Chapter XII: Illumination

For the first time since the beginning of his illness, von Rittenheim was walking unassisted towards the cluster of trees on the Oakwood lawn, beneath whose shelter rugs and low chairs and a tea-table made a summer sitting-room. Mrs. Carroll, who already was established in the shade, watched anxiously her guest's feeble approach.

"You should have let the nurse or James come with you," she called to him. "It's too far for you to walk alone."

"Ah, dear Mrs. Carroll, it is so good not to have that admirable nurse or the good Uncle Yimmy with me."

He let himself down carefully into a big chair.

"And you see that not yet do I disdain cushions. The down of that pr-rovident bird, the eider duck, makes a substitute for the flesh that ought to pad my poor bones. Thank you, Uncle Yimmy," to the old negro, who had just set down the tea-tray, "thank you, yes, one more pillow behind my shoulders."

"You'll have tea?"

"May I have tea? Is it possible that I r-return in one same day to two examples of independence? I walk abr-road alone, and I say again to my dear Mrs. Carroll, 'I thank you. It does me pleasure to accept a cup of tea from your hands.'" He held up his own hand against the sun. "A little worse for the wear, my hand, eh? But still of use."

A slight change of position brought into view the field at the foot of the knoll upon whose top they were. Friedrich sat upright in his chair, while a flush tinged his worn cheeks.

"What makes Miss Sydney down there?" he cried.

"Sydney? Oh, she is breaking some of the colts; teaching them to jump, I think she said, to-day."

Mrs. Carroll adjusted her eye-glasses. Two negro grooms were setting up a low hurdle with wings, while two small black boys dangled joyously from the halters of a couple of young horses, and a third bore Sydney's saddle upon his head.

"Is it Bob Mor-rgan with Miss Sydney?" asked Friedrich, wistfully, as the girl walked across the field beside a man who was leading a tall gray, already saddled.

"Yes, that's Bob. A huge fellow, isn't he?"

"And fear you not that Miss Sydney should ride those so wild colts?"

"Not now. I used to be frightened to death, but I've seen her and Bob down there doing that for so many years that I've learned not to be afraid. She rides really very well, you know, and Bob is careful of her."

"He would be."

Von Rittenheim sighed, and leaned back with closed eyes. He wished with all his soul that it were he down in the field fitting the saddle--that _dear_ side-saddle--to that dancing creature; that it were he who was responsible for the safety of Sydney.

"Bob gives her a lead over, you see, on his horse, which is a well-trained animal."

Friedrich opened his eyes in time to see the gray take off neatly. Sydney followed, and lifted her mount so cleverly that he had leaped his first hurdle before he knew what he was doing. The watchers on the knoll could see Bob, sitting on his horse at one side, clap his hands in approval, while the pickaninnies turned cartwheels in the grass.

"She does r-ride most beautifully, Miss Sydney. It is truly pleasurable to see her," murmured von Rittenheim, though his expression was one of approval rather than delight.

"Do you know, Mrs. Carroll, have I told you how much this _Aussicht--view_, is it not?--and the position of your house make me to think of my home? It is on the edge of the Schwarzwald, and we look down from the Schloss into a valley, oh, so lovely! with trees and a little r-river."

"A much wilder prospect than we have here at Oakwood."

"But not more beautiful, and the feeling is the same."

A vulgar emotion assailed the well-kept precincts of Mrs. Carroll's mind. Curiosity, commonplace curiosity surged within her. She yielded to its force.

"How could you bear to leave it?"

"It was the old pr-reference of the man in the window of the burning castle,--behind, the flames r-roaring mightily, and below, the spears of his enemies."

"A choice between evils."

"Yes, if you will for-rgive my calling your country an evil. I was unhappy--too unhappy to stay where every day I saw something to make me worse; and that evil was gr-reater than to banish myself, even though I do love my country dearly."

"Was it necessary for you to come so far? Could you not find peace in your own land?"

"I thought not. You see--if I do not weary you I will tell you. Shall I tell you?"

"You never weary me," returned Mrs. Carroll, heartily. "I shall consider that you do me an honor if you care to speak to me about yourself."

