Chapter V: Part 5

"Have borne that double name since the fourteenth century," the Freiherr completed the young man's sentence. "Gerlinda, child, tell our guest how it occurred."

Fraeulein Gerlinda clasped her hands upon the table, without raising her eyes, and, with a face as expressionless as ever, she suddenly, to the guest's dismay, began to speak, or rather to rattle off after the manner of a child repeating a lesson learned by rote: "In the year thirteen hundred and seventy a feud arose between Kunrad von Eberstein and Balduin von Ortenau, because the hand of Hildegund of Ortenau had been refused to the Knight Kunrad of Eberstein, and the Ebersburg, as well as the fortress of Ortenau, was sacked several times, until, in the year thirteen hundred and seventy-one, the Knight Balduin was taken prisoner by the Ebersteiners and thrown into the castle dungeon, where at last he consented to the union of Hildegund with Kunrad, which union was celebrated with great pomp in the year thirteen hundred and seventy-two, and in consequence, in the year thirteen hundred and eighty-six, upon the death of the Knight Balduin, the fortress of Ortenau and the lands belonging to it came into the possession of the lords of Eberstein, who since then have borne the name of Eberstein-Ortenau."

"Wonderful!" said Hans, who was really thunderstruck at this performance of the supposed deaf-mute. He could not understand where she got the breath for her long speech; he had lost his with simply listening.

"Yes, my Gerlinda is well versed in the history of our house," said the Freiherr, triumphantly. "She remembers it even better than I do, for my memory is beginning to fail me. Yesterday she corrected me in a date, when I was speaking of the enfeoffment of Udo von Eberstein. You remember, my child?"

As if the hitherto motionless pendulum of a clock had been set going by this question, Fraeulein Gerlinda started off again and told a much longer story, this time from the fifteenth century, about a certain Eberstein who in a certain battle had saved the Emperor's life and had been by him endowed with a certain castle. All the hard names and the numerous dates fell from her lips with the greatest fluency and certainty, but with a monotony of intonation that reminded one of the clapper of a mill, the more so as her speech came to a pause as suddenly as it began. Hans involuntarily pushed back his chair a little, the whole scene partook of the supernatural. The Freiherr, however, who received this as an expression of admiration, seemed inclined to initiate him still further into the chronicles of his race, when the old clock in the corner struck the hour of nine.

"Nine o'clock already," said Eberstein, as he rose from his chair. "We live very regularly, Herr von Wehlau, and are wont to retire at this hour, a custom which I doubt not your fatiguing ramble in the forest will make grateful to you. I wish you a calm and refreshing night in the Ebersburg."

"That was terrible!" said Hans, with a sigh, when he found himself alone in his sleeping-room in the old castle. "That old man of the tenth century, and that little chatelaine whom I took for deaf and dumb, and who chatters out the old chronicles like a magpie, have nearly turned my brain. I am completely mediaeval, and have become extremely exclusive since I have been Hans Wehlau Wehlenberg of the Forschungstein."

Thereupon he went to bed, and dreamed that the old Freiherr was going through all Northern Germany with a lantern to find the Forschungstein, and that Fraeulein Gerlinda, disguised as a magpie, was fluttering beside him, chattering incessantly about Kunrad von Eberstein and Hildegund von Ortenau; and when they could not find the Forschungstein, they seated themselves in the branches of their genealogical tree and ascended with it up, up and away into the tenth century, and a very imposing spectacle it was.

When Hans waked the next morning the sun was shining brightly into his room, and his clothes were sufficiently dry to be donned. It was still very early, and no one seemed to be stirring in the house: so he resolved to inspect by daylight the house, which he had reached in darkness and storm. He issued from his room into the long corridor, which was lit by a narrow window, and without much difficulty succeeded in finding the winding staircase with the worn steps, by which he descended into the front hall and thence into the open air.

Undoubtedly the Ebersburg had formerly been a strong and stately castle, perhaps destroyed and rebuilt several times in the course of centuries. Now it was but a ruin. The greater part of it had fallen to decay, and all that was left of the once solid masonry seemed tottering to its fall. In the castle court-yard the grass grew luxuriantly, and an entire generation of bushes and small trees had sprung up, making the place an actual thicket. From the roof of the old watch-tower, which was still apparently in repair, green grasses were nodding, and rooks were flying in and out of the window openings. Fragments of masonry were lying about, with here and there remains of the ancient apartments.

