Chapter XXV: Carl von Sternburg

Mrs. Morgan and the Doctor had insisted upon giving to von Rittenheim Gray Eagle and Bob's buggy. They could have done nothing kinder or more tactful, for Friedrich was apprehensive even of their seeing him for whom their son had given his life, and their insistence upon his accepting this remembrance of their dead boy proved their feeling towards him more cogently than any words.

It was the good gray horse that he was driving towards Asheville a few days after the funeral, on his way to fulfil his promise to Bob to hunt up the German who had claimed acquaintance with him.

As he travelled on, he thought of the two notable journeys which he had made on this same highway,--the heart-chilling ride through the penetrating morning mist at the head of the men who had arrested him, and the wild flight through the darkness to secure the surgeon for poor Bob. Between the two had intervened a lifetime of experience. He had been branded a criminal, and had rehabilitated himself; he had knocked at the door of death, and been refused; he had lost his confidence in man's honesty, and had regained a fuller faith in his goodness; he had watched the slow blossoming of the tender flower of love's hope within his heart, and he had seen it overshadowed by the stouter growth of loyalty to his word.

Of his future, in so far as it might have to do with Sydney, he did not allow himself to think. There was no shaft of light lying upon that road. But a clear and steady, though not far-reaching flame illumined the present, for he felt sure now that she loved him, and that gave him a certain happiness. It was like having a beautiful secret,--a secret whose delight would be doubled if it might be shared with the world, but nevertheless a secret which gave joy in mere solitary contemplation.

_Hilda_ was a subject which forced itself with increasing potency upon his mind. After the first shock of her sudden coming had passed, he had been touched by her turning to him in her loneliness. That Sydney's withdrawal from him lay at Hilda's charge he could not fail to see, and he blamed himself for the occasional repulsion against his sister-in-law with which the situation filled him. She was so sweet, so childlike, so full of trust in him, so regretful for her mistakes of the past, so reticent as to Maximilian's ill-behavior. Her whole conduct won his respect and confidence, even while he felt himself subtly encompassed by the seine of her entire reliance upon the keeping of his oath. That she expected him to marry her he did not formally concede to himself, but he was quite sure that she did not expect him to marry any one else.

His errands done,--a commission for Mrs. Morgan and some business for the firm,--he betook himself to the hotel and asked for the register. He was running over the names when he heard some one behind him saying, in German,--

"It _is_ my von Rittenheim! It is my dear Friedrich!" and "dear Friedrich" and a somewhat stout young man a few years younger than he flung themselves into each other's arms, and kissed both cheeks after the manner of their race, while the clerk turned to his safe to conceal the grin that inwreathed his countenance.

"Von Sternburg! What in the world brought you here?"

"Baedeker. This scenery is among the things a globe-trotter has to see."

"Shall you stay long?"

"I go to Florida day after to-morrow. Come on to the veranda and tell me about yourself."

"If I can stop asking questions long enough!"

It was while they were talking and smoking in the sunshine with the glorious western range spread before them, that von Sternburg said,--

"And poor old Max is dead."

He knocked the ash from his cigar with his little finger, and glanced at Friedrich, who was non-committal.

"Yes," was all he said.

"I suppose they've never found any trace of the she-devil, have they?"

Friedrich sat up with a jerk and stared at von Sternburg.

"She-devil? What she-devil?"

"What she-devil? Why, the Baroness, of course. Max's wife."

"No trace of Hilda? She-devil? What are you talking about?"

"Do you mean to say that you don't know about Maximilian's death?"

"I know he shot himself."

"And you don't know why?"

"I had not heard from Max for six months before he died. I did not know of his death until several months after it occurred!"

"That was strange! Your man of business did not write you?"

"It was my fault. I hadn't sent him my address for a long time. When I did there was a reason for his not writing at once."

"Who is he?"

"Stapfer."

"I knew it!"

Von Sternburg slapped his knee.

"Stapfer was crazy over her, and she had some reason for your not knowing."

"_She!_ Are you talking about my sister-in-law?"

"Oh, you needn't put on any dignity over her. She isn't worth it, though I suppose you don't know that as well as you will in a few minutes."

Friedrich passed his hand over his face.

"I can't understand it. You say Stapfer was in love with Hilda?"

"And she made use of him, just as she did of Moller and von Hatfeldt and everybody else who came near her. She overreached herself about von Hillern, though."

"It seems treachery to listen to you, von Sternburg."

"Treachery! Why, my dear boy----"

Von Sternburg ended his sentence with an expressive gesture.

"And Max--did he know?"

"Why, that's what killed him, man! Haven't you kept in touch with anybody in the Fatherland who would write you any news?"

"I haven't received a letter from a soul except Max and Stapfer since I came to America."

Von Sternburg gave a whistle of surprise.

"Then you don't even know how Max improved? Everybody thought when he married Hilda von Arnim that he did it merely for the pleasure of cutting you out. Forgive my speaking so plainly."

He laid a deprecating hand on von Rittenheim's knee. Friedrich nodded silently.

"I haven't a doubt in the world that that was his chief motive then. But after you left he fell a victim to the charm that she seems to exert over everybody who doesn't know her tricks--you must let me go on now," he said, quickly, in response to a motion of von Rittenheim's, "or I can't establish my case. He fell madly in love with her, and it made another man of him."

"There was much good in Max."

"Well hidden all through his youth, you must allow. He gave up drinking----"

"Not entirely?"

"He drank only what a gentleman takes for dinner."

