'Wilhelmine,' he said in a hoa.r.s.e, thick whisper, 'you shall indeed be my wife--I promise you--ah, you are fitted to adorn any position, Wilhelmine, my bride!' He bent and kissed her stockinged foot, and his coa.r.s.e fingers pressed deep into her slight ankle.

'Your condescension amazes me, Herr Pastor,' she said mockingly, 'but I fear----'

'Nay, my dear, no maidenly modesty! Come, we are affianced now; let me give thee the lover's kiss!' He leaned over her. His breath was sour with the smell of corn brandy. His eyes were gla.s.sy, staring, and his fat face was livid, hideous. An overwhelming sense of repulsion came to her. She felt herself degraded by this man's admiration, smirched by his odious desire. The recollection flashed through her mind of a white flower she had seen--a gracious, delicate thing--and a huge, slimy, black slug had rested on the petals. She remembered how she had knocked the creature away, feeling that it defiled the flower.

'No, never! do you hear? Never! I will not marry you,' she broke out.

She struggled to remove Muller's hand from her ankle; but he gripped strongly, and her fingers seemed terribly impotent, childishly weak.

'How dare you! Let me go. I tell you I will never marry you,' she reiterated vehemently.

'Ah! you beautiful wild thing--but I will make you love me--you will see how you will love your husband. Come, no nonsense! I will soon show you how you love me.' He loosed his grip of her ankle and flung himself over her in the chair, endeavouring to press his thick lips to hers. She struggled against him but he kept her down; with one hand on her forehead he pushed her back into the chair, while with the other he wrenched open the neck of her bodice, tearing it downward to her breast. Always a strong man he seemed now transformed into some ruthless, degraded, maddened animal. Apparently she was entirely at his mercy, but she was strong and young, and angry disgust gave her unusual strength. She caught the man's throat in both her hands, working her knuckles inwards on his windpipe with such force that he was almost choked, and instinctively put up his hands to hers endeavouring to remove her grip. But she held him, and, half-throttled, he sank down sideways on the arm of the chair. In an instant she dragged herself from him and was able to raise herself on one knee, still keeping her hold on his throat. He wrenched away her hands, his iron grip on both her wrists, but she was now able to dominate her aggressor from above and could hold him down with the full force of her arms. Face to face with her enemy, she recalled the potency of her witch-gaze. She narrowed her eyelids and directed her steely glance into the bloodshot eyes of her tormentor. During a few seconds they were thus: the girl half-standing, half-kneeling, rigid, tense, holding the man from her with all her strength. The man sprawling on his side in the chair--a huge, ridiculous being, panting, gasping, helpless, for he could not regain his balance unless he let go the woman's wrists. To Wilhelmine, in spite of her dauntless nature, these few seconds seemed endless.

Fortunately for her, no misgivings as to the compelling power of her eyes crossed her mind, or probably her force might thereby have been diminished. At length she felt a slackening of the muscles of Muller's hands--his gaze faltered. Again he struggled frantically. She resolved to hazard everything, trusting entirely in her strange power. She bent slowly downwards, all the force of her will focused in her eyes. She felt as though each eye held a dagger wherewith she could stab her enemy's very consciousness. Another moment and the man's hands relaxed entirely and fell limp and inert from her wrists. She sprang up, catching her cloak in her hand as she fled. She reached the study door before Muller moved. For the moment he seemed transfixed, but as she opened the door, to her horror she saw him rise, and as she rushed down the short pa.s.sage she heard Muller's heavy step behind her. For the first time during the whole disgusting scene she felt afraid. Her knees seemed to fail, her feet to grow strangely heavy. She stumbled on till she gained the house door. She fumbled frantically at the latch; it was unfamiliar to her and she could not unfasten it. The pursuer was up to her now and his breath was on her cheek. Once more he threw his arms round her. She turned, like an animal at bay, and dealt Muller a blow full on the lips. He staggered for an instant, and she succeeded, at last, in wrenching open the door.

He clutched at her skirt as she sprang out. It unbalanced her, and she fell forward on her face into the snow of the street.