The only wing still standing, that which was now inhabited by the Freiherr, presented a dreary aspect. The ruins were at least picturesque, but the attempts to patch up this part of the castle only brought into stronger relief the decay of the building. The crumbling masonry had been coarsely whitewashed, the missing doors and windows had been replaced in the rudest fashion, and where the rooms were not used boards had been nailed over the apertures. The magnificent old balcony had been supplied with a thatched roof, and the broad stone steps of the entrance hall had been replaced by wooden ones.

Hans Wehlau's artist's eye was outraged by this sight, and he turned again to the ruins, forcing his way through the green thicket in the court-yard, and at last, through an opening in the wall that might once have been a gate-way, he emerged upon the former castle terrace. Here, however, his wanderings were stayed, for from the lower story of the watch-tower, apparently used as a stable, there issued a joyous bleating, and immediately afterwards a goat came leaping through the door-way into the open air, followed by Fraeulein Gerlinda, dressed, in spite of the earliness of the hour, in the gray dress of the evening before, and carrying carefully in both hands a small wooden milk-vessel filled to the brim.

This unexpected encounter astonished both the young people. Gerlinda stood as if rooted to the spot, and the guest could not but divine that Fraeulein von Eberstein, with her long line of ancestry dating from the tenth century, had milked the goat with her own high-born hands that there might be milk for breakfast. Her evident dismay embarrassed Hans too, so that he could not utter any fitting phrase, but bowed in silence. Fortunately, the goat comprehended the annoying nature of the situation, and put an end to it by merrily leaping up upon the stranger and then rubbing so affectionately against her young mistress that the vessel in her hands was shaken and part of the milk was spilled.

This was a happy interruption of the pause of embarrassment; Hans made haste to take the milk, which Gerlinda allowed him to do, saying gently, by way of excuse, "Muckerl is so glad to get out into the air."

"Thank heaven she can utter something besides mediaeval chronicles!" thought Hans, enchanted with her remark. He expressed his pleasure in Muckerl's liveliness, asked exact information as to her age and state of health, and meanwhile placed the milk in safety by setting the vessel down upon a projection of the wall, for Muckerl was scanning him with a highly critical air, and seemed rather inclined to repeat her charge at him; the next moment, however, thinking better of it, she turned her attention to the luxuriant grass that covered the ground.

The view from the Ebersburg was not an extensive one; the castle lay secluded in a deep hollow of the valley, and the mountains rising on all sides were thickly wooded, but the old ruin nestled among delicious green, the tree-tops rustled gently in the morning air, and the birds twittered among them.

The morning sun lay broad upon the ancient castle terrace. Here all around, to be sure, were ruin and decay, but vigorous, luxuriant life was striving compassionately to conceal the desolation. There were broad breaches in the wall bounding the terrace, but wild shrubs and bushes grew there, forming a living breastwork; the huge watch-tower, where the rooks were flying in and out of the windows, was wreathed round with thick dark-green ivy; amid the gray fragments of stone lying about were nestling tender mosses, and vigorous wild vines were trailing everywhere. Upon every stone, from every crack in the walls, hardy plants were springing and thrusting themselves forth, while over everything brooded the deep, dreamy stillness of early morning.

In the midst of these relics of vanished splendour the last scion of the Ebersteins, in her gray Cinderella costume, stood leaning against the wall. All the primness and stiffness of the previous evening had vanished; the young girl was evidently confused at finding herself alone with the stranger guest, and looked up at him with the expression of a frightened child. Thus for the first time he could see her eyes,--a pair of beautiful brown eyes, soft and shy as those of a gazelle; they were in perfect harmony with the lovely face.

The silence lasted some time; Hans was so taken up with gazing into the eyes that were at last unveiled for him that he forgot to resume the conversation, and when he did so at last, it was in a purely mechanical way, as he involuntarily continued the subject of the previous evening.

"I have just been inspecting the Ebersburg," he began. "It must once have been a stately pile, which could give its enemies enough to do, and at the time of the feud, when Kunrad von Ortenau and Hildegund von Eberstein--no, I have transposed their names."