"He was not intoxicated when he sh--when he died?"

"I know for a fact that he was not drunk once during the whole last year of his life."

"You know? How do you know? Forgive me, Carl," as a look of annoyance clouded von Sternburg's face, "but every proof is important to me."

"I was living at our Schloss--at my father's. I saw Maximilian nearly every day. We were together constantly."

"Extraordinary!" murmured Friedrich. "Did this wonderful change extend to his money affairs?"

"Well, you know Max could use any amount of money, and you couldn't expect him to become an economist at one shot. Then he always spent a great deal on his wife; he was continually sending to Paris for something for her."

Friedrich scowled thoughtfully.

"Still he paid all his old debts out of his Aunt Brigitta's legacy, and didn't make any new ones."

"That means more for Max than it would for most people."

"He told me that he could not have afforded to keep up the Schloss without your help, but aside from the expenses of the house he had plenty, plenty."

"And Hilda?"

"Oh, the Baroness is a millionaire. Her aunt in Heidelberg died more than a year ago and left her all her fortune. Max never got a pfennig of it though, even in a Christmas-gift."

There flashed across Friedrich's mental view his cabin, differing in no respect from those of the "mountain whites," his neighbors. Then a picture of a little figure with white neck and arms shining through the filmy blackness of her gown, shrinking into an arm-chair, and saying, "I always had enough for my needs, even when----"

"Was he kind to her?"

"Kind? I tell you he loved her with the most unselfish devotion. It was his dearest wish to live a life so correct that she might be proud of him. You couldn't expect more than that, could you?"

"Not from Maximilian," admitted von Rittenheim. "Perhaps the very intensity of his love may have made him exacting towards her?"

"My dear fellow, she paid no more attention to him and his wishes than if he were the lowest servant on the estate. She had a constant flock of men hanging about, with whom she flirted desperately, entirely regardless of Max's feelings. I must say he bore it like an angel! Why, if my wife--well, never mind, I haven't one yet. She made herself conspicuous with Moller--Colonel Moller, you know, before von Hatfeldt killed himself on her account."

"The Graf's son?" Friedrich was startled.

"The second son. He took poison and told his father why. The old man went to Max about it."

"Poor old Max!"

"What could he do? When he charged her with it there's nothing so sweet and gentle on earth as that girl! What had she done? Nothing at all, but torment a poor fellow until his nerves and will were wrecked. How could she be responsible for that?"

Friedrich saw before him John Wendell, haggard and sneering, saying to him something so insulting that Sydney had grown white, and Bob had raised a threatening arm.

"But, as I said, she overreached herself with von Hillern. Fortunately for him he was in love with some one else, which was his safeguard, but he was willing enough to singe his wings, and the Baroness was determined to make him give up his marriage, as a sign that he loved her."

Von Rittenheim stared at the mountains and thought of Sydney. Von Sternburg continued,--

"Maximilian was fully alive to everything that went on, and he was beside himself with distress. Apart from the pain of his own unrequited love, he was acutely anxious over the gossip about her."

"Von Hillern is an old friend of our family."

"Exactly. I think Max blamed him very little, but it preyed on his mind."

"You think it became unhinged?"

"I think so. Indeed, I'm almost sure of it. He hadn't the constitution to endure any mental anxiety."

"I suppose he shot himself in a fit of alienation."

"He shot himself because his wife refused to give up her affair with von Hillern. Whether it was mania, or a passing craze of jealousy, I don't pretend to say."

"How do you know it wasn't on account of financial troubles?"

"I was there in the next room at the time."

Von Rittenheim leaned forward and fixed his eyes on von Sternburg's face with keen anxiety.

"You heard him?"

"I had gone to ask Max to ride with me. The servant who opened the door said he dared not announce me to the Baron; that he was storming about in his dressing-room. I ran up-stairs and into Max's room, which was empty, but I heard his voice in the Baroness's room, which adjoined it."

"You understood what he said?"

"Perfectly. It seemed to be the end of a long argument. He cried, 'Hilda, will you or will you not give up von Hillern?'"

"And she said?"

"'I have told you repeatedly, Max, that I will not.' Then he seemed to go wild, and cried, 'Give him up! Give him up!'"

Von Rittenheim paled. He never moved his eyes from his friend's face.

"Without a word of warning, he fired two shots. I broke open the door instantly, expecting that he had killed Hilda, but he had ended his suffering in another way."

Friedrich's head sank, and Carl again laid a hand upon his knee in awkward sympathy.

"Of course, the whole thing came out," he continued. "The servants knew everything, as they always do, and I had to tell my story at the inquest. The Baroness braved public opinion for a time, first playing the innocent and then the martyr; but one day Graf von Hatfeldt called upon her, and told her a few home truths, and that very night she left the Schloss. Nobody knows where she went to, unless it's Stapfer. If he does, he has kept her secret."

Friedrich preserved a silence that disturbed von Sternburg. Carl crossed his knees uneasily and lighted a cigarette, glancing occasionally at his friend. Just how deeply this would cut him he had no means of knowing.

At last von Rittenheim, looking worn but not unhappy, lifted his head. He rose and walked to the edge of the veranda, and stretched himself as if to shake off some trammel of thought.

"After we have had luncheon, will you do me a great kindness, Carl?" he asked. "Will you drive home with me into the country, and spend the night?"

"My dear fellow, I shall be delighted to do so," cried von Sternburg, surprised and relieved at this unexpected turn of the conversation.