Chapter XX: Sacrifice

"I know that you two have much to say to each other," said Mrs. Carroll, when the noise of departing wheels had died away. "Ring the bell, Baron, please, and tell James to light the lamp in the little sitting-room. And in considering your plans, let me beg both of you to remember that it will be a pleasure to us all if the Baroness will stay at Oakwood as long as she wishes."

Hilda ran to the elder woman in her childish, impulsive way, and thanked her with many little German phrases of gratitude. Von Rittenheim raised her hand to his lips and murmured,--

"You make my decision easier, dear lady."

In the little sitting-room Hilda established herself in a huge arm-chair, whose high back cast a shadow on her face, and Friedrich, at the window, drew in great breaths of sweet summer air. He turned to her when Uncle Jimmy had gone.

"First tell me about Max."

"Yes, I must tell you about Max. I am afraid it will be an added grief to you to know that Max----"

"What is it?" he asked, sharply and apprehensively, as she hesitated. How familiar to him was that feeling of apprehension about his brother. Hilda was sitting erect in the big chair, looking at him fixedly.

"Max--shot himself."

"My God! Shot himself! Poor girl!"

The expression on Hilda's face changed to one of relief--almost of joy. After all, his first thought had been for her.

"Why did he--how did it happen?"

"He had had troubles----"

"Money?"

She nodded.

"I think they distressed him more than usual. And he was--he wasn't quite himself."

Von Rittenheim stared persistently out of the window, his face almost entirely turned away from her. He lost not a word of what she said, and at the same time there ran through his mind memories of their boyhood days together, and of their adventures at the gymnasium and the university. Then their rivalry over Hilda. With what careless ease Maximilian had won her away from his brother, just for the pleasure of victory. He felt again a dash of the old bitterness.

"You mean he was drunk?" he asked, bluntly.

She raised her tiny hands before her face as if she were warding off a blow. Friedrich hardly could hear her "Yes."

Her action suggested an idea to von Rittenheim.

"Tell me, Hilda." He stammered over the question. "Did he--did Max ever strike you?"

Without a word Hilda pushed back the hair that fell over her forehead at one side, and showed, close to the roots, a scar.

Friedrich gazed at her in horror.

"You poor, poor girl!"

Again the glow of satisfaction warmed her face.

"Where was he when he--when he died?"

"At the Schloss--in my dressing-room."

"You were there?"

"My dress was wet with his blood."

Over Friedrich there rushed man's protective feeling, the desire to shield a woman from pain; his own yearning of not so many months ago, to fend this one fragile creature from the world. He drew nearer to her, and she leaned back in her chair and looked up at him out of the shadow.

"I could not bear to live at the Schloss any longer--there were horrible memories, and I was alone; I told you my aunt had died. You know she was my only relative."

Von Rittenheim knew. It was at her aunt's house in Heidelberg that he had met Hilda.

"Then Maximilian had told me that we could not live in the Schloss if you did not supply the money to carry it on. After he died I could not feel myself indebted for that to you when I had treated you so badly."

She hung her head. Von Rittenheim made a gesture of polite dissent, and walked again to the window.

"You always had enough money, I hope?"

"No sum ever was large enough for Max." They both smiled. "But a piece of great good fortune came to me just after you went away."

Von Rittenheim turned again to the window and betrayed some embarrassment, but Hilda was intent upon her story, and noticed nothing.

"Some of the investments into which my dowry had been put appreciated enormously in value."

So that was the way Herr Stapfer had explained it. Friedrich nodded approvingly.

"So I always had enough for my needs, even when----"

"When what?"

"Forgive me. I did not mean to say it."

"You were going to say, 'Even when Maximilian took it?'"

She hung her head again, like a sorry child. He noticed how her neck and arms shone white through the thin black of her gown.

"After all, you are his brother. Perhaps I should tell you. At the end--it was because of that that he shot himself, poor Max! He came to me in my room and asked me for money, and I told him I had none. Indeed, he had taken the last I had a few days before. He did not believe me, and he threatened to shoot himself if I did not give it to him."

"Coward!"

"Of course, I did not think that it was more than--excitement. How could I believe that he was in earnest? But he kept crying, 'Give it up, give it up!' The servants heard him. And then----"

Friedrich crossed quickly to her and leaned over the chair as she sat with her face buried in her handkerchief.

"Hilda, it seems to me no woman ever needed pity and comfort more than you. You have come many thousands of miles to claim it from me, and I will not fail you. You reminded me last night of my oath to you. I repeat it now. My life is at your service if it can bring you happiness."

The words sounded forced and stilted to his ears, even while he pressed the little white hand that she put out blindly towards him. He was not sorry for his pledge; he felt that he could have done no less; but Sydney's proud, earnest face flashed before him, and his memory saw it soften and flush with the happy shyness that covered it when she gave him her handkerchief,--and he wondered to what extent Hilda would consider that his promise bound him.