His mention of the names was unfortunate; as soon as Fraeulein Gerlinda heard of the middle ages she became as prim and stiff as an image of wood; her long eyelashes drooped, as did her head, and she began in the old monotone, "Kunrad von Eberstein and Hildegund von Ortenau, in the year of our Lord----"

"Yes, yes, Fraeulein Gerlinda, I remember all about it;" Hans interrupted her in dismay. "Through your kindness I am thoroughly well informed as to the chronicles of your family. I merely meant to remark that a residence in this old mountain stronghold must be very monotonous. You make a great sacrifice to your father in staying here. A young lady longs to be abroad in the world, to enjoy life."

Gerlinda shook her head in dissent, and suddenly opened her mouth to say, with all the infallible wisdom of a philosopher of seventy, "The world and life are worth nothing!"

"Nothing?" asked the young man, surprised. "Where did you learn to be so sure of that?"

"My papa says so," Gerlinda replied, with much solemnity. Evidently her father's utterances were those of an oracle to her. "The world grows worse with each century, and now shows abundant signs of final annihilation, since the nobility no longer receive the homage due them."

Her eyes were again stubbornly downcast, and she spoke in a tone that vividly recalled to her hearer his dream. His lips twitched oddly, but he contrived to say, quite seriously, "Yes, the nobility. But there are some other men beside them in the world."

Fraeulein Gerlinda looked surprised; she seemed to mistrust this fact and apparently reflected profoundly, remarking at last, as the result of her reflections, "Yes, of course,--the peasants."

"True. And we cannot utterly dispute the existence of even other classes of human beings. Literary men, for instance, artists, in whose ranks I belong----"

Fraeulein Gerlinda opened wide her brown eyes and repeated, "Among the artists?"

"Absolutely," Hans said to himself, quite forgetting his elevated rank, "she thinks me a mediaeval specimen too;" and he added, aloud, "Assuredly, Fraeulein Gerlinda, I occupy myself with art, and flatter myself that I have attained a degree of proficiency in it."

The young lady seemed to think such an occupation very derogatory. Fortunately, she recalled the fact that a certain Eberstein, in a certain century, had taken up with astrology, and that partly explained Herr Wehlau Wehlenberg's extraordinary tastes, but she nevertheless felt herself called upon to repeat to him a saying of her father's: "My papa says that a man of an ancient, noble line ought to make no concessions to the present; it is beneath his dignity."

"That is the Herr Baron's opinion," said Hans, with a shrug. "He seems to have been so entirely secluded from the world that he has lost all sympathy with it; others of his rank, however, feel very differently. Look, for example, at the Counts von Steinrueck, whose family is just as old as yours."

"Two hundred years younger," Gerlinda interrupted him, indignantly.

"Quite right; full two hundred years. I remember their ancestors are first met with in the Crusades, while yours date from the eighth century."

"From the tenth."

"Certainly, from the tenth! It was a slip of the tongue; I meant, of course, from the tenth century. But to return to the Steinruecks: Count Michael is a general in command; his son was, I think, attached to our embassy in Paris; his grandson has some official position. They are all men of the present, and would hardly coincide with your father in opinion; and you, too, will differ from him when you have seen something of life and the world."

"I do not want to see anything of them," Gerlinda said, softly and timidly. "I am afraid of them."

Hans smiled; he drew a step nearer, and bent down towards the girl; his voice sounded sweet and tender, as if he were speaking to a child. "That is very natural; you live here in such seclusion, in a fairy world, long since faded from reality, like the palace of the Sleeping Beauty in the fairy-tale. But some time the day will come when the hawthorn hedges will part asunder, and the green walls open, a day when you will awaken from your enchanted sleep; and believe me, Fraeulein Gerlinda, your eyes will open then not upon the dust and mould of centuries, but upon the warm, golden sunshine that floods our present age, in spite of all its conflicts and trials. Ah, you will learn to love it all."

Gerlinda listened in silence, but a faint, happy smile playing about her lips betrayed her knowledge of the story of the Sleeping Beauty. She slowly raised her eyes, only for an instant, and dropped them hastily; that which shone upon her in the young man's gaze might perhaps be a ray of the light he had promised her; she suddenly flushed crimson and turned hastily away.

