A pale, snowy twilight came through the window. Leo sprang up in bed where he had slept for four hours, in his clothes, like a dead man.
He extinguished the lamp which smoked, still burning near him on the table. Now it seemed to be almost night again. It was a quarter-past seven by his watch. "At eight it will be daylight," he thought. "If I start then, I shall be early enough."
Then slowly, as one recalls a wild dream, he went over again the events of the past night. Why had she not turned him back at the garden gate, when she knew Ulrich was in the house? For a moment he entertained the mad suspicion that she had laid a trap for him, but the next, he rejected it as unlikely.
He had not quite regained clear consciousness. His forehead ached, his eyes burned. A confused medley of thoughts and images passed through his brain; and then there leapt up within him an illuminating flame of certainty--
"Now he knows!"
Now he knows--he knows. It was all over with hypocrisy, lying, and evasion, nervous anxiety, and enervating desire. The long corrupting process to which his inner man had been subjected had reached its finality. Once more he might draw a deep free breath from his sorely weighted lungs.
He thrust open the window, and breathed in long draughts of the snow-laden air, which braced and refreshed him. His mood was now so clear and calm, that he felt as if body and soul had been purified and hallowed in that white mantle of snow.
The flakes descended in whirling columns. They seemed to push and struggle with each other as to which should first reach the earth.
They hid the yard in impenetrable clouds. Only here and there a gable or a stable window peeped out on the battle-field of snowflakes.
He had taken farewell already of his belongings; had consigned to ruin with rage and scorn the heritage that had come down to him from his forefathers.
But to-day it was with calm resignation that he relinquished everything that his heart had so long held dear. A supreme indifference to all that had happened, and was yet to happen, overcame him. Even the wrong that he had done Ulrich no longer deeply affected him.
He would let him shoot him dead, and thenbasta! But suppose he should miss! What if his hand trembled. It could not, it must not. To outlive this day was unthinkable. He would receive the sanctifying bullet in silence, in grateful silence that he had been allowed to die an honourable death.
He drew down his case of pistols, oiled and tested the triggers, and put his eye to their mouths. On the butt end of one he found the little cross, scratched with a knife, the mark which he had made years ago to distinguish the pistol which had killed Rhaden from the others.
Then he loaded it, and before doing so he held the bullets in his palm and passed his other hand almost affectionately over the leaden pellets.
Slowly the day advanced. One thing he had to do which would be more difficult than it had been yesterday, and that was to take a mute farewell of his loved ones. The day before he had slunk into the house like a thief in the night, to-day he could scarcely resist the longing to press openly a parting kiss on his mother's brow. But she was still asleep, and as he went by her door he stroked the latch with his hand. That was his good-bye.
The only person he met face to face was Hertha. He found her in the dining-room as he came into it, to get a drink of something warming. She wore a white smock over her dark house-dress, and the lamplight which struggled with the dawn shone on her smooth hair.
She started at the sound of his morning greeting, for it was a long time since such a thing had happened as his appearing at breakfast.
"Up already, Hertha?"
"Yes, of course," she gasped. "I have been going to the milking again lately."
And then she pressed her elbows nervously against her sides, as if she was afraid that she had said too much, and cast her eyes shyly along the table.
"That is capital," he said; "will you pour me out a cup of coffee?"
"When the water boils," she answered, and busied herself with the flame of the spirit-lamp.
He sat down opposite her, and as he looked at her he thought, "There sits one who should have been my housewife."
And he held a silent burial. All the hopes of his youth, his dreams of happiness, his unspoken wish for wife and children, and the small dear comforts of a home, all that was best and purest within him, that he had imagined dead long ago, at this moment, when he was conscious it still lived, he laid in a solemn grave.
She brewed the coffee, and the porcelain filter trembled in her hand. Then she handed him a steaming cup.
He drank it, and she began to move towards the door.
"Don't go, my child," he said, eager to enjoy to the full these few minutes. "Stay with me."
She paused irresolute, her eyes wide with wonder, then she slowly went back to her place.
He did not speak to her again, and for something to do, she cut bread and butter.
The clock struck eight and he sprang up. "Now for it, old boy. Now for it."
At the door he stopped and looked back. She was sitting turned away from him, her head a little on one side, her industrious hands fallen idly in her lap.
And now the anguish of parting unmanned him. He came behind her, and bending her head backwards he laid his hand on her forehead with a gentle caress.
He saw the colour deepen in her cheeks, and her two rows of regular white teeth shining between her anxiously parted lips, and he looked into her large frightened eyes.