The shock of the fall, following the excitement of her struggle with Muller, stunned Wilhelmine for a moment, and when she dragged herself up to a kneeling position and looked round, she found herself alone in the driving snow. Muller's door was shut, and the street absolutely deserted.

She rubbed the clinging snow off her face and ruefully considered the distance which lay between her and her mother's house. The snow had soaked through her thin stockings. She rose wearily, and drawing her cloak round her, and over her head, she hid both her torn bodice and her thick unbound hair, which had fallen over her shoulders during her struggle with Muller.

Then she started homewards through the fast-falling snow. As she pa.s.sed the market-place, many faces peered out at her from the venders' booths, and one friendly peasant woman called to her to take shelter, but Wilhelmine shook her head and hastened onwards. She feared that her shoeless feet would awaken curiosity, and she dared not let the people see her torn garments as they a.s.suredly would did she tarry in the booth, for in their homely kindness they would insist on removing her wet cloak.

The Rathaus clock chimed the hour, and Wilhelmine realised with a strange, dream-like feeling that but three hours had gone by since she pa.s.sed that way to visit Monsieur Gabriel. Yet it seemed to her as though days had elapsed since she sang the _Ave Maria_ in the cathedral.

At length she reached the door of her mother's house. She knocked loudly, wondering if Frau von Gravenitz had watched her from the windows of the upper story, which commanded a view of part of the market-place and the door of the Rathaus, where she had received her brother's letter that morning. She knocked again and tried to lift the latch, but it was secured within. She listened, but could hear no approaching footsteps in the corridor. She leaned against the portal, and wondered if it was her fate to remain in the snow for the rest of the day.

Suddenly a thought came to her, which sent the blood tingling in a hot wave to her cheeks: Where was her brother's letter? She felt for it in her bosom; it was not there, and she knew the precious missive must have fallen from her gown during the struggle at the Pfarrhaus. Could she go back and fetch it? she asked herself. No! that was out of the question.

At this moment the door was flung open and Frau von Gravenitz appeared.

'Lord G.o.d!' she said, when she saw Wilhelmine standing on the threshold, 'where have you been child? Surely your dear Monsieur Gabriel could keep you in the schoolhouse till this storm pa.s.sed over, and not send you back to catch your death of cold or cost me an apothecary's fee!'

Wilhelmine pushed past her mother without a word, designing to gain her chamber before the old woman observed her torn garments and her lack of shoes; but Frau von Gravenitz clutched hold of the cloak and, giving it a vicious pull, exclaimed: 'No, no! I will not permit you to take your soaking clothes upstairs. Come in here and take them off.' She tugged at the heavy cloak with such vehemence that the clasp at her neck parted and the cape fell back, revealing Wilhelmine's loosened hair and her torn bodice. The old woman saw her daughter's shoeless feet. She looked at her searchingly, her face darkening and hardening from annoyance to real anger and distrust. 'Wilhelmine,' she said harshly, 'explain your extraordinary appearance. Where have you been, and why do you come home in this strange and unbecoming manner?'

'Mother,' answered the girl, 'let me take off my wet clothes and I will tell you everything.' She wished to gain time to concoct a plausible story, for she did not intend to mention Muller's outbreak.

In the first place she was horribly ashamed, and knowing Frau von Gravenitz's garrulous tongue she feared to be made the subject of the citizens' gossip. But her mother was not to be put off so easily. She drew the girl into the kitchen, and after shutting the larder door in the servant-maid's astonished face, she planted herself firmly in front of Wilhelmine. 'Now,' she said, 'you will favour me with your story. It is strange to see a young maiden return in this state of disarray from an interview with a man, and I insist upon your clearing yourself immediately if you can.'

'Interview with a man, mother?' said Wilhelmine; 'what do you mean?' It flashed across her that Frau von Gravenitz must have seen her enter Muller's house.

'Yes; your fine Monsieur Gabriel, with his mincing airs and his high manners! You go to him for your studies, after two long hours you return looking as though----Good Lord! child! answer me--what has that evil old Frenchman done to you?'

Wilhelmine looked at her for a moment in silence; it had not struck her that this interpretation of her dishevelled appearance could be harboured even in her mother's suspicious mind. It filled her with indignation and dismay for her friend; yet she realised with surprise that, could such a thing have occurred as for Monsieur Gabriel to lose his self-control and offend as Muller had, it would not have disgusted her to the same extent.