Muckerl certainly was a very intelligent goat, for she had quietly continued to browse, only glancing gravely now and then towards the pair, and appearing on the whole quite satisfied with the course of the conversation. But the matter now must have begun to look grave to her, for she suddenly left her breakfast and ran to her young mistress, beside whom she placed herself, as if on guard.

"I believe--I ought to go back to the castle," said Gerlinda, scarcely audibly.

"Already?" asked Hans, who had not observed that half an hour had been consumed in talk.

They set out together, Hans carrying the milk, Fraeulein Gerlinda beside him, and Muckerl following, gravely nodding her head from time to time. The affair evidently had a suspicious look to her,--why had the two suddenly fallen silent?

An hour later Hans stood at the foot of the Ebersburg. He had taken leave of the Freiherr and of his daughter without laying aside his incognito, for fear of causing the old gentleman unnecessary annoyance. What mattered it that the Freiherr should continue to regard him as a 'mediaeval specimen'? The adventure was at an end; it was not likely that he should ever again see the Ebersburg.

He glanced up once more at the gray pile, taking a last look at the sunny castle-terrace, and the much-lauded present to which he was now returning seemed terribly prosaic compared with the fairy-tale that he had dreamed up there in the midst of the green waving forest, in those ancient ruin? where all around was blooming fair and fresh, with the little Dornroeschen who had retired to her solitude, and was dreaming of the knight who was to break through the hedge and waken the Sleeping Beauty with a kiss from her magic slumber. The young fellow suppressed a sigh, and said, half aloud, as he turned away, "After all, it is a pity that I am not really Hans Wehlau Wehlenberg of the Forschungstein."

* * * * *

A gay company was assembled at Steinrueck, in thorough enjoyment of the hunting season, and of the long sunny autumn days. No one was invited to make a long visit, however, save Gerlinda von Eberstein, who had arrived some days since; but each day new guests made their appearance and others departed. Hertha and Raoul Steinrueck usually formed the centre of this brilliant society. It had long been known that the two were destined for each other, and that the announcement of the betrothal would probably soon take place; therefore when the general issued invitations for a large entertainment every one knew that it would be the occasion for this public announcement.

The evening was at hand, and the entire castle was filled with the activity wont to precede some important festivity. Servants were running to and fro, here and there decorations were being completed, and the reception-rooms were already a blaze of light.

The family, with the exception of Gerlinda and Hertha, had just entered these rooms. Count Steinrueck, with the widowed Countess on his arm, looked unusually cheerful: to-day was to bring him the fulfilment of his dearest wish; the betrothal of the last two scions of his house was to be celebrated at their ancestral castle, and thus the prosperity of his line was assured,--all the Steinrueck possessions would be united under one master.

Hortense, who followed him leaning on her son's arm, also looked proudly content. In her rich and tasteful toilette, and by the artificial light, she looked very beautiful, and far outshone her cousin; that pale, delicate woman was indeed cast into the shade. Raoul was gay and good-humoured; a cloud now and then darkened his brow for a moment, but it quickly vanished, and he lavished the tenderest attentions upon his mother.

"We limited the invitations as much as possible," said Hortense, as she looked through the lighted apartments, "and yet there will scarcely be room for our guests. That is the worst of these old mountain castles, that have no large ball-room and no extended suite of rooms; it is impossible to give an entertainment in them!"

"They were not built for any such purpose," said the general, quietly. "They were intended for a home within, and for protection and defence without. They certainly do not conform to modern requirements, least of all to yours, Hortense; you never loved Steinrueck."

"In that respect I perfectly agree with mamma," Raoul interposed. "What delights me here is the hunting in these mountain forests. The castle itself, with its dim, confined rooms, its endless, echoing corridors, and its steep, dark staircases, always seems to me like a prison. I breathe a sigh of relief when I escape from it."

"You seem entirely to forget that this ancient pile is the cradle of your race, and as such should be dear and sacred to you even if it lay in ruins," said the general, with some acerbity.

Raoul bit his lip at this very distinct reproof. "Pardon me, grandfather, I have all due reverence for our ancestral home, but I cannot possibly think it beautiful. Now, if it were the cheerful sunny castle in Provence, with its Eden-like surroundings, its past so rich in legend and in song, where long ago I used----"

"You mean the castle of Montigny?" Steinrueck interrupted him, in a tone which admonished the young Count to desist.

