The sick man was still sleeping. Adela's head had sunk farther back in her chair; she was dreaming that her father had been thrown from his horse and was lying lifeless on the ground. Then some one suddenly came between her father and herself and--laughed. It was a bitter, terrible laugh. Adela started in terror, and rubbed her eyes.

The same low laugh came from the next room.

She shuddered, rose, and went to the door. There she saw her brother sitting at the writing-desk. The open case of pistols was on the table behind him, and before him lay a letter which he was folding to put into an envelope, while the bitter smile had not yet faded from his face. A fearful thought flashed upon the girl's mind. With a timid glance at the open case, she hurried across the room and laid her hand upon her brother's shoulder.

"For heaven's sake, Hugo, tell me what you are going to do!" He shook off her hand.

"Go!" he said. "It is the only means of salvation!"

"Would you add suicide to all the other misfortunes overwhelming us?"

Again there came the laugh, the echo of which had roused her from sleep.

"On the contrary," he said, "there will be joy throughout the family, and you will shortly have an opportunity to figure as a bridesmaid."

"Oh, Hugo, how can you think of such things?"

"These are just the things that I must think about, or we should soon cease to have need for thought of any kind. But you know nothing of it.

Go to your father, and leave the rest to me."

Adela fixed her eyes on a white sheet of paper, edged with black, that lay on the writing-desk, and on which she read the words, "My dear Councillor, I am a man of few words, and therefore frankly ask of you the hand of----"

Hugo seized the paper and tore it in pieces.

"There is no need for you to look so horrified," he said. "Fraulein Kohnheim is a very pretty girl; her parents had her baptized some time ago; and her father could pay the debts of an entire regiment if he chose."

"Hugo!"

"Leave me in peace, and be thankful that there is one way out of this for all of us. To-morrow morning this letter goes; to-morrow evening I go, and the next day our troubles will all be over."

"And papa?"

"Our father will soon recover; the doctor says so. A first stroke is never so dangerous----"

"Adela!" a weak voice called at this moment.

"You see he has already recovered his speech, as the doctor said he would," said Hugo.

Adela flew to her father's side and covered his hand with kisses. For a moment her brother was forgotten; she only felt that a change for the better had come, that her father would recover, and that he had wanted her--her; that the first use he had made of his returning voice had been to call his daughter!

CHAPTER XIV.

THE MISTRESS OF EICHHOF AND HER GUESTS.

With the first fall of snow there was born in Eichhof a little son and heir, and Bernhard, who had been summoned from Berlin, whither he had gone for a short autumn session, stared helplessly at the little creature that Thea presented to him, and which he proudly called his son, although how that red, wrinkled mite, quite buried in laces, could ever develop into a stalwart representative of the Eichhofs he could hardly imagine.

Consideration for her child kept Thea at Eichhof this winter, and Bernhard allowed her to follow her inclination in this respect, all the more willingly that his 'improvements' at Eichhof had cost a great deal, and he would scarcely have been able to maintain the state which he deemed required by his rank had his wife gone with him to Berlin and been presented at court.

"You are the dearest and most prudent of wives," he said to Thea; "and you are quite right to stay here this winter. But for all that you must not live the life of a recluse, for, since our year of mourning is over, we owe it to our position and to our neighbours to open our house again, even although I must be away. Your father and Lothar are close at hand, and will supply my place."

Lothar was enchanted with this prospect, although he was, upon the whole, more cool and reserved in his demeanour towards his brother at this time than he had ever been before. He had found Thea in tears once or twice during Bernhard's absence; for these tears he considered his brother responsible, and not wholly without reason.

"Now that is really a sensible idea of yours, Bernhard," said he.

"Thea, we will give charming entertainments. We must take good care to have no more tears," he added in a low voice, meant for his sister-in-law's ear alone.

Herr von Rosen shook his head, and p.r.o.nounced Thea still too young to go out and to give entertainments without her husband, especially this winter, when, in consequence of a cattle-plague in neighbouring Poland, there was a strong _cordon militaire_ established in the vicinity to keep guard over the frontier.

"There are many young officers hereabouts now," he said, "and the Schonburgs and Lindenstadts have some young girls staying with them, so that the feminine element is not wanting. There are b.a.l.l.s and all kinds of entertainments in the air, which my wife and I shall not always be able to attend, although I wish with all my heart that Alma could enjoy them all."

"Well, if you cannot go, Thea can chaperone her; the greater the gayety, the more frequent the b.a.l.l.s, the more reason, it seems to me, that Thea should not shut herself up. She owes it to her position not to do so; and if her going out without me, young as she is, seems unusual, why, we must remember that she is an unusual woman. Much that would be very unbecoming in a Frau Miller or Frau Schmidt would be quite fitting in the Countess Eichhof."

Lothar entirely agreed with his brother upon this point, and all that Herr von Rosen could do was to try to persuade the old Countess Eichhof to spend this winter in the castle with Thea.

