"Ah! you may well say that, Jochen," answered Clas.

"Is the smithy burned?"

"Why, Jochen, how can you ask such stupid questions?"

The bridge of understanding seemed broken. The feeling that the whole world was one dark secret, and he the unhappy man who had to guard it, overpowered Jochen still more.

"Won't you come in, Clas?" said he.

He could not help saying that; he could not leave his only brother, who moreover was the elder of the two, standing in the street.

Clas Prebrow instantly accepted his brother's invitation, notwithstanding the unbrotherly tone in which it was given, shook hands with Jochen, and said, glancing towards the house, "You're very well off here, Jochen."

Jochen nodded.

"And probably have a great many guests."

"What business is it of yours?" cried Jochen violently, as if he had been bitterly insulted.

"Why, I only asked the question," said Clas.

"There is no one here at all," cried Jochen, "no one at all;" and he stepped before the other as he was making his way towards the house.

"That happens just right," said Clas; "then I can turn back and tell old Herr Wenhorf and Herr Gotthold that they can get lodgings in your house."

Jochen was perfectly horrified. What should he do? He had promised to keep silence, but what could silence avail if Herr Gotthold came straight into the house, and the old gentleman too, for whom he had such a wholesome respect. If the latter fixed his clear old eyes upon him, he must certainly tell everything, and--"Stine, Stine," shouted Jochen, as if the only inn in Wiessow were in flames from top to bottom.

"Jochen, have you gone perfectly crazy? Don't you think at all of--"

Stine, who had come running out of the house at her husband's loud outcry, suddenly slopped short and stared at her brother-in-law with open mouth.

"You see," said Jochen with great satisfaction.

"Where is he?" asked Stine.

Clas Prebrow felt that his diplomatic reserve would not answer with the clever Stine, and at this stage of his mission he must drop the mask.

So he rubbed his large, hard, blackened hands contentedly, and showed his white teeth, but suddenly grew grave again, and said, while his glance wandered over the row of windows in the upper story, "Wouldn't it be better for us to go in?"

They went in and entered the little sitting-room directly behind the large coffee-room, which Stine only left for a moment to get from the cupboard a bottle of rum and two gla.s.ses, that the brothers might drink to each other's health, and Clas's tongue should not get dry in case he had a great deal to tell.

Clas probably would have had a very long story, but remembering that the gentlemen were awaiting his return, he cut it short.

They had come upon the right clew the very first evening, but lost it again the following day because the lady left the carriage she had taken at Ralow, in Gulnitz, and went on on foot, to conceal her route.

She succeeded so well in this, that they spent a whole day and night in searching, and only recovered the lost trail late yesterday evening in Trentow. To be sure, it would now scarcely have been doubtful what direction she had taken; but they had left the carriage at noon at Herr von Schoritz of Schoritz, who was a friend of Gotthold's, in order to proceed on their journey on foot to mislead Herr Brandow, in case he was behind them, and therefore they had been obliged to rest a few hours in Trentow, and to-day they were coming from Trentow, and he ran on before, less to inquire whether the lady was here than to beg his sister-in-law to prepare her, that she might not be too much frightened.

"Oh! goodness gracious," said Stine, "poor, poor child! we were obliged to promise solemnly that we would not betray her."

"Stine, we sha'n't be able to carry it through," said Jochen.

In her heart Stine had never expected to do so; nay, she had always prayed that Heaven would interpose and send Herr Gotthold to them before it was too late. To be sure, she could not acknowledge this openly, but neither did she wish to be actually unfaithful to the promise she had given Cecilia, and in her perplexity began to weep bitterly.

Jochen nodded a.s.sent, as if he wanted to show his Stine that she had now taken the right course. Clas emptied his gla.s.s and said, rising, "So we shall be here in fifteen minutes. You're so clever, Stine, you can easily settle matters, and you can come with me, Jochen."

Jochen started up and went out of the room so hastily that he left his gla.s.s half full. Stine intended to pour the liquor back into the bottle again, but in her absence of mind drank it herself. Tears fell from her eyes: "We poor women!" she murmured.

CHAPTER XXIX.

After Stine had left the room, Cecilia still remained sitting by her child's little bed. Gretchen had fallen asleep, and it now seemed to the mother that the innocent little face looked paler, and the white, delicate hands often twitched convulsively. Suppose she should be seriously ill? Suppose she should die, and all the horror and grief of these hours had been endured in vain?

She pressed her hands to her throbbing temples. There was no one--no one who could counsel and help her. And yet she was with friends, with her good old Stine, who had received her yesterday with a flood of joyful tears, who was nearly beside herself with grief and joy at the unexpected visit, and with worthy Jochen, whose honest face mingled pleasantly with the happy memories of her girlish days--how deserted she would feel in yonder foreign land! Would they not look upon her, treat her as an adventuress? And could she blame them for it? Could she tell her pitiful story to all the world--nay, even to one human being?