"It shall be only a little," began Friedrich, repenting of his expansiveness. "Perhaps I have told you that I am the older of my family. I have one br-rother four years younger. Our parents are dead several years, and Maximilian is married two years ago with Hilda von Arnim."

"You spoke of them both when you were ill; in your delirium, you know."

"Of Max and Hilda? What did I say?"

A sharp note was in Friedrich's voice.

"My dear Baron, I must make the humiliating confession that long disuse has impaired sadly my understanding of German. If you should speak to me very slowly, probably I could comprehend you, but at that time you were not speaking slowly."

"My nurses?"

"Neither of them speaks a word of anything but English."

"It is an escape," he murmured. "Forgive me, _gnaedige Frau_. It is a startle to think that perhaps you have given to the world your heart's thoughts."

"Be reassured. It was only the names, Max and Hilda, that we understood."

"When my tr-rouble came to me, it was unbearable to stay at the Schloss, so I must go away. Yet Maximilian was not able to pr-reserve the estate as it should be kept. He is not r-rich, Max, and he is a little what you call swift, eh? He spends much."

"I see."

"So if I leave him to care for the Schloss I must leave him also my incomings, and, if I act so, I cannot live myself in my own country where I have friends of the army and of society; where I have a--what is it?--a stand?"

"Position?"

"Yes, yes, a position to hold up. I must go where it concerns nobody if I am changed in purse. So to America I came, it is about two years since, and for one year I tr-ravelled everywhere to see where I liked best, and for the diversion also, for I was most sad. Then my money grew down so small that I saw I must stop, so to this lovely land I happened, and I bought my little farm. But, alas! I fear I am not a farmer. Still, I shall learn. I am determined of that."

"I'm sure you will. You haven't had a chance yet."

"And this year, what can I do? I am so misfortunate as to be away and sick at the time of planting."

"You won't be without some little return, for when we found that you would be ill so long we let your fields to two men who have planted them, and will pay you one-third of their crop of corn. That's the customary rent here, and it will keep your mule through next winter, at any rate."

"Now, that is truly kind and thoughtful. It is, indeed, fr-riendly!"

"You must thank Dr. Morgan for that arrangement."

Von Rittenheim sat erect and stared at the little old lady before him. A look of confused and struggling recollection was called into life by her words.

"I must thank--whom?"

The spirit of the gallant adventurer who had been Mrs. Carroll's immigrant ancestor to the Virginia wilds pushed her on to dare the situation. She also sat upright, and the two faced each other undauntedly.

"You must thank Dr. Morgan for that kindness, and for others even greater."

"Dr. Mor-rgan?"

Clearer remembrance brought with it the old feeling of suspicion and its accompanying look of hatred, which distorted Friedrich's handsome face.

"Yes, Dr. Morgan. I want you to listen to what I am going to tell you. You are well enough now to hear the truth."

"It is your right, madam, to say to me what you may like."

Von Rittenheim turned his stern face towards the training-field, and kept his eyes upon the moving forms that shifted below him.

Mrs. Carroll was unabashed.

"Dr. Morgan is an old and tried friend of mine and of all my family. He has seen life come and go at Oakwood. He rejoiced with us at Sydney's birth, and he was my chief help and support when her father and mother left us two here together, alone."

With a certain tenderness--the yearning that a man feels to protect the feeble and the helpless--Friedrich turned his softened eyes towards her.

"I tell you this because I can say truthfully that I know him to be faithful in friendship and incapable of treachery."

Friedrich turned again with tightened lips to his contemplation of the meadow.

"We heard of your being summoned to court and for what purpose."

Mrs. Carroll stopped, for a grayness settled over the young man's face, and the eyes that he turned upon hers were filled with horror.

"You had forgotten?"

"Yes, I had forgotten."

All the pride went out of him, as the fading of the sun's flush leaves the evening clouds without illumination and dull.

"I had for-rgotten, but now I r-remember. It comes back to me. Yes, now I r-remember all--all."

He turned away his face both from her and from the field below, and rested his cheek on his hand. Mrs. Carroll noticed the thinness of his wrist, and her heart misgave her.

"Shall I go on?"

"If it please you."

"Bob Morgan went into Asheville to follow your career in behalf of all your friends here."

Von Rittenheim's head fell lower.

