in Ulrich's house?"

"Yes," she replied, beginning her smile anew.

"Is it true that they write you letters full of gallantries, and that you answer them in the same strain?"

"Yes."

"And in spite of all that--Felicitas?"

"In spite of all that--Leo."

He felt once more as if his fury would overmaster him. He was almost suffocated by it, and he had to put restraint on himself not to fly at her as she stood there, in her defenceless beauty, smiling up at him.

"My God, speak!" he thundered.

"You have questioned me, and I have answered. What more do you wish me to do?"

"To justify yourself."

"I can't justify myself. If you would like to kill me, do it; here I am at your mercy. My wretchedness is unspeakable; death would be joy in comparison."

And still she smiled. If it was all hypocrisy she would cry, not smile, he reasoned.

"But I'll tell you everything," she continued. "Confess to you as one criminal confesses to another, who is bound with him on the galleys. For so you are bound to me, Leo--in unexpiated sin--in guilt, and in tears."

She stood before him with raised arms, like a perfect statue of the repenting Magdalene.

A thrill, alike of horror and admiration, ran through him. He knew that it was the language of the novelette in which she spoke. Nevertheless her phrases so moved and touched him, that his brain began to whirl.

She had come a step nearer to him, and stood confronting him with a face as white as a sheet, her breast heaving, and her lips trembling.

"When I became his wife," she began, "when I lay in his arms the first time, I had convulsions of fear. I thought I saw _you_, Leo, standing by the bed, with cocked pistol pointed at my forehead. And this vision didn't leave me till I was alone. So you can imagine there has not been much joy in our union. He is as unhappy as I am. But his unhappiness seems to me bliss compared with the torments that I have had to endure--helpless, alone, like a fish out of water, struggling on the sand, and slowly expiring. Till then, Leo, I had preserved my love for you in my heart as something sacred. But after that it began to yield to a constant gnawing anxiety--fear of you--fear of him--fear of Johanna--fear of the whole world. Even when I was engaged, I had an attack of it. I thought that my letters to you----"

"I know," he interrupted, "Johanna told me."

She bowed her beautiful head with a gesture of pain.

"Oh, now I see who it is has hounded you on to me," she whispered. "But she is right. I am every bit as bad, every bit as corrupt as her hate makes me out."

He, on his side, interpreted all these passionate self-accusations into the one reproach, that his sister had prophesied--the reproach, "It is your fault."

"Don't exaggerate," he said, trying at the same time to reassure himself. "It's not so bad as that."

She gave a deep sigh of exhaustion, and leaned her head comfortably against the foot of the white figure of the youth that stood nearest her on the pedestal.

"Thank you for that little word of consolation," she said, speaking low, as if in a dream. "It is the first that I have heard for years. For whom had I to go to in my distress, fright, and remorse? Even the damned in hell have companions. I had none. And now you want to know how I could, in the midst of my misery, have the heart to plunge into a whirl of frivolous gaieties, and encourage strange men? I answer you that I sought to deaden my trouble by distractions. The panacea seemed so handy, and to offer such a convenient mask. I daren't lie to you. You see, Leo, that when the last spark of my love for you had burnt away--extinguished by fear and remorse--my last, my sole restraint was gone--I despaired of there being any good in me, and a voice cried daily and hourly in my ears, 'Now you may slide downhill. You can't escape your fate.' And so when people talked of love to me, I forced myself to smile, though a shudder ran through my limbs. By night, I cried; by day, I laughed. The only thing worth living for was to gratify my whims. So I was goaded more and more into despising myself. Often when I noticed Ulrich's eyes resting on me sorrowfully, I longed to throw myself at his feet, and implore him to save me. But immediately the ghost of my guilt--_our_ guilt, Leo--stood behind me like a gigantic monster, and hissed in my ear, 'If you sacrifice yourself, you must not betray your associate.' Thus I have dragged on, weighed down by the burden--the awful burden of silence. It is a wonder that my body has been faithful to my marriage vows, so that I do not stand before you, to-day, an abandoned woman--so easily might I have been hurled over the precipice through despair in myself."

She was silent, and pressed her forehead against the edge of the pedestal, while her upstretched hands held on to the youth's foot, as if she had been the guardian angel instead of the evil genius of the friendship to whose symbol she clung.

The sun began to break through the mist. Its rays lay like a shimmering golden shell on the sacrificial stone which rose from the glittering dew like a gigantic pearl. Brilliant-hued butterflies flashed by the pillars, and now and again the song of a late-summer bird sounded softly from the bushes. The brook, which sprang out of the earth only a few paces from the temple, made a low clicking noise, then hurried away babbling into the valley, a scornfully laughing witness of this melancholy conversation.