"My dear child," he said; "my dear, dear child."
Their eyes melted into each other, and from the depths of her breast came a short gurgling sob.
"You have been very good to me, child," he went on, "and you would have done still more for me if I had let you. And in return I have been bearish and rough to you. Forgive me. I would like to make up for it, but it may not be--may not be. Stay with my mother, dear; you are the only one who can keep a cool head."
He kissed her rigid lips softly and hurried away.
Outside the falling snow hung like a thick veil over the fields. Not a breath of wind, not a sound came out of the distance. The trees became blurred in the dense, silent dance of the flakes. They looked almost as if they were tied up in bags, so entirely were they wrapped in the snowy foam.
Beneath his feet the fine new snow rose over his boots at every step and flew before him in little powdery clouds. Road and path were quite lost to view, and one had to grope one's way over the ground step by step.
Leo felt warm under his heavy cloak, and the weight of his case of pistols oppressed him too. He opened his mouth, and swallowed as many of the flying crystals as he could catch, for his throat burned. Then he took off his cap and let the cooling flakes fall refreshingly on his bare head.
"Would he be there?" he asked himself, and the thought of a personal meeting alarmed him more than the prospect of death.
"My God, what sort of a meeting will it be?" he stammered half-aloud, and grew hot all over.
They would have to speak to each other. They could not glare from their respective posts and then fall on one another without a word like two red Indians; and suddenly in a flash the thought came to him--
"Suppose you are so bad that he declines to waste powder and shot on you."
He held his breath for a moment almost petrified with shame. Then he roused himself and ran with all his might through the reeds, and over the groaning ice to the spot where "finis" was to be written on everything. On the frozen little bay, whereby it was alone possible to reach the island, he found footprints which must have been quite freshly made, though the snow had half covered them up already.
This first sign of his friend's waiting presence made his heart rise to his throat.
He tore on, following the foot-marks up the steep incline to the clearing which was lost to sight in the ever-thickening snowstorm. For a moment anxiety at what was to come made him giddy. Death was mere child's play compared with the inevitable conversation that must precede it. He leaned against a tree to get his breath, and it seemed to him that instead of the white flakes a shower of red and blue flames were falling around him. And then he made a last great effort to shake off all cowardice, and stepped on to the open space to offer his heart as a target to his friend.
But he could see no sign of him. On all sides the white noiseless tumult, the dark interior of the temple making the one shadow in the milky lightness, but nowhere any trace of a human figure.
He walked the length of the clearing, took a rapid glance in passing at the two statues, spied into the thicket, hunted at the back of the temple, and at last he found him.
First of all his foot struck against a case of pistols like his own, and then he saw lying stretched out at the foot of the sacrificial stone the outline of a man's figure already half covered with snow. With a cry he darted to his side, raised him into an upright position in his arms, and wiped the snow off his face. It was like the face of a corpse. The eyes were shut, the lips colourless, and his skin as Leo touched it felt deathly cold against his caressing hands. Half out of his mind with a dread fear, he pressed his ear listening against the motionless chest. A slight, irregular tremour told him that there was still life in the body.
And as his fear was conquered, a great passion of all-powerful, all-healing tenderness came over him with the force of an avalanche, which swept away sin and pain, self-degradation and self-contempt and desire for death by the roots as if they had never been. Triumphantly the joy of the old full and undivided possession of his friend broke forth again at this moment. He would live for him, his only care should be to love and serve him--he would laugh so that he should learn to laugh again; lie at his feet like a faithful dog.
Yes, all this he vowed to do as he felt a new strength brace his limbs and a new hope expand his soul.
Now, at any rate, so long as he hung lifeless in his arms, he belonged to him and no one else, he alone was there to warm and cherish him, and to rub his brow as of old.
He carried him to the temple of friendship, spread his cloak for him to lie upon, and wrapped the corners over his breast; and when he saw that the cloak was not sufficient to cover the long limbs altogether, be wrenched off his coat and wrapped it round his feet.
Then he seated himself upon the temple steps, and pillowing the head gently in his lap he began massaging with his finger-tips forehead and skull in the manner which he had practised from childhood, which only he in the world understood.
But the swoon continued; now and then a slight convulsion ran through Ulrich's frame like a shiver from cold.
"If I could get him warm, he would recover consciousness," thought Leo, and drew the folds of the cloak closer round his limbs.