Somehow, she felt it would not have debased her and humiliated her as had the pastor's attack. For a moment she almost decided to let her mother suspect there had been some strange scene with the organist; anything better than own to the degradation of having suffered the insult of the greasy burgher. Then with a revulsion of feeling, her soul sickened at the injustice of letting Monsieur Gabriel pay the penalty of the pastor's wicked insolence, and she remembered that her friend would be exposed to the horrified reprobation of the sober townsfolk; nay, more, he might even be dismissed from his post.

'How can you think such a thing, mother?' she said angrily. 'I tell you Monsieur Gabriel knows nothing of all this, and as you put such an odious construction on my appearance, I shall not give you the satisfaction of telling you how it came about.'

'As you wish,' the other replied icily; 'but it will be my duty to forbid any further visits to that Frenchman, and I shall inform Pastor Muller of the schoolmaster's real character.'

This was too much for Wilhelmine; her anger flamed, all her reticence vanished, and she poured forth the whole story. Her mother heard her to the end, and, shaking her head, she made answer: 'If this be true, Pastor Muller should be punished. But I cannot credit it; you are shielding Monsieur Gabriel. Now go to your room and reflect. You are a sinful woman, Wilhelmine, and a disgrace to your ancient name.'

The girl turned away. The excitement of the last hours had fatigued her, and she felt an unaccountable apathy. After all, what did it matter if her mother misjudged her? She would soon be far away; her present life and surroundings appeared to her to be absolutely detached from her real self. She went slowly up the creaking stair and into her garret, and flung herself down on the bed. She was asleep almost as soon as her head touched the pillow.

It was quite dark when Wilhelmine woke, and she wondered why she should awaken during the night; then, slowly, remembrance came to her, and she realised that she was still fully dressed. She lay quiet for some time, pondering on the events of the day. The Rathaus clock chimed eight slow notes, and she knew she had slept for nearly nine hours. She listened; there was some one moving downstairs in the kitchen, probably her mother preparing the meagre supper. Wilhelmine rose, groped her way to the door, and turned the handle. The door remained firmly closed. She shook it gently, pushed it--the doors in her mother's house often stuck fast; but this time it was no accidental adherence of ill-fitting hinges, the door was securely fastened from outside. Her mother had locked her in! To be locked into a room had always been a terrible thing to her. When she was a child, her brother had often teased her by pushing her into a dark cupboard and turning the key, and it was the only one of the many tricks he played her which had caused her real alarm. She hated the dark and always imagined she was stifling when she knew she was a prisoner in an unlit place. The same feeling came over her now, and she beat her hands frantically against the door, calling her mother loudly the while. But no answer came. She groped her way across the room till she felt her hand touch the window. She found the fastening and, opening the cas.e.m.e.nt, leaned far out into the still night air. From across the market-place came the sound of men's voices, and a glow of light shone beneath the hostelry door. An occasional burst of song and drunken laughter told her that the bad characters of the town were carousing, as usual, on a Sat.u.r.day night. Otherwise the silence was intense and the darkness unbroken by moon or star. The calm air of the winter night soothed Wilhelmine, and she was ashamed of having knocked and called so wildly; but now a dull feeling of resentment rose in her against her mother for locking her into her room like a naughty child. She leaned her head against the window-frame and wondered if any one on earth had ever been as lonely and miserable as she. Her mother disliked her, her brother was too selfish to care for any one save himself. Anna, her friend, was something in her life; but it is small avail to be loved by those who manage to make their affection tiresome. Muller loved her! She smiled bitterly to herself; yes, that was a love which could give her happiness!