Leo's eyes continued fastened on his former mistress. He was completely bewildered as to how to act towards her. There could be no further question of rebuke and blame, when help and counsel were needed and might save her. Yet what could he, what dared he do for her, without heaping guilt on guilt and introducing fresh deceit into the house of his unsuspecting friend?

"Lizzie," he said in a gentler voice, "you summoned me here. What do you want?"

"How can you ask, Leo?"

"I ask because I don't know."

"Why have you avoided me? Why have you made the poor innocent child a pretext for shunning Uhlenfelde? I used to think you had more courage, Leo."

This gave affairs an unexpected turn.

"I did not think further intercourse between us was possible, Lizzie," he said, "for both our sakes, as well as for your husband's and the world's. For what would the world say if it saw us interchanging courtesies again?"

"How calmly you ask the question," she answered, looking in front of her with her sweet smile.

"I have to think of you in this matter, as well as of myself," he replied. "And certainly I gathered from what Ulrich said that you shuddered at the thought of a meeting. Above all, it was your wish that my harmless meetings with him should cease."

"What else could I do," she said, "after you had expressed yourself so harshly about the child?"

"Harshly? Felicitas, take care what you say. I have considered the child's good. I would not have him taught to love me, and then learn to hate me--and you too."

"And yet you intended to take him with us to America?" she answered obstinately.

"That would have been quite a different thing, Lizzie. There no one would have known who I was. I should have passed as his father. But here, where every servant-girl--but, my God! why do I waste words? You yourself must have thought of it long ago. Otherwise you wouldn't have sent him so far away."

"The child is gone," she said in a low tone. "Every night I pray and weep for him; but he is out of your way."

He gave a start of horror. "Then _that is why_, Felicitas," he stammered, "that is why you sent him?"

"If you wish to rebuke me for being a bad mother," she said, "do it.... I won't defend myself."

She folded her hands in her lap, and looked into the distance with appealing helplessness.

"Ah, it cost me a severe struggle," she continued, as if talking to herself. "Every night my poor boy appeared to me in my dreams, and I became icy cold when I saw how pale and wretched he looked. But, I told myself, he is young; he will fight it through, live and be happy; but I ... well, you see, Leo, that this is my last battle; I know it. The torture of having to keep silence can't be borne much longer, remorse chokes me. Had I kept the child, I must have given up you, the only person who can help and advise me, and give me any comfort. What could I have done, then, but have thrown myself in the river. For they say in death it is easy to be silent."

Emotion and suspicion fought within him for the mastery. If she was capable of making such a tremendous sacrifice for him, it was nothing more nor less than saying, "I love you.... I love you still."

She guessed his thoughts. "Don't misunderstand me," she began again, "and think that I am trying to win you by tricks. Look at me, Leo! I am a mass of lies and deceit. My very face seems given me to dazzle and mislead, but hell is in my soul. And as sure as there is a God in heaven, so sure as Ulrich is sacred to us both----"

"He is to you?" he asked eagerly, drawing a step nearer to her.

"Yes," she raised her fingers voluntarily, as if to take her oath upon it. The expression of her eyes was pure and grave.

"Give me your hand," he said.

She laid her fingers quietly in his right hand, and as she did so her glance fell on the sapphire hoop.

"Leo," said she, with a sad little laugh, "I am glad to see that you still wear my ring."

He recoiled from her. Oh, fatal, cursed forgetfulness! Instead of locking it away when he got up that morning, he had stuck it on his finger as usual.

"Don't look so alarmed," she went on, "the poor ring has done nothing. Go on wearing it. Once it served as a symbol of our common sin; for the future it shall tell us that we are as one in being truly penitent for what has happened; and if we ourselves can never be happy again, we will at least unite in making another happy, who must be dearer to us than each other."

"That is an excellent sentiment, Felicitas," he said, "and if you keep to it all may yet be well."

"If you help me, I certainly will."

He knew what she was aiming at It was the same demand as the pastor's and Johanna's. He felt humbled. They were all of the same opinion, that there was only one road to complete expiation. Therefore he supposed they must be right.

"Repent nothing," had persistently been his watchword. But, after all, he need not relinquish it, when, sure of his strength, he entered his friend's house to bring into it the sunshine it lacked.

And while he was meditating thus, he suddenly beheld the woman lying at his feet. Her hood had slipped back on her neck, and the mass of fair hair, loosely tied with a blue ribbon, framed the lovely, melancholy white face in a thousand shining waves and little curls. He bent down, horrified, to raise her. But she resisted.

"Let me clasp your knees," she implored. "I will not stand up till I know that I am not any more alone and forsaken in my sin, that you will support me when penitence tears my heart--so that I need no longer be silent and despairing."