The hara.s.sing anxiety drove her from her seat to the window of the next room. A broad expanse of blue sea flashed between the gable-roofs of the neighbors' houses and the white downs; a sail gleamed on the distant horizon. It was a fresh, bright scene that was framed in by the low window, and she gazed at it with the eyes with which he had taught her to behold nature; then she remembered that the empty waste of waters, with the lonely ship pursuing its solitary way into the unknown distance, was to her and her child a cruel, pitiless reality. Her head drooped; she did not notice the slight noise outside the door, and only looked up when it opened, and Stine, an expression of mingled timidity and joy on her face, which was swollen and red with weeping, entered, and then looked back towards some one who was standing behind her. A sudden foreboding, which drove every drop of blood to her heart, thrilled Cecilia's frame. Who could the dark figure in the entry be except the one person for whom she had so eagerly longed, for whose coming she had waited and hoped as the devotee waits and hopes for a miracle? Now he was here, because he loved her--and yet, and yet it could not, must not be; and her half-extended arms fell, her trembling hands did not return the clasp of his.

"Where is Gretchen?"

They went to the child's bed, where good Stine had already preceded them. The little pale cheeks were now deeply flushed, the hands twitched more violently; Cecilia's anxious eyes said, what did not cross her trembling lips until they had again entered the next room, "If she dies, I have killed her."

"She will not die," replied Gotthold, "but you must not decide upon anything hastily; you must no longer struggle on alone, must not disdain my aid as you have done till now."

"That I may drag you, who are guiltless of this misery, down to ruin with me? I have already involved you too far, but more--never."

"What do you call more, Cecilia? I love you; in those words all is said, in those words our lives are woven into one circle. What could you suffer that I would not suffer with you? Nay, has not even your past life become mine and always belonged to me? Has not all this ever brooded over my soul as a vague, anxious foreboding, drawing a veil over my brightest hours? Yes, Cecilia, when I consider this, I cannot help saying: 'Thank G.o.d! thank G.o.d that the veil is rent, that life lies before me as it is, although obstacles and difficulties of all kinds threaten to bar our way. We will conquer them. If I ever despaired, I shall do so no longer, now that you are restored to me."

He had bent his lips to her ear as he sat behind her; his deep voice grew so low as to become almost inaudible, but she caught every syllable, and each word pierced her to the heart.

"Ah! Cecilia, Cecilia! you would not have killed yourself and your child only--you would have slain me too. Well, since a voice you must ever hold sacred, of whose veracity you must never, never have the smallest doubt, has cried, live! live for me, Cecilia, for--you cannot live without me."

"Nor with you," cried Cecilia, wringing her hands. "No, do not turn your honest eyes upon me with such a questioning, reproachful look, my own dear love! I would fain tell you all, but I cannot; perhaps I might to a woman, yet to her, if she were a true woman, I should not need to do so, for she would understand me without words."

"You do not love me as you must love the man from whom you could and would accept every sacrifice, because love, the true love which bears and suffers all things, perceives no sacrifices, and yours is not the true love!"

He spoke without the slightest tinge of bitterness; but his chest heaved painfully, and his lips quivered.

"Am I not right in saying that no man, even the best, the most delicate in feeling, can rightly understand us?" replied Cecilia, bending towards Gotthold, and pushing his hair back from his burning brow. For a moment the old sweet smile played around her delicate lips and sparkled in her eyes, the smile of which Gotthold had often dreamed, and then spent the whole day absorbed in reverie, as if under the influence of some magic spell. But it was only for a moment; then it disappeared, and sorrowful earnestness was again expressed in every feature of the beautiful face, again echoed in the tones of her voice.

"True love! Dare a woman who has experienced what I have, even take the word on her lips? True love! Would you have called it so, when I--"

She paused suddenly, rose, went to the window, came back again, and standing before Gotthold with her arms folded across her breast, said: "When I procured still larger supplies for his avarice, when I would have suffered myself and my child to be sold, though you would have been compelled to sacrifice the last penny of your fortune to buy our freedom--"

"You might have done so, and did not!" exclaimed Gotthold, in the most painful agitation.

"I might, and did not," replied Cecilia, "but certainly not because I doubted, for an instant, that you would, without hesitation, sacrifice all, all; such a doubt is inconceivable to a woman who knows herself beloved, nay, she would, under similar circ.u.mstances, go begging for her lover; but--it is useless, Gotthold, I shall never find words. Ah!

the misery that is even denied the relief of expressing its agony, which must consume away in silent torture."