Part 39

It seemed to him that all the new purpose and strength that he had built up within him, all the tenderness and truth were falling in ruins. Nothingness stretched before him.

"The best thing I can do, then," he said sadly, "is to pack my bundle as quickly as may be and go back to America."

Ulrich came and laid his hand on his shoulder. "No, you won't do that, dear boy," he said. "Look over there across the stream. There lie your acres; your fields full of flourishing rye; the turnips waiting to be transplanted; even the wheat springing above the soil. And now God's blessed gift of rain has come to make all green and fruitful. You are responsible for every tiny growth, so don't talk of running away to waste and rot where you can do no good and reap no harvest."

"If you give me up," said Leo, bitterly, "nothing is any good."

"But I am not going to give you up. I shall watch over you and yours from afar, and rejoice in all that gives you joy. I shall count the ears of corn in your fields, and your children I will cherish in my heart as if they were my own."

"My children?" muttered Leo.

Ulrich smiled. "Do you imagine I haven't kept my eyes open?" he asked. "I don't know whether you feel yet that you have come through the furnace of what has been, sufficiently cleansed.... But take my advice and don't keep the dear girl waiting too long. Be happy; you have good cause; for _you_ it is spring, inside and out."

Leo felt tears start to his eyes. He turned away, and put his hands over his face.

"And what about you, Ulrich?" he asked, controlling his emotion.

A gleam of patient hopelessness shot over the tired sallow face, like the presage of a tranquil death.

"Oh, I," he said; "I have not much more to live for. You mustn't worry about me. I have done what I could, and I accept as a special grace what is left to me. Now, give me your hand. My most earnest, heartfelt thanks are yours. Good-bye." For a moment they lay in each other's arms. "Be brave, old fellow," urged Ulrich. "After all, we have only reached the point at which we stood the day you came home."

"Once more, forgive me," Leo half whispered, as if ashamed of the request; and then he rushed to the door.

The soft rain was still falling. A warm wind swept it over the landscape in silvery showers, and from between the banks of cloud a faint golden light shone down on the fragrant earth. Wild ducks quacked as they wallowed in the slime of the pond. In the branches of the blossoming hawthorns, finches and tomtits chased each other, singing and chirruping. The whole of Nature seemed in the humour for jesting.

As if coming from an open grave, Leo faced life again in its changed aspect, and his heart was very sore. There dawned on his mind a sense of the utter uselessness of struggling against the fate which governed so inexorably the human race. His brain was too tired to reason it out clearly, but the bare idea overawed him. Then something began to rise up in revolt within him against the destiny to which he had submitted, without even a show of resistance, and against the prolonging of the paralysing influence of his old sin. The sacrifice to which he had consented with such weak humility would hang that sin round his neck like a millstone for evermore.

There was his boat, receiving for the last time the hospitality of the white sands of Uhlenfelde. For the last time his strong arms pushed it out into the stream. The last time! The pebbles crunched under the grinding keel, and its nose ploughed gaily into the sparkling ripples. Was it really the last time that his foot would touch Uhlenfelde soil? Half hesitating, he jumped into the boat and fixed the oars, with an exclamation of anger. What he had agreed to was absurd--nay, worse, it was a positive crime, a crime against himself and against his friend.

And then, when in mid-current he turned to take a farewell look at Uhlenfelde, he saw at one of the turret windows Ulrich's face. It was unmistakable, framed in its light, scanty goat's beard, and with its great, hollow eyes. His heart leapt. It would seem as if Ulrich had mounted to the tower with the purpose of beaconing him back.

"I'm coming, I'm coming!" he cried jubilantly, and with a frantic pull began to turn the boat round.

But no, Ulrich made no sign; on the contrary, he drew back quickly, as if he did not wish to be seen.

Disappointed, Leo rowed on, yet he felt distinctly happier. At the sight of his friend, in his great, shy, compassionate love, watching him, half hidden by the curtains, there came back to Leo, in a sudden revulsion of feeling, all his new-born strength and energy, which he had felt recently thrilling through body and soul; the old glorious, mighty, unquenchable confidence in conquest, which had been his inheritance and had ruled his life from the beginning, till a woman had shamefully filched it from him.

He jerked the oars out of his hands, drew himself erect, and stretching his clenched fists towards Ulrich, he called out laughingly across the water--

"I'll win you back yet--see if I don't!"

The glimmer of a face vanished from the window opposite. But Leo sat down in the boat again, and guided it swiftly to the Halewitz shore--high festival in his heart.

THE END

* * * * *

_THIRD EDITION_

REGINA; OR, THE SINS OF THE FATHERS. By Hermann Sudermann. Translated by Beatrice Marshall.

Crown 8vo. Price 6s.