That was what some people called love, she had been told. All at once a wonderful feeling came to her, a wave of infinite relief, like balsam to her wounded heart: it was the thought of Monsieur Gabriel's gentle friendship and trust in her. She saw his kind, dim eyes; the good, discriminating smile, and the thought was as though he laid his delicate, blue-veined hand on her head, soothing her unutterably. She heard a step coming on the stair, a flicker of light crept under her door, and some one fitted the key into the lock. 'Mother!' she called in a softened voice. When the door opened, she saw Frau von Gravenitz standing there, a rush-light in one hand and a plate of food balanced between her breast and the other hand, in which she held a pitcher of milk. The old woman's eyes were red with weeping, and vaguely Wilhelmine realised for the first time in her life that, in spite of grumbling, reproaches, and grudging meanness, her mother had for her a spark of that patient, yearning tenderness which is maternal love.

'Here, my child,' she said gently, 'eat and drink, and forget the horrible things you have pa.s.sed through to-day.' Wilhelmine slipped an arm round the old woman's neck, and kissed her as she had not done for many a long day, perhaps never since she had been a little child. For a moment she leaned her head against her mother's shoulder, and then taking the food she began to eat. Frau von Gravenitz stuck the rush-light up between a book which was lying on the table and the edge of the plate, then shutting the window she went out, closing and re-locking the door behind her.

On the following morning Wilhelmine woke early, and she was dressed when her mother came to the door and bade her descend and help with the housework. All traces of the unwonted tenderness in the old woman's face had vanished. She had, apparently, forgotten the circ.u.mstances of the previous day, or at any rate she made no allusion thereto, though her daughter fancied she watched her narrowly. When the morning's work was ended Wilhelmine returned to her chamber to dress for the church service.

She was brushing her hair, when she heard a knock at the house door, followed by Frau von Gravenitz's shrill tones as she conversed in the corridor with some person. Then she heard her mother mounting the stairs and calling 'Wilhelmine!' in fl.u.s.tered tones. The girl hastened to the door of her room and stood on the landing waiting to hear the cause of her mother's summons.

'Your precious Monsieur Gabriel has gone off to Schwerin, it seems,' she said, eyeing Wilhelmine sharply. 'He has sent a message, saying that he prays you take his place at the organ this morning. He says he has urgent business at Schwerin, though what it can be I am sure I do not know!

However, I suppose you will play the organ this morning, and I hope you will make your Monsieur Gabriel pay you in good silver coin for your trouble.' Wilhelmine's lip curled contemptuously. 'We have never paid him a groschen for teaching me to play this same organ, mother,' she said.

'Of course I shall play this morning, but I shall persuade Anna to come to the organ-loft with me,' she added, as a vision flashed across her of Pastor Muller, and a possible pursuit down the dark winding stair-way after the congregation had left the church. She dressed quickly, and wrapping her cloak round her went out into the crisp frosty morning air to fetch Anna. When she came to the dreary house in the Stiftstra.s.se where the deformed girl lived, she was annoyed to find that her friend had already started for church. It was Anna's habit to go to the cathedral before the appointed hour for the church service. She loved to sit in the dim aisle, watching the sunlight creeping through the ancient stained gla.s.s windows, while she waited for the first tone of the organ.

Wilhelmine considered for a moment. It was ridiculous to fear Muller; he would not dare to molest her in the precincts of the church; yet she hated to pa.s.s the sacristy door alone, for he could follow her, unseen from the rest of the building. She threw back her head with a defiant movement: was she becoming fearful, timid? Was this a frame of mind in which to face the adventurous life at a court? She turned away impatiently, and went swiftly down the Stiftstra.s.se to the market-place.

