But it is a terrible secret. You must close the door."

Leo, who was listening with keen attention, rea.s.sured him. "Only speak low," said he; "that is the only precaution necessary."

"Very well, then," began the old man, spitting and spluttering as he lowered his voice, and thrusting out his lips like the spout of a steam-kettle. "One evening I sat with my brats, reading the Bible. My wife, however, was out in the kitchen, baking apple turnovers. I remember that quite well. Some one came to the door whom I didn't know, and I asked him with apostolic gentleness, 'Fellow, what do you want with me?' 'You are to come at once and administer the sacrament,' said he. 'Pure cussedness,' thought I. 'Here has a man arranged to die on this day of all others, just because I was going to sit down to something good for supper. The ties of our profession, Fritzchen! But when he let fall the words Fichtkampen and Rhaden----"

Leo sprang up. He felt that he paled.

"I see, my son," triumphed the old man, "that such names fill us with disgust. But I can't help it. Now the affair took another aspect. I forgot my apple turnover. I tore my gown and bands from the pegs, packed the church plate, jumped into the carriage, and was off like the wind. 'Fellow, tell me exactly what has happened,' I asked. He didn't know; All he knew was that the master had been carried into the house, covered with blood, at six o'clock that morning, and now it had come to the last rites.... 'When did the doctor arrive, fellow?' 'The doctor was there,' said he. 'What, at six o'clock in the morning?' 'Yes, your reverence.' ... Fritzchen, that seemed to me suspicious. I get there.

House and yard as still as the grave. No one even to open the door to me. At last a servant-girl came.... Corridor, parlour, salon--all quiet and empty.... 'Does he still live?' 'Yes.' ... 'What happened?' 'He fought a duel.' ... 'Ah! indeed.' ... I enter the bedroom.... You know that room, Fritzchen? A lamp hangs there from the ceiling with a blue shade. Fritzchen, a blue shade. Wasn't it blue, Fritzchen?... Emptiness here too.... 'Where is he, in G.o.d's name?' ... 'There,' some one says.... And I hear death-rattles coming from the canopied bed....

'Where is the doctor?' 'They have fetched him away to a confinement.

He'll soon be back.' 'And where is the lady of the house?' 'She has shut herself upstairs in the spare room,' says my informant.... I draw the curtains aside.... There he lies, swimming in blood.... The stream flows from his nose and mouth.... And he looks at me with eyes glazing, and makes a sign to me to wipe it away, so that he may speak."

"Stop!" groaned Leo.

"Yes.... I don't doubt it would suit your ticket if I stopped. Health, Fritzchen!"

"I implore you not to go on."

"I dare say you are right, Fritzchen. It's hardly the subject for a convivial entertainment, eh? How did I hap on it? Through the devil, of course. You see, Fritzchen, that evening when _he_ told me the story of you and her, I could hear her running about overhead I cried tears of blood for your soul, Fritzchen. For you were dearer to me than my own flesh and blood. But to-day I can't cry, Fritzchen, because I have drunk too much wine. You must forgive me, Fritzchen."

He tried to raise his fat fingers deprecatingly to Leo, but the great bulldog jowl dropped on his breast with a dull wheezing sound in his throat. He had fallen asleep.

Leo bowed his head in his hands, and stared across at him with burning, starting eyes.

"Thus grimly does the joke end," thought he, "that I permitted myself to play off on my conscience."

He shuddered. He fancied he too saw the glazing eyes of the dying man fixed on him, and heard the rattles in his throat--the man whose last curse had been for him. And the woman who had raved and ramped about in the locked guest-chamber above, who left her husband to die alone and forsaken like a dog, because she dared not approach him with her guilt-stained body. He could almost hear her sobs and whimperings coming through the ceiling.... And all that--all was his--_his_ doing.

"It will drive me mad!" he cried, jumping to his feet.

He longed for the sound of a human voice, but only the snores of the drunken old man fell on his ear. He would have given anything to have some one to whom he could go to shriek out the torments in his breast; but he had no one--no one but that woman who had sinned with him.

"Now I understand why she clings to me," he thought; "and perhaps soon she will be as necessary to me as I to her."

He remembered the Leo Sellenthin of scarcely four weeks earlier. And he came before him as a complete stranger. What had happened in the meanwhile? He didn't know.