* * * * *

_THE TIMES_.--"Sudermann is one of the most masterly of contemporary novelists, and it was high time that he should be presented to the English public. 'Der Katzensteg,' though far from the latest, is perhaps the most powerful of his novels, and the publisher has been well advised in selecting it. As for the translation, it is so admirably done that as we read we forget we are reading a translation."

_DAILY NEWS_.--"To Beatrice Marshall we owe a skilful and spirited translation of Hermann Sudermann's great novel.... The story palpitates with the passion of patriotism, of revenge, of love and hate.... The book is a strong book, and not written for babes. It gives us an insight into the patriotic passion that drives men to commit actions as savage and ignoble as it inspires them to the highest heroism. The appeal of the book lies in the development of that wonderful love-story between the two unhappy outcasts weighted with the sins of the father. To those who cannot read the story in German, we recommend this translation of a masterpiece."

_DAILY GRAPHIC_.--"_Regina_ belongs to that category in which great novels rank."

_ACADEMY_.--"A powerful and very deliberate tragedy.... Miss Beatrice Marshall is the translator, and, on the whole, Herr Sudermann may consider himself fortunate."

_LITERARY WORLD_.--"After a perusal of _Regina_, we are constrained to wonder why in the name of fortune a book so powerful has had to wait such a long time for a translator.... _Regina_ is not a book belonging to any school. It is the product of a mind strong enough to reject all neighbourly props; and it could only have been written by a realist who has not been unwise enough to depart altogether from the poetry of romance."

_SPECTATOR_.--"The author has handled his terrible theme with wonderful force and simplicity, and a complete avoidance of offence.... Regina is a strangely pathetic and even heroic figure, while there is an elemental force in the passions--hate, love, avarice, and cruelty--of the various _dramatis personae_ which lend them an impressiveness rarely encountered in a novel of English life."

_OUTLOOK_.--"It is little to the credit of our publishers that this masterpiece, which in Germany has reached a twenty-second edition, should have waited nine years for an English translator.... This translation will reveal ... what artistic realism may become. Miss Marshall is particularly happy in the rural and domestic scenes."

_ST. JAMES' GAZETTE_.--"A striking bit of work, full of excitements and strongly drawn characters.... Miss Beatrice Marshall, the translator, is to be congratulated on an excellent piece of work."

_GLOBE_.--"The story is told with remarkable skill, the interest being sustained throughout.... The novel is a striking one, and deserves careful and critical attention."

_PALL MALL GAZETTE_.--"A great German novel.... The tale is at a tense pitch of excitement and agitation, and it abounds with wonderful, strongly drawn characters.... There is nothing gladdening at all. But power beats in every stroke, and the AEschylean gloom and force of the story is nothing short of grand."

_BOOKMAN_.--"To Miss Marshall they [the readers] owe gratitude for introduction to a book of exceptional force through a very creditable translation."

_SUNDAY TIMES_.--"It is quite impossible to do justice to the literary and artistic merits of this great and original achievement in modern fiction."

_LADY'S PICTORIAL_.--"A powerful sad tragic story, ... for it is full of the passions of love and hate in their most primitive and terrible forms."

* * * * *

_JOHN LANE'S NEW BOOKS_

THE YOUNG O'BRIENS: A Novel. By the Author of "Elizabeth's Children" and "Helen Alliston." Crown 8vo. 6s.

_FOURTH EDITION_. THE CHAMPAGNE STANDARD. By Mrs. John Lane, Author of "Kitwyk," etc. Crown 8vo. 6s.

THE NEWEL FORTUNE. By Mansfield Brooks. Crown 8vo. 6s.

THE BRIDE OF AN HOUR: A Novel. By Elizabeth Godfrey, Author of "The Winding Road." Crown 8vo. 6s.

CORNISH SAINTS AND SINNERS. By J. Henry Harris, Author of "The Fishers." With upwards of 70 Illustrations by L. Raven-Hill. Crown 8vo. 6s.

THE HOUSE BY THE BRIDGE: A Novel. By M. G. Easton. Crown 8vo. 6s.

THE LOVE CHILD. By T. B. Clegg. Crown 8vo. 6s. _Second Edition_.

_SECOND EDITION_. THE MOUNTAIN LOVERS. By Fiona Macleod. Crown 8vo. 6s.

THE FORD. By A. E. J. Legge, Author of "Mutineers," "Both Great and Small," etc. Crown 8vo. 6s. _Second Edition_.

_TENTH THOUSAND_. THE MORALS OF MARCUS ORDEYNE. By William J. Locke, Author of "Derelicts," "Where Love Is," etc. Crown 8vo. 6s.

* * * * * LONDON: JOHN LANE, THE BODLEY HEAD NEW YORK: JOHN LANE COMPANY

FOOTNOTE:

1. The final word was obliterated. The German version provides the familiar word "for you" (dir).--Transcriber.