The Rathaus clock rang out, and Wilhelmine realised that there was no time to be lost if she were to play the voluntary to the sound of which the worshippers were accustomed to take their places. She hastened across the market-place, down the Klosterstra.s.se and through the graveyard, where the old stone slabs on the graves were, for the most part, hidden beneath the frost-bound snow which glittered in the sun, though here and there an upright tombstone showed like a discoloured, jagged tooth in the midst of a white pall. She hurried on and entered the side door near the sacristy. As she lifted the latch of the entrance to the dark stair leading up to the organ-loft she heard a movement behind her, and, turning, she saw Muller's face peer at her from the sacristy. She paid no heed, and springing quickly up the steps gained the small platform, where the happiest hours of her life had been spent with the old musician. She peered down into the well-like s.p.a.ce beneath the organ, where the bellows-blower laboured, pumping in the air for the pipes. He was at his post patiently waiting for the signal to commence his work. Wilhelmine signed to him to begin, and having a.s.sured herself that all was in order, she glanced at the sheets of ma.n.u.script music. She found that Monsieur Gabriel had appointed hymns and canticles for the day, and she noticed that he had chosen the easiest and simplest, for though her skill almost equalled his own, he had evidently wished to spare her difficulty and trouble. She seated herself upon the high bench before the organ, arranging her skirts so that they should not balk her pedalling. At first she played softly--a wailing melody of her own devising; then, as though she gathered strength and a.s.surance in her music, the chords boomed out, rich and deep, rolling down the church like the relentless waves of some elementary force. She played on and on, not hearing through the music the sound of the shuffling feet of the entering worshippers. It was with a feeling of alarm that she became aware of rows of honest burghers seated stolidly in their accustomed places. Pastor Muller was kneeling in the pulpit waiting for the music to cease ere he began the preliminary prayer. She softened the chords, till they faded and ceased entirely, then taking up a book of canticles, she studied the melodies and read their words, for she felt she could not listen to Muller's rasping voice exhorting his flock to holiness and purity of living.

The harsh tones fell unheeded on her ear for some time. A sudden cessation thereof roused her to attention, and she craned her neck over the side of the panelled wainscot which ran round the organ-loft. She saw the congregation attentively waiting for the pastor to give out the text of his sermon. Muller stood in the pulpit; an open Bible lay on the ledge beneath one of his strong, coa.r.s.e hands; the other hand grasped the pulpit edge, and Wilhelmine could see his knuckles whitening with the force of his grip. His face was ashy, and the deep-set eyes moved incessantly; he was evidently in a state of that violent excitement which sometimes seized him when he preached, and which gave him a fervid emotional eloquence.

'For all flesh is as gra.s.s, and all the glory of man as the flower of gra.s.s. The gra.s.s withereth and the flower thereof falleth away. But the word of the Lord endureth for ever. And this is the word which by the Gospel is preached unto you.' He read his text in a husky, raucous voice, and through the a.s.semblage pa.s.sed a wave of astonishment. This was surely no verse for a Sunday before Christmas; it was more fitted for a Lenten discourse! But Pastor Muller's sermons were the only theatrical performances given at Gustrow, and the citizens revelled in the often startlingly emotional character of his exhortations; so that day they settled down as usual to listen to his sermon with pleasurable curiosity.

'Brethren,' he began, 'O miserable sinners, who lightly look towards the season of Christ's birth as a time of rejoicing and merry-making, forgetting the load of iniquity which weighs you down--I call to you to pause! Tremble, ye righteous! Quake in fearful terror, ye wrong-doers!

All joy is evil, and all things of the flesh accursed. Mourn, ye women!

Cry out and weep, ye little children! for by l.u.s.t ye were begot. Yea, sin walks abroad, and corruption liveth in the hearts of men. Boast not thyself of to-morrow, for thou knowest not what a day may bring forth.

Repent, I command you, and scourge yourselves, for though it is true that the Lord Christ came into the world to save sinners, still the security you have made unto yourselves is a vain thing. Without repentance you cannot share in the benefit of the birth of Christ. Prepare for Christmas by much searching of heart and renunciation of the joys of the flesh, not by seeking fresh pleasures and carousing. For truly the gra.s.s withereth and the flower thereof pa.s.seth away!' He stood tense, one arm outstretched; he was moved by his own incoherent eloquence. The congregation listened spellbound; indeed, the man was an orator, and the very unexpectedness of his strange violence held his listeners enthralled. After a pause, during which the silence became nearly intolerable, he continued his oration. His language had a Biblical flavour, and the pa.s.sion of his utterance seemed like holy inspiration.

Wilhelmine listened unmoved; she knew that the man laboured under an excitement of being, which had little or nothing to do with religious sincerity. It was merely his physical fury, dammed back from a more natural channel, which had caused this exaltation of mind. She watched him with a mocking smile as he poured forth a torrent of vehement words--denunciations of all things joyful, exhortations to repentance, and thunders of prospective vengeance on sin. Even to her the sermon seemed a masterpiece of eloquence, and the artistic feeling in her rejoiced in the vigorous phrases and fervid declamation, though her whole being revolted against the hypocrite and fanatic who spoke, and she despised the crude bigotry of the actual matter of the peroration.