The flakes descended with monotonous speed, without a hiatus or a pause. Not the tiniest spot did they spare, and the narrow roof of the temple was no shelter from them. They no longer cooled and refreshed, but stung and burned as they fell on his skin. They settled in scores on his thin shirt-sleeves and made little dark rivulets there as their star-like shapes melted. He began to freeze, but he did not mind.
His whole soul was centred on the re-awakening of which Ulrich's face now held out one signal after another. And, at length, his eyes opened. First his gaze was fixed on the distance, then it wandered along the white sleeves which bellied above him, and finally remained riveted on the face bending over him with such keen solicitude. An expression of intense horror slowly dawned on his features. A shudder ran through his limbs, and he made a spasmodic attempt to stand on his legs, but sank back again exhausted. His breast heaved and his hands fumbled for a support.
Leo felt his own breath come faster. Now was his great opportunity.
"Spare yourself," he stammered, "I implore you. I will do nothing to you. Lie still and let me explain everything; only lie still. Afterwards, when you have regained strength, you shall shoot me down. But so long as you are feeling poorly spare yourself, and lie still for pity's sake."
Ulrich's gestures became more composed, and there was a silence.
"Leo!"
Greedily Leo heard his name fall from the beloved lips.
"What, old man, what?"
"Leo, why have you not got on your coat?"
"Oh, never mind my coat."
"Leo, if you ... Leo, why ...?"
"Don't ask any questions, child; not now. I am going to tell you all, but not now. Now you must lie quietly here while I go for help."
"No, no. It is best that you should say now, once for all, what you want to say."
"But are you quite sure that you are well enough to bear it?"
"Yes, I think so."
"And you will be able to understand?"
"Yes, I shall understand."
"I haven't spoken, Ulrich, because I thought it no good--because I thought you would believe her and not me--and because I wanted to spare her, too. But whether you will believe me or not, whether or not it is her ruin, I will speak now. And I shall not whitewash myself, you may be sure of that."
And then he confessed all, beginning with the first great lie which had been the root of all the evil. He kept back nothing and softened nothing in the rapid brief words which the stress of the moment necessitated his using. It was as if his heart opened and his soul poured out through his veins in streams of blood.
Silent and motionless, with his eyes raised to the ceiling of the temple, Ulrich listened.
Then he seemed to be losing consciousness again, for he became wandering and unintelligible in his speech, and his eyelids dropped. But he had clearly comprehended as far as the intended double suicide. And he had grasped its deepest motive. For, with a mild, melancholy smile, he murmured, "Poor boy." After that he was silent, and lay there with feverish cheeks and dry lips gazing into vacancy from beneath his drooping lids.
Ulrich's only sign of forgiveness was in those two words, "Poor boy." And to these Leo had to cling desperately, now and later in many an hour of suspense, till he could be certain what Fate had in store for him.
With merciless calm the flakes whirled down. There was a cruel and restful peace in their endless descent--a sort of eternal repose, like a silent burying of countless races.
Leo shivered. His shirt was wet through, and a feeling of numbness crept over his stiff arms.
Where should he take the sick man?
Uhlenfelde was nearest, but he recoiled with horror from the idea of delivering him into the woman's hands again. He had him, and he would keep him in defiance of her and the whole world.
A warm glow of new-born energy suffused his limbs. He laid the head of his unconscious friend against the pedestal and sprang to his feet.
And as he looked round him into the white, dripping duskiness, in which everything seemed indistinct and shapeless, the knowledge grew on him, "You live--and you may live."
He put both hands to his brow and staggered above the prostrate form.
It was a happiness that pained. And then he ran off straight to Halewitz to fetch help.
A time of heavy trial followed. Ulrich must have carried the germs of typhoid about with him since he left his stepson's sick-bed, and the excitement of that memorable night had developed them into activity. He lay in Leo's study hovering between life and death.
In the first hours after conveying him there, Leo half feared that Felicitas might dispute his right to nursing the patient. But his anxiety on this account proved quite superfluous. The messenger whom he had despatched to Uhlenfelde brought back word that the "gnädiger Frau" had driven to the station early that morning with luggage, and had left no address behind her.
It was with a feeling of release that he threw himself on his knees by the sick-bed, and swore over his friend's thin burning hand a thousand oaths to which he could not give words, but which all meant the same thing: "See, I am my old self again, and so I shall always be!"
His one plan for the future now was to live with him if he lived, and to die with him if he died.
He never left Ulrich's bed. His rest was taken on the floor at its foot, and with cognac and champagne he kept at bay the sleep that was so necessary to his powerful physique, which he would not allow to feel the strain of watching.