Bernhard left home, after having made known far and wide that Castle Eichhof was no longer closed to visitors, and the old Countess, who had actually come to her daughter-in-law, soon followed him, as she had accepted an invitation from a relative who lived in great splendour in Dresden. She explained to Herr von Rosen, with many sighs and tears, that she found it impossible to be only number two in a house where she had so long held sole sway; she a.s.sured him that upon the whole Thea was a dear child and could not help it, but her visitors showed such an inconceivable lack of tact as constantly to make her conscious of the great difference that there was between Castle Eichhof now and what it had been formerly, and so on, until she exhausted Herr von Rosen's patience, and he mutely a.s.sented to whatever she had to say and made no more efforts to induce her to remain.

Nor did Thea try to detain her. She was so proud and secure in the possession of her little son that she was quite ready to undertake to fulfil her social duties without any timidity, and she received with extreme dignity the young officers, who of course hastened to avail themselves of Bernhard's invitation to call at the castle.

"Thea is absolutely famous," Lothar repeated incessantly to Werner, and he was quite irritated that his friend did not join in his enthusiastic praise of his sister-in-law, merely a.s.senting by a cool nod of his head, and even going less frequently to Eichhof. Lothar reproached him with this, and yet was never in a good humour when Werner accompanied him thither. For this man, usually so grave and silent, knew how to introduce subjects of conversation that absorbed all Thea's interest.

He would become really talkative and brilliant, and, since the topics under discussion generally had some reference to literature or art, Lothar was soon bored, and felt himself quite _de trop_ and thrust out in the cold. It was odd that Werner had lately seemed to have a perfect talent for irritating Lothar, who often, nowadays, was very impatient with his friend without any reasonable cause, for Werner's demeanour towards him was not changed in any respect.

One day Thea was seated in her bow-windowed room in full council with the cook, the housekeeper, and the major-domo. The matter in hand was the arrangements for an entertainment to be given the next day at Eichhof, and Thea was availing herself of the experience of her trusty retainers. She sat at a table with a sheet of paper before her, jotting down various memoranda, and the three people stood by with grave faces, evidently quite aware of the enormous responsibility resting upon their shoulders. There had been a slight difference of opinion between the housekeeper and her young mistress, and Thea had for the first time a.s.serted herself and carried her point with quiet firmness. She was so much interested that she bestowed only a careless 'good-day' upon Lothar, who entered the room and, seated in a low arm-chair, became both spectator and auditor of the debate. He sat with his back towards the window, so that the light fell full upon Thea. She wore a black silk gown, with a profusion of rich white lace at her throat and wrists, her sole ornament being a cross upon a broad, heavy golden chain at her neck. The very simplicity of her dress set off the delicate n.o.ble outline of her face, from which the large dark eyes, beneath the finely-pencilled eyebrows, were now gazing with a gentle, kindly expression upon the servants who were receiving her orders.

"How beautiful she is!" thought Lothar, as he sat and looked at her.

"Bernhard is a fool to leave this woman here while he busies himself, or thinks he busies himself, with politics in Berlin. To be sure, she is an angel, and can do everything that she attempts, even to representing her husband in his absence. But it is not right of him for all that, and I should just like to know what she thinks of it. I wonder whether she misses him much?"

Thea now dismissed her people and turned to Lothar. "What! alone again?" she asked, offering him her hand. "Has Herr von Werner repented his promise to help us with the decoration of the ball-room?"

"Oh, you never can count upon him," said Lothar; "he said he could not possibly come with me, but would make his appearance later."

"Well, then, let us go to the greenhouses and pick out what we want from there."

Half an hour afterwards Lieutenant Werner arrived. He did not follow the young people to the greenhouses as the servant suggested, but awaited their return in the bow-windowed room. Here he walked slowly to and fro, paused for a few seconds before Thea's writing-table, and then went into the bow-window, where stood her low chair and her embroidery-frame. He pa.s.sed his hand over her work with a touch that was like a caress, then suddenly turned away and stood at the window, leaning his forehead against the gla.s.s pane. Here he remained motionless until Lothar and Thea entered the room.

"Oh, I am so glad you are come!" the Countess exclaimed upon seeing him. "Now we will go immediately to the ball-room to arrange the plants and the table for the cotillon favours."

"Ah, we are to have a cotillon, then?" said Werner.

"Yes; this is to be a dinner followed by a dance, after the old Eichhof fashion. My husband writes me that our section of country is actually falling into undeserved disrepute from a social point of view, and he makes it my bounden duty to do the honours of the castle as well as possible. I pray you, therefore, to do all that you can to help me to entertain the young officers from the frontier posts."

Lothar and Werner arranged the pretty favours for the cotillon on a satin cushion placed on the table for the purpose, while Thea disposed little flowering plants around it. It all looked very bright and fancifully gay.

"I want it to be all ready by the afternoon," she said, "for my father and sister are coming over to tea, and the dance is a surprise for Alma."

"It absolutely delights my soul to see you busy with anything so frivolous as cotillon favours," said Lothar to Werner, who was just arranging a refractory ribbon.