"He was in the court-room when you were----"

The old lady hesitated and watched von Rittenheim sharply. She was doubtful of his strength after all.

"When I was--yes, continue, please," he said, with muffled voice.

"When you were sentenced."

She hastened on, pretending not to hear the groan that followed her revelation.

"He galloped out here at once as fast as he could, and told us about it--his father and me. He feared an illness for you then--you looked not yourself, he said. We decided that it was best for you to come here to Oakwood. We could not bear to think of your going to the hospital."

Friedrich felt vaguely across the table for the plump little hand of his hostess, and pressed it blindly.

"They drove into town that same afternoon, Dr. Morgan in our carriage, and Bob in his buggy, and found you in the--found you very ill."

"Found me where?"

"You were delirious even then."

"Found me where?"

Friedrich pushed aside the cups and placed both elbows on the table. He seemed to Mrs. Carroll to have grown haggard since she had begun her recital.

"Found me where?" he repeated for the third time.

"You insist?"

"It is my r-right."

"They found you in--in the jail."

Mrs. Carroll turned away from the wretched man before her and sobbed undisguisedly. On them fell a quiet pregnant with emotion. The hush was broken by the crash of a tea-cup upon which Friedrich's fingers had happened to fall.

"Bob secured the nurses and drove one of them out in the buggy, and the Doctor and the other one brought you in the carriage."

"Why did they let me go from the--jail?"

"The Doctor paid your fine."

Often during the preceding weeks Mrs. Carroll had thought of this conversation with von Rittenheim, and the statement that she had just made always had figured as the climax of her argument in the Doctor's behalf. Now she felt no pleasure in it. The man before her was too crushed for her to exult over. He made no comment, merely said, reflectively,--

"Yes, there was a fine. It comes to me,--'one hundred dollars or three months.' It is the last thing I r-remember."

"You were dangerously ill by the time you reached Oakwood, and for three days Dr. Morgan left you only to visit his other patients. Between the attacks of stupor you talked a great deal, usually in German, but occasionally in English. From what you said then, and what Dr. Morgan remembered of conversations you had had with him, and from what Bob learned in Asheville, we gathered that you thought that when Dr. and Mrs. Morgan met the marshal on the road after they had been to your house, they betrayed you to him, and your arrest was the consequence. Is that so?"

Von Rittenheim nodded. "Yes, it is so."

"I hope it will come to you as clearly as we see it who are the Doctor's friends, that he is incapable of such a thing."

"Dear lady, even already I think I see it. I r-remember darkly my trial; how the officer told of his trick to entr-rap me into selling. Ah, dear Mrs. Carroll, I was anxious to despair from my so unusual poverty, and I was hungry, and bitten with shame for my weakness--and hopeless."

Unconsciously his eyes turned to the field below, where Sydney's hair gleamed red bronze in the sunset light. She was dismissing the men and horses. A great wall seemed to von Rittenheim to spring up between them, a wall made thick by his folly, and high by his disgrace, and strong by his weakness.

"Though I am shameful to say such things as if they were excuses, nothing excuses me. I am without justification. I say so most humbly to you."

Weakly he leaned back among his cushions. Mrs. Carroll glanced at him and hurried on.

"When the first fury of the disease was spent, you seemed distressed at the sight of the Doctor, though you did not recognize him fully; so, though he has not failed to come here twice each day, it is through the nurses' reports and Bob's that he has been treating you. He can do so much better for you now if you will see him."

"If I will see him?" he repeated. "Yes, I can at least make some little amends for my folly--my distr-rust. But can I win back ever my self-r-respect, so that you and other people can r-respect me? So that----"

He stopped as Sydney's voice reached him. She was coming up the hill, laughing with Bob.

Von Rittenheim looked appealingly at Mrs. Carroll.

"Sydney," she called, "go on to the house, dear, with Bob, and send James here."

She rose and laid her hand tenderly on the bent head.

"Stay here a while. It is still quite warm enough for you."

She went slowly across the lawn and disappeared beneath the veranda's roses. A level ray from the setting sun touched Friedrich's fair hair with gold, and went on to be splintered into a thousand tiny shafts against the swelling side of the silver cream-jug.