He had been morally so cast down and broken by the events of the last few weeks that even now he could hardly believe in reawakened expectations of happiness or hopes for Ulrich's recovery, except by a miracle.
An extra anxiety was added to his burden, when Johanna appeared one evening at the door of the sick-room, and declared that the time had come for her to see Ulrich; God had directed that she should speak with him before he died.
Leo's assurances that the patient would not be able to recognise or understand her were in vain, and as in desperation he tried to remove her from the corridor by force, she began to rave.
The next morning, at her own express wish, she was taken to an asylum.
In these days of trouble and sorrow, when even grandmamma had lost her old nerve and presence of mind, and ran hither and thither, crying and wringing her hands, Hertha was a never-failing prop to lean upon, and an indefatigable helper. She kept the household going in its customary routine, and carried the master's orders to the steward and bailiffs. Even to desolate Uhlenfelde she stretched out a helping hand.
A silent understanding had come about between her and Leo, which was regarded by every one as perfectly natural, for it was an accepted thing that they belonged to each other.
When he met the glance of her bright eyes, hanging questioningly on his lips, he thought, "She has suffered, so she will be able to forgive."
But first Ulrich's recovery, and the rest would come right of itself.
The recovery came.
In the middle of February Ulrich awoke to new consciousness, though for weeks afterwards he was too weak to follow any consecutive train of thought. He seemed to have lost in a great measure his grasp on the past, and he was as grateful as a child when he was helped out in remembering things.
With the return of his mental powers a certain restlessness was apparent in him, of a purely physical character, but which evidently led his mind back to the contemplation of the gaps in a psychic puzzle. He appeared anxious to ask questions, to probe and search into matters, but, not having the courage, lapsed into prolonged and silent brooding.
Leo watched the process with growing uneasiness. An explanation was out of the question, yet every day it became more and more imperative.
Early in March the doctor, after a private talk with the convalescent, urged the necessity of a change of six or eight weeks to a Southern climate. He also insisted that it was most important that this change should precede the return to Uhlenfelde.
Who should accompany him? Certainly not Herr von Sellenthin. Such a thing was not to be thought of. The poor, overtaxed brain must rest, and that was only possible with strangers. Friends in such cases were poison.
Leo said no more.
The next day, a young doctor without a practice arrived from Königsberg, who was delighted to undertake the case and travel with Ulrich, which, as he freely confessed, would be a lift to him financially.
The parting between the friends was gentle and affectionate, and, on the surface, without significance. In it, there was on one side the dumb appeal, "Forgive me" and on the other the unspoken assurance, "I have forgiven you."
Week after week went by. Leo worked with almost superhuman zeal, for now the supervision of the Uhlenfelde estate, as well as his own, was on his shoulders.
He thought of his former mistress without bitterness or self-reproach, though he was sometimes exercised to know what had become of her. One day, scanty news of her reached him in an unexpected and indirect way.
He called on Pastor Brenckenberg with the object of asking his pardon for his roughness to him at their last interview, and then the old man, who had gradually got over his rancour, told him that his son, "the rascal," had met the Baroness von Kletzingk in Berlin. She had looked the same as usual, had not been in the least embarrassed, and had overwhelmed him with questions.
"And there's something else to tell you," continued the pastor. "You really did my boy a good turn, after all. It is true that he has been expelled from his Corps, but that won't do him much harm. He has been a different creature since that correction you administered to him. He has given up loafing and getting into debt, and he is now earning his bread and working steadily for his exam. So pardon me, Fritzchen, and let me thank you. I behaved like an old ass!"
Leo shook his hand laughingly. Then he pondered on what he had heard about Felicitas, and hoped that she was not playing the adventuress in Berlin.
A report of Ulrich came every week. At first the young doctor wrote, and then he wrote himself, a few, faint, hurried lines, and on these his friend was obliged to build his hopes.
Slowly Leo's soul was purged of its gnawing suspicions and its anxious presentiments of evil which had been so habitual to it of late. He regained his self-confidence, and at the same time spurts of the quaint cynicism and noisy gaiety which so well become those doughty giants on the east of the Elbe. This showed that his wounds were healing, and his temperament recovering its normal healthiness.
It was on a grey, still morning in the second week of May that Leo came in ravenous from his early ride to join the others at breakfast. The glass doors stood wide open, letting in draughts of the soft rainy air. He fancied that he detected in the three pairs of eyes raised to his an unwonted flash of excitement.
"Why are you all making such mysterious faces?" he asked.
His mother looked away and smiled. Elly glanced down at her lap and smiled too. Hertha kept her eyes fixed on has face with complete frankness.