Restlessly, with his folded hands pressed against his brow, he ran up and down the room, while the old pastor slept the sleep of the just.

XXII

After the formal reconciliation between the two neighbouring families, Leo had the Uhlenfelde ferry station, which had of late fallen into disuse, quickly repaired. The old boat, which seemed to be now hardly watertight, was replaced by a new one, and the bathing-house, drawn up almost on to the d.y.k.e as a precaution against the coming floods, was converted into a shelter, so that the waiting groom and horses could bait there, when he should perchance, deep in conversation with his friend, have overstayed the hour of his return. And also, if he suddenly took it into his head to slip over to Uhlenfelde, there would be no necessity to make his movements known at the house. He would only have to put up his horse in the shelter and take the key, till the boat brought him back to the solitary spot, where there was no fear of incursions from spies and eavesdroppers.

This occurred to him the day after the pastor's visit, as he took his way over the turnip-fields to Uhlenfelde. It was not so much longing for his friend's society that drew him constantly thither, as a torturing uneasiness and a hungry desire to know that all was going well there.

To-day, when he entered the courtyard, he saw Felicitas standing at one of the castle windows, nodding and smiling at him.

"I must try, by hook or by crook, to get a private word with her," he thought, and returned her greeting with a wave of the hand.

"The master has driven in to Munsterberg," said the groom, who appeared from the coach-house. "It is the sessions to-day."

He muttered an oath. The confounded old priest had put out his calculations, and he had forgotten the day of the month. And over there Felicitas was still standing at the window smiling. To sneak away now would be the action of a coward.

His heart beat quicker as he ascended the steps to the house. Since that day of the meeting on the island he had never been alone with her.

She received him in the garden salon, the gla.s.s doors of which were partially closed to keep out the autumnal chilliness. She sat with her hands folded in her lap and did not cease smiling. This smile, in which melancholy, irony, and forgiveness were mingled, seemed to have been learnt by heart.

"It almost looks as if you were afraid of me, my friend," she said, as she hesitatingly offered him her hand.

"In all my life I have never feared death or devil," he said, forcing himself into a swaggering tone. "And certainly I have never been afraid of you."

"But you run away from me and avoid me whenever you can. I wouldn't mind betting that your coming to-day is a mistake. Had you remembered that Ulrich would not be at home ...?"

"Ah!" he interposed with a click of his tongue.

"But you can be quite easy in your mind. I won't bite you. No, I don't bite." And she showed the whole of her white set of teeth as she laughed.

He thought, "Thank G.o.d! she isn't fretting." And a feeling of satisfaction came back.

"You'll stay a few minutes, I hope," she said lightly. "I'll try and make up for Ulrich."

That sounded modest and ingenuous enough. He bowed a.s.sent.

"Then let us go to my room," she said; "there we shan't be disturbed."

A slight aversion came over him at the thought of the boudoir, with its feminine ornaments and luxury, and its heavily perfumed air which half stifled him.

"Or perhaps you would rather stay here?" she asked, divining with quick instinct the ground of his hesitation.

"If it's all the same to you, I would rather."

She spread out her hands--a little gesture which was meant to convey that her only wish was to do what he wished.

There was a short silence. The late September sunshine filled the s.p.a.cious room with warm-toned hues. Autumnally lazy flies buzzed and fell about on the window panes. No other sound disturbed the afternoon peacefulness, which seemed almost too sabbatical, too slumbrous, for this guilty pair.

Felicitas leaned back in a corner of the lounge, and with a sigh of deep content said, "Thank G.o.d."

"Why do you thank G.o.d?" he asked.

"That at last I have got you for once all to myself."

"You have got something to be proud of," he said ironically.

"Now, now, Leo!" she remonstrated, smiling. "You don't believe half you say. Sitting opposite each other like this it is quite unnecessary to draw the filmiest veil over our souls, or to hide a corner of them from one another. And that does one good, especially when one has had to go through life telling so many lies. Ah! I have so longed for truth. It is a kind of platonic affair, you see, that may be calmly permitted, because it is quite safe to lead to no harm--and this makes me quite happy. At least I need not try to appear better than I am to _you_....

As for you ... you sacrifice yourself for my sake, I know, by sitting like this with me, and you have struggled against it. But you hate me--hate me!"

"I? Hate you? Nonsense!"