A few days made it clear that he had committed himself to no mere form of words. She received the admiration of every man in the Neighborhood. Patton McRae's elastic heart added another to its list of occupants, and John Wendell fell seriously in love with her. But always in the foreground she placed von Rittenheim. It was not alone that she looked for his coming, and monopolized him when he arrived; that she deferred to him, and did half a hundred tell-tale things; but in some way, by a hint here and a phrase there, she made every one understand how it had been with them in the past,--how madly he had loved her; how foolish she had been to break the engagement; how worse than foolish, for she had broken his great, noble heart, too. But, now--with a pretty sigh and an appealing look--now was her opportunity to remedy the harm she had done. When one or two of the bolder ones hinted at an engagement, she denied it, with a rebuking glance at her black gown, her fascinating, floating diaphanous black gown. Still, it became evident to every one that when a proper time had elapsed after Maximilian's death, her consolation would be even more remedial.

John haunted her steps, and left her only when the Baron came. Then he disappeared until his rival's departure. Sydney grew distant in manner to von Rittenheim, and often he did not see her at all when he went to Oakwood. Hilda's visit to Mrs. Carroll was prolonged on the ground that seemed to have place in every one's mind, though no one could trace its origin, that she would stay on near Friedrich until it was time to go home to Germany to begin her wedding preparations,--say, until after Christmas,--and that they would be married as soon as the year of mourning was over.

"It would be disgracefully soon if her husband had been a good man, of course, but he was such a beast!" And a shrug made all the necessary condonement for the hastening of the marriage.

By September the whole neighborhood was converted to this belief, all except John, who _would_ not believe, and Sydney, who had not trusted herself to think.

The compulsion of thought seized her in her own room one night, after a day when it had been forced upon her that there could be but one truth, and that the conclusion to which her friends had come. From window to window she walked, dragging her trailing draperies, softly blue in the moonlight. She was fretted into constant motion by the impelling might of a desire to do something that would put off the moment when she must stop and think out the situation. She tried to divert her fancy to the channels of her daily life. She decided what colts should be broken next summer. She devised a new plan for keeping Bob employed and happy when the dull days of winter should come. She endeavored to be grateful that her grandmother was less harassed by pain than usual. Yet through all wreathed the insistent cry, "Face it. You must face it."

That compelling threat she knows who recognizes that the one dearest to her on earth must die. It commands the scrutiny of facts, and an end to the glossing of truth. It rings the knell of hope. Later comes the sustaining reflection of the future life,--its opportunities for work and its attendant happiness for him who enters upon it. But now is self's confrontment with loneliness, with sorrow, with despair.

The cry became insistent in Sydney's ears. Face it she must.

She stepped through the long window upon the balcony which commanded west and south. The moon swam cold in the steel-blue sky. The ribbon of low-lying mist betrayed the devious winding of the creek. On the horizon swung the gray masses of the mountains, their hardness veiled in the tender light of distance. Sydney fell on her knees and twisted her hands one within the other. She spoke in a whisper.

"I cannot bear it! I cannot bear it! Oh, I cannot bear it!" she repeated over and over.

Then stung to openness by the lash of the constant inward cry--

"I love him! Oh, I love him! Oh, I cannot bear it!" she moaned yet again.

She rocked to and fro upon her knees, and hid her face in her hands to shut out the glory of beauty and calm that lay before and around her.

"I never thought that love would be like this. To feel it--to be sure of it--and to have to give him to another woman!" She began to cry weakly.

The moon flooded the gallery with its light. A diamond on one of Sydney's clasped hands winked as gayly as if a tragedy were not filling the girl's heart. Then oft-read words came to her lips:

"Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing more courageous, nothing higher; nothing wider, nothing more pleasant; nothing fuller nor better in heaven and earth."

"For it carries a burden which is no burden, and makes everything that is bitter sweet and savory."

"He that loveth flieth, runneth and rejoiceth; he is free and is not bound."

"He giveth all for all."

"He giveth all for all." She repeated it again and again.

She had, indeed, dreamed of a love for which sacrifice should be a joy. But that this should be the kind of sacrifice! Even through her wretchedness the humor of it penetrated, and a woe-begone smile fluttered over her lips.

The singing words came to her again.

"Let me be possessed by love, mounting above myself."

"Let me love thee more than myself, and love myself only for thee."

She kneeled upright and rested her folded arms upon the railing. Peace seemed to be flowing in upon her, and a purpose grew into form within her mind. With increasing control she rose to her feet.

"If my love is worth anything it can do even that."

Her uplifted face shone strong and beautiful as she left the splendor without, and knelt beside her bed.

"O God, I thank thee that thou hast granted me the power to love. Help me now, I implore thee, to make use of this, my dearest treasure, for the joy of others."