The colonel, who had always been a man of violence and a mad voluptuary, had insisted upon taking in pupils in housekeeping under the pretext that when he came home on leave, he had to have youth and jollity about him. He reserved for himself the choice of the pupils. In this way only those came whom he had decided upon in advance. For a long time Miss von Schwertfeger noticed nothing amiss. But the servants began to tell her stories of secret orgies and mad chases on the upper floor, of how the colonel pursued girls clad in glittering raiment--the colonel had always liked transparent robes of silver. Miss von Schwertfeger's eyes were completely opened when some of the girls attempted suicide. She left.

But she was poor and accustomed to command, and she could not endure subordinate positions. Dreadful distress was the result. The colonel had not lost her from sight; and when it seemed to him she had sunk low enough, he again offered her the position of housekeeper in his castle, promising she would have nothing to complain of. She crawled back to him like a starved dog. Soon he broke his word, and the indecent goings-on began again. But she no longer had the courage to resist. She learned to be blind and deaf when lewd glances were exchanged at table and screams and laughter penetrated to her room during the night. She even learned to keep curious servants at a distance, and throw a cover of concealment over the house's shame. Her relation to the girls became motherly.

"I shouldn't be surprised," she interposed, "if he hadn't made the same proposition to you, saying I would take care of you."

The fateful evening in which she had become the colonel's betrothed arose in Lilly's memory. While walking about her greedily, still in a state of indecision, he had spoken of a fine, aristocratic woman under whose protection she should live in his castle until she had grown into womanhood.

Miss von Schwertfeger went on with her recital. She described how rage at the disgraceful position she was in ate into her soul like a malignant cancer, how it finally took sole possession of her being to the exclusion of every feeling except the desire for reprisal. His marriage should furnish the weapons. She would be blind and deaf, just as she had been compelled to be before. Nothing else. She would simply let matters take their natural course.

Thus she had acted until that night.

And that night the sword must surely have fallen on Lilly and the colonel; but at the last decisive moment she realised her strength would not hold out. That young, good-natured, guiltless yet guilty wife, had become too dear to her. She could not sacrifice Lilly to her scheme of revenge.

"I thought you said you hadn't acted out of love for me," Lilly ventured to interject.

Miss von Schwertfeger fixed her eyes on Lilly's face in an aggrieved stare.

"My dear child, if you weren't a stupid thing, who has to sin in order to mature, you would have a better understanding of what goes on inside a person like myself. For the present be satisfied that you are out of danger."

In a gush of grat.i.tude Lilly threw herself on Miss von Schwertfeger, and kissed her face and hands; and Miss von Schwertfeger no longer repulsed her. She stroked her hair, and spoke to her as to a child.

Kneeling at her feet Lilly confessed. She told how her relations with Walter had developed insensibly, how they had been old friends, and how he had really been the author of her happiness.

"Happiness?" Miss von Schwertfeger drawled, and drew in the air through the right corner of her mouth, causing a sound like a whistle.

Lilly started, looked at her, and understood.

The question burned in her brain: "Am I better than I should have been had I allowed the colonel to drag me here without marrying me?"

Eleven months had pa.s.sed since that night when he courted her.

She put her arms about Miss von Schwertfeger, and cried, cried, cried.

It was so good to know there was a sisterly, no, a motherly, person in whose dress she could bury her tearful face. She had not experienced such eas.e.m.e.nt since the day a certain knife had been waved over her head.

The affair with Von Prell, of course, could not go on. He and Lilly must not meet even once again. Miss von Schwertfeger demanded it, and Lilly acquiesced without a word of protest.

If only she had not had her mission!

"What mission?" asked Miss von Schwertfeger.

Lilly told of the holy task she had to perform in his life; how her love had awakened him to the realisation of a loftier, purer life; how she had to answer with every drop of blood in her body for his rising to better things and entering upon a n.o.ble, beneficent field of activity.

It was Miss von Schwertfeger's turn to be astonished. She listened, and looked at Lilly with great, doubting eyes, then got up, and paced the room agitatedly, muttering:

"Incredible! Incredible!"

When Lilly asked her what was incredible, she kissed her on her forehead, and said:

"You poor thing!"

"Why?"

"Because you will suffer much in life."

Thereupon it was agreed that Miss von Schwertfeger should speak with him once again, and the price of her silence was to be the breaking off of all relations between him and Lilly. They must not take their rides together, either.

Lilly begged for only one thing, to be allowed to write him a farewell letter. She thought she owed this to him so that he should not harbour doubts of her and his future.

Then the two women parted.

Released, redeemed, born into a new life, Lilly walked upstairs, forgetting every precaution. But, thank goodness! the colonel was snoring.

The clock struck four, and the shuffling of the stablemen already resounded in the courtyard.

Before Lilly threw herself in bed, she cast a look of farewell at the lodge, and rejoiced that renunciation was so easy. She had not thought it possible.

CHAPTER XXIII

"Dear Beloved Mr. von Prell:--

From what has happened you can imagine that everything between us must come to an end. Yes, all's over. We shall never see each other except at meal times. If you ask me whether I am very sad, I will be brave and say, "no," hoping thereby to a.s.suage the pain of parting for both of us.

But easy or difficult--that's not the question. The main thing is, our feelings should raise us to pure heights. True greatness of renunciation must illumine our lives. Yes, I expect you to show the greatness of renunciation. Our lives after this must be dedicated entirely to recollections of the past. Besides, can we hope ever again to find anything so beautiful as those unspeakably exquisite hours we pa.s.sed together? I have given up thoughts of happiness, and you must do the same. From now on my one sacred interest will be my husband's welfare; and I ask you, with all the strength you possess, likewise to labour at the reconstruction of your life.

Life is earnest, solemn, holy. I feel it is. The conviction comes upon me with force, and has possessed me ever since I was led back to the right path by a friend of mine. You must feel it, too.

This letter is my last to you. Write to me once again. Oh, only once. And stick the answer in the pea-shooter, which still stands on the balcony. I shall have no peace until I know our souls are united by the same ideal. Farewell, and at table don't make any secret allusions to the past. You would merely hurt me and make me doubt your good faith.

Ever with feelings of sisterly friendship,

Your L. v. M."

"Dearest Friend:--

The profound emotions which have held me in their grip since my interview with our honoured friend, have, if possible, been deepened by your lovely letter. I feel a tremendous impulse to accomplish by deeds of atonement that which has never yet been.

I am prepared to scorn the seven deadly sins. I will carry in mind all the paragons of virtue from the young Tobias to St.

Helena, and will try to find that pure happiness in the great renunciation you demand of me, which alone, they say, is unalloyed with regret--an advantage which bears little weight with me, since I am acquainted with that evil inst.i.tution only by hearsay.

Well, then, dearest, most charming of women, farewell. It was _very_ delightful. I can swear to that without perjuring myself. Should you require pledges for the future, I can further swear that: 1, I will shun alcohol; 2, I will declare war upon the female s.e.x; 3, I will devote myself to the encyclopedia of agriculture with inordinate, unalterable love.

Ha, do you smell the rarified atmosphere?

Once more, farewell. After I have climbed the ladder of my hopes for the last time, I will lay it to repose under a wintry grave of pine branches. When the time comes, may it awaken to a new spring.