Then he caught sight of an envelope lying beside his coffee-cup. It was addressed in Ulrich's handwriting, but bore no postmark. His heart leapt as he read--
"Dear Old Boy,
"I came home last night, and I am expecting you. Love to all your people,
"Ulrich."
Because he did not wish to betray his emotion, he stood silently behind his chair, and crumpled the paper in his hand. Each one in turn came up to him quietly and congratulated him.
"Children," he said, "his house is empty and desolate now. He has no one but us. Help me to make him welcome here, so that he may look on it as his home. Will you help me, all three of you?"
"Of course we will, my son," said, his mother, and stroked his arm.
"And do you agree, Hertha?"
She looked at him with wide, calm eyes, and nodded. He took her hand and mutely thanked her; then he ate and drank, and counted the minutes.
Soon he was making his way streamwards over rain-drenched paths. All round him, in hedge and field, buds and shoots were bursting forth into their spring glory, and within him as he went along a voice kept up the jubilant cry, "Now he belongs to me entirely, and no one else."
But when he stood aloft on the dyke, and saw below him the bijou turrets of Uhlenfelde rising in their coquettish smartness against the sky, a fear began to creep into his heart.
They had been built for her, and where was she? Perhaps knocking about the world abandoned and degraded, while he, unpunished, might dare to set his foot in the house which he had helped to desecrate.
"But what of that?" he laughed, and stretched his strong limbs primed like steel. "Health and happiness must be snatched when they come your way, at any cost. What good to cry over spilt milk?"
And he struck out vigorously with the oars. The Isle of Friendship, in its May raiment of pale green and gold, seemed to peep admiringly at its own reflection in the mirror-like water.
"That saved us," he thought, and, in passing, looked out for a glimpse of the temple which the foliage was not yet umbrageous enough to hide.
As the boat crunched on the Uhlenfelde strand, panic seized him again, and he entered the courtyard breathing in short gasps like an asthmatic.
But with an effort he set his teeth and collected himself. Ulrich had seen him coming, and was in the hall to receive him. The subdued light of a cloudy day fell on his serious, rigid face, which the spring sunshine of the south had toned to a yellowish brown.
Leo was conscious that he trembled; he would have liked to fly into his arms only he did not dare. The immovable face held him back. Instead he stretched out both his hands and murmured a conventional "How are you?"
A gleam of melancholy tenderness passed over Ulrich's features. "My boy," he said, biting his lips; "my dear old boy."
And then he led him into the garden salon, where a solitary coffee-cup stood on a side table.
Leo cast a shy glance to the left in the direction of Lizzie's sanctum. The door into the boudoir was closed and the key gone. The whole house seemed void and deadly quiet, as if it contained no living creature except the master.
In a corner of the window was the couch with an armchair drawn up close to it, and a little table with ash-tray and cigarette-box. That was where Felicitas had thrown herself down that autumn afternoon when she had first begun to stir up old memories.
Leo thought of this, and felt a slight repugnance when Ulrich asked him to sit down there.
The room from floor to ceiling seemed haunted with shameful pictures of what had been.
"The winter crops are thriving," began Ulrich.
Leo hesitated before answering. In this very natural remark of a landowner who has returned home after a long absence, he traced an evasion.
"Yes, they are all right," he said, constrained.
"And you have looked after Uhlenfelde's interests; accept my warmest thanks, old boy."
"Don't mention it," replied Leo, refusing the hand held out to him. "Your work-people are used to managing for themselves."
"Certainly. That's true," said Ulrich. "But, nevertheless, it is well that they should feel the hand of a master over them."
"I wonder what he means," thought Leo, still at a loss and perplexed by the immovable, solemn face opposite him. Their friendship, their old, exuberant, grand friendship; what had become of it?
A dim desire awoke in Leo to play the fool to put an end to this constraint. He felt as if he could stand on his head, dance and whoop, or throw himself at his feet, kiss his hands, and cry, "Forgive, forgive."
Yet allwasforgiven.
In this man's calm, composed glance, there was not a shadow of reproach, nothing but an affectionate compassion.
"Tell me about yourself, Uhich," he asked, stuttering. "Are you satisfied with your progress? Do you feel quite well now?"
"Yes," said Ulrich, "I am very well."
There was a pause.
Outside the rain fell in warm, soft torrents, and the soil greedily absorbed the moisture. Strings of grey pearls hung on the young green of the twigs, and the half-unfurled leaves expanded, and glistened in the invigorating shower-bath. Everywhere young life and the promise of a fertile spring. But the two men who loved each other better than anything else in the world, felt as if a breath of autumn and dying things hovered about them.