His words came ever faster and in ever growing violence, till with consummate skill he made another sudden pause; then, sinking his voice to a tone of grave warning, he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed solemnly: 'O my brethren, men of the reformed faith, hearken unto me! Here, before the Face of G.o.d Almighty, I denounce the h.e.l.lish instigators of all this abominable l.u.s.t, the frail instruments of temptations--Women! These are the scourges of the world! accursed by reason of their vanity! condemned everlastingly by reason of their carnal desire and of their perpetual contamination of the pure heart of man!'

This was more than Wilhelmine could tolerate coming from the lips of the wretch who, but a few hours before, had proved himself to be a very beast. She would hear no more of his insolent diatribes! She gave the sign to the bellows-blower to commence his labours, and as she heard Muller's voice again rising in a burst of wild denunciation, she crashed both hands on the keys of the organ, drowning the preacher's words in a flood of magnificent sound. In a triumph song of the fullness of Earth's beauty and glory the giant chords rang out, and Wilhelmine laughed aloud under cover of the music. This was her answer to the hollowness of the hypocrite's denunciation of life and happiness; this was her confession of faith in the joy of living, and this was her revenge upon the man who had humiliated her. She remembered, however, that the congregation must be propitiated for the interruption, and sliding her strong fingers from note to note on the organ she modulated her triumphant rhapsody into the simple, restful C Major; then she played the first bar of the canticle which Monsieur Gabriel had given out to the singers; who, though sitting among the congregation during the services, were still a very compact and united choir carefully trained by him, for the most part, from childhood.

As she expected, they answered immediately to the organ's command, and a hundred young voices sang Luther's grand old hymn--

'Ein' feste Burg ist unser Gott.'

On the following afternoon Wilhelmine was sitting disconsolately in her attic. The book she was reading had fallen from her hands, and her eyes rested on the ugly blue walls of her room. She reviewed in her mind the events of the previous day; the scene in the church, and her subsequent departure therefrom, which she had managed so deftly that, though Muller was in the graveyard when she came out, she had evaded him, and joining Anna, who was waiting for her near the porch, she had succeeded in pa.s.sing the pastor without staying to hear what he evidently wished to say. Frau von Gravenitz chid her sharply for interrupting the sermon, but she was silenced by Wilhelmine's angry retort and reminder of Muller's misdeeds. The Sunday afternoon and evening had pa.s.sed without any unwonted occurrence. Wilhelmine was tortured by the fact that she had not told her mother of Friedrich's letter; she had not recovered it from Muller, though twice she had sent the servant-maid to demand its rest.i.tution.

She intended to reveal the whole story to her mother, when Monsieur Gabriel returned with the promised money; for she guessed that the object of his journey to Schwerin was the procuring of the sum. The light was failing rapidly, and Wilhelmine felt intensely dreary and sad. She turned over the leaves of the book which lay on her lap; it was a volume lent her by Monsieur Gabriel, a book written by Blaise Pascal. Her eye was caught by a sentence, and she read the wise words of the great thinker: 'Love hath its reasons which reason knoweth not.' Again her attention wandered from the page; her thoughts were busy with the possibilities of her destiny. With bitterness she realised that, for her, Love must be either a renunciation of ambition, a life pa.s.sed with some simple countryman, or else a career, a profession, an abnegation of quiet days.

Which should she strive for? 'What does it avail a man though he gain the whole world and lose his own soul?' The words came back to her; but no, she was not made for peaceful days, she would weary of them inevitably.

She heard a knock on the house door and, shaking off her unusual depression, she hurried downstairs. Monsieur Gabriel stood in the corridor explaining in his scholarly foreign German to the servant-maid, that it was absolutely necessary for him to see Fraulein von Gravenitz, even if madame her mother could not receive him, as he had a matter of importance to communicate. He smiled when he saw Wilhelmine--that good smile of his, which was at once so kind, so bright, and yet so unutterably sad.

'Ah! dear child!' he said, in French, 'I bring you good news. I have procured the money.'