"I will help you, Felicitas," he said. "Only do stand up."

Her hands felt for his. "When will you come?" she asked beseechingly.

"When you like."

"Come to-day," she begged. "He pines for you."

"How long has he been back?"

"Three days.... Say you wanted to speak to me. That is enough. You are coming?"

"Yes; I will come."

She thrilled with pleasure. "I promise you," she said, "that I will no longer regard you as my bitterest enemy. That I will do my best to make you happy."

"It is not I you have to think of," he replied, "but Ulrich--will you make Ulrich happy?"

She shrank from him slightly. "Yes, I will," she said in a toneless voice.

Ten minutes later the white boat put off from the landing-place. Leo watched it from behind the bushes. She did not wave her hand in farewell, neither did she look round, and he felt grateful to her for it. When she landed on the opposite bank, it seemed to him as if she sank on the ground for a moment because she was either exhausted or crying.

He turned back to the temple deep in thought. The mist had quite dispersed, and so he was obliged to hang about the island, in hiding for another hour or more. Warm noontide sunlight lay on the lawn. Wasps with wide outspread wings floated humming about the blackberry clusters. A slow-worm crawled lazily over the half-dry pebbles. Now and then there came from the Halewitz fields a jocund cry, which slowly died away on the air. It was the ploughman working not far from the river.

Yonder lay his acres; his work, his happiness. Plagued by restlessness, he ran to and fro in front of the temple, the statues looking down on him indifferently with their frozen smile. The soft sandstone out of which they were sculptured had begun to decay. The full-blooming boys' faces had grown wrinkled, and were full of scars and pits, as if the leaves had rotted them. The arm of one was shattered as far as the elbow, and the stump projected from the upper part of the body like a post nailed into the flesh.

"We must get you restored, you poor fellow," he said, and drew himself erect with a broken-hearted sigh.

XV

Hertha awoke. The flies buzzed about in the purple duskiness; broad midday sunshine came through the chinks of the shutters and the red curtains.

"I must have dreamed it," she thought, laying her arm beneath her head and laughing up blissfully at the ceiling.

And then she slowly realised that this time it could be no dream. A warm glow flooded her face. She shut her eyes and didn't think. It seemed as if her body were drifting, and as if she must die of happiness. What had her existence been yesterday, and what was it to-day? A wild hoyden had been carried down the stream, and then he had found her, and made her a woman with the magic of his love.

She jumped out of bed with a sharp exclamation, and began to dress.

When she stood before the glass she contemplated herself for a long time.

"How funny!" she said. "I look the same as usual."

She passed Elly's bed on tiptoe. The girl was sleeping away her tears and fright of the day before in rosy, peaceful slumbers. A fly had alighted on the corner of one of her eyelids. Hertha flicked it off.

"And _she_ talks about love," she thought, and shrugged her shoulders.

And, as was always the case when she tried to put herself in the place of her companion, with her childish, objectless mind, a deadening, flat feeling came over her, which robbed her of the courage to believe in the happy result of what had happened yesterday. Perhaps, on further consideration, he would find her wanting in seriousness, and would take back his declaration.

The next minute she was ashamed of her poor-spiritness. It was inconceivable that he had not perfectly understood how boundless her love for him was, and how, in spite of her extreme youth, her early experience of the sorrows and trials of life had ripened and strengthened her character.

Ten o'clock sounded from the clock tower. She was alarmed at its being so late. She would share every joy and sorrow and pursuit with the beloved in future, even early rising. And she resolved to get up with the call-bell, as of old, when she used to go to the milking.

Creeping about on naked feet, she went on with her toilette.

It was a mercy that Elly didn't wake. What torture it would have been if these first holy hours had had to be frittered away in idle chatter!

At first she thought of putting on her light batiste frock--the one with the whip-cord pattern--that suited her best, and looked so fresh and festive. Surely to-day was a festival--the behest of her life; and in half shame-faced joy her trembling soul scarcely dared look forward to the glory it was to bring forth. Then she gave up the idea. She wouldn't make herself gay and smart. Rather would she meet him modestly and neatly arrayed; so she chose a dress of dark tweed, and only relieved it with a jabot of pale blue and lace at the neck. This she thought gave her a sufficiently languishing look, and suited her complexion.

The St. Bernard's bark called her beneath the window. He was roaming about the garden masterless, sniffing along the gravel paths. She stretched her arms out to him joyously. Her tenderness for him knew no bounds.

"A pity he is not a man," she thought "I would love him as my brother."

Then she left the room with her high boots in her hand, for she did not dare put them on till she was in the corridor.