"You know," Ulrich began, "we have much to talk over, old boy. We must come to a clear understanding about our position with regard to each other. I mean, our old friendship."
A quiet, iron resolve made his face like an inscrutable mask. It was as if this sickly, much-wronged soul had fought its last struggles and come off victor. Something of Ulrich's calm was at this minute communicated to Leo. He felt that, happen what might, it would be in accordance with the requirements of their two inmost natures.
"It is well that we have allowed so much time to elapse, since that night," Ulrich went on. "I have been able to think over things, and I believe that I have chosen the right path for us to pursue. The sad story you related to me on the Isle of Friendship has since been corroborated in every particular by Felicitas herself."
Leo started up. "You have seen her?" he stammered.
Ulrich nodded gravely. "She wrote to me about--about the divorce, as you may suppose. And so I went to look her up. I did not like the idea of leaving the poor thing to her own devices in case she should go altogether to the bad."
Leo could not help feeling a jealous pang. Ulrich spoke of the woman so gently. Would he deal as tenderly with him?
"But when I found her looking fresh and gay, as if relieved of a burden----"
"You really found her likethat?" Leo asked eagerly.
Ulrich bowed his head, and an ironical smile played about the corners of his mouth.
"Then I saw plainly how much I had been to blame. I ought never to have offered my hand to a healthy young creature, made in every fibre for love and pleasure; I, a fragile unsound subject, hardly capable of dragging through life alone. I hope that she will be happy now. I do not love her. I ceased to care for her the day I knew---- But we won't speak of the boy. Still, no one shall cast a stone at her."
Leo breathed more freely. Ulrich evidently did not regret her, and this shadow no longer lay between them.
"To pass on to ourselves," said Ulrich, leaning back in his chair with a gesture denoting mental fatigue. His features lost their expression of strained severity, and as his mouth opened two lines of pain shot up into his sunken cheeks.
"Another bad quarter of an hour," Leo thought, whose hopes of a happy issue were now high again, "and then we shall be on quite the old footing."
"Do you remember, my dear boy," Ulrich went on, with his eyes fixed distressfully on vacancy, "the day of your return, when we sat and drank together at the Prussian Crown? You said to me then that my marriage would cost us our friendship. I wouldn't believe you at the time, but now I see that you were a thousand times right."
"How do you mean right?" stammered Leo, feeling a cold shiver of anxiety run through him.
"You mustn't reproach me, dear boy. I am punishing myself more than I punish you. I love you as much as ever I did. I would pour out my heart's blood for you--but I can't associate with you any more."
"Ulrich!" cried Leo; "then you haven't forgiven me after all?"
Ulrich looked pained. "What do you call forgiving?" he said. "The one woman in the world, whom I as your friend had no right to touch, I made my wife. So I think we are quits. If it had come to shooting between us that day, and you had sent me the same way as her first husband, I would have died stroking and blessing your hand, dear boy. And then you talk of forgiving!"
Leo had staggered to his feet. He stretched out his hand as if he would seize and hold his friend fast before his soul slipped out of his grasp for ever.
"What you propose is madness," he exclaimed.
"No, dear boy. I should like to explain it all thoroughly to you. I have rehearsed a long speech, but I cannot somehow exactly recall it now. God knows it was my firm intention to let the past lie buried. But I can't alter my nature, and you know how I take things to heart, and when I do, must speak of them. But leaving me out of the question. You take life differently, less seriously. Yet how could you endure to come in and out here, when the very walls speak to you of the past? I noticed just now how you glanced at that door. It seemed to you that she must be coming through it. I have done with her, and so, it is to be hoped, have you--but, all the same, her ghost fills this place, and you feel it as much as I do."
"With time that would wear off," Leo murmured, becoming more and more dispirited.
"I doubt it," replied Ulrich. "It could never wear off with us. We should have had to be brought up differently, born of different parents, and with other blood pumped into our veins. As we are, our sense of honour, our manliness, would constantly be in revolt. Day by day we should become more discomfited, till at last we should end by laying at each other's door our loss of self-respect. No, that shall not be. It would be too great a strain on our old friendship. Think of our two fathers. They were fond of each other, God knows. But if what has happened to us had happened to them, they would have both cut their throats without asking who was to blame and who wasn't. Say, am I not right?"
Leo was silent, and thought to himself, "Thus he casts me off."
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; foryouit 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.