His mother, however, went on in his stead: "Certainly, papa, he means my lovely sunny home. You can understand that it is as dear to us as yours is to you."

"Us?" the general repeated, in a tone of cold inquiry. "You should speak only for yourself, Hortense. I think it very natural that you should be attached to your paternal home, but Raoul is a Steinrueck, and has nothing to do with Provence. His attachment belongs to his fatherland."

The words sounded half like a threat, and Hortense, irritated, seemed about to reply angrily, when the Countess, her cousin, who perfectly understood the state of feeling in the family, quickly changed the subject. "Our young ladies seem to be late," she remarked. "I begged Hertha to help Gerlinda a little with her toilette; the poor child has not the least idea of how she ought to look."

"The little demoiselle seems to be of a very limited capacity," Raoul said, sarcastically. "She is usually as silent as the tombs of her ancestors, but as soon as you touch the historic spring, she begins to chatter like a parrot, and a whole century comes rattling down upon you with terrific names and endless dates; it, really is fearful."

"And yet you are always the one to induce Gerlinda to make herself thus ridiculous," the Countess said, reproachfully. "She is much too inexperienced and simple-hearted to suspect a sneer beneath your immense courtesy and extravagant admiration of her acquirements. Can you not leave her in peace?"

"She really provokes ridicule," Hortense interposed. "Good heavens, what toilettes! and what curtsies! And then when she opens her mouth! You must forgive me, my dear Marianne, but it is almost impossible to introduce your _protegee_ into society."

"That is not the poor child's fault," said Marianne. "She was so unfortunate as to lose her mother when she was very little; she has seen nothing of the world, has known no one except her father, and he, in his eccentricity, has absolutely done everything in his power to make the girl unfit for social intercourse."

"I admire your patience, Marianne, in still having anything to do with Eberstein," said Steinrueck, "I went to see him once, long ago, because I pitied him in his isolation, but I think he told me six times in the course of my visit that his family was two centuries older than mine, and there was no getting a sensible word out of him. He seems now to have become almost childish."

"He is old and ill, and it is a hard fate to pine away in poverty and loneliness," the Countess said, gently. "Since he was forced by his gout to retire from the army, he has nothing to live upon save his pension and the old ruins of the Ebersburg. If he could only be persuaded to let Gerlinda leave him for a while, I should like to take her to Berkheim, or to the city, where we shall spend some time this winter; but I suppose it will be impossible to induce him to spare her."

"Selfish old fool!" said the general. "What is to become of the poor child when he closes his eyes? But our young ladies are indeed late; it is time that they were here."

This was true, but no exigencies of the toilette had caused the delay. Hertha was in her room entirely dressed; she had dismissed her maid, and was standing before her mirror gazing steadily into its depths. She might have been supposed to be lost in the contemplation of her own beauty, but her eyes had a strange dreamy look in them, and evidently saw nothing of the image before them; they were gazing abroad into space.

The door was softly opened, and Gerlinda appeared. The two young girls had always been much together whenever the family were at Steinrueck, but there was not the slightest intimacy between them. Gerlinda looked up with timid admiration to the brilliant Hertha, who accorded the girl at most a compassionate toleration, and at times even ridiculed her unmercifully. To-day, too, the 'little demoiselle' gazed at the young Countess with admiration, devoid of the slightest envy of Hertha's bridal loveliness, as she stood before the mirror dressed in white satin falling in soft folds about her perfect figure. A single white rose in her hair was its sole ornament, and a bunch of half-opened buds lay on her dressing-table.

"How beautiful you are!" said Gerlinda, involuntarily.

The young Countess turned with a smile, which, however, was not one of gratified vanity. "I can return the compliment," she replied. "You look most lovely to-night."

The young girl no longer wore the gray Cinderella gown: the Countess had taken care that her god-child should be suitably attired on this occasion; but Gerlinda was evidently oppressed by her unwonted splendour. Perhaps, too, she felt how unsuited she was to this brilliant circle, and this made her still more shy. She stood before Hertha, timid and embarrassed, scarcely daring to raise her eyes.

"Only you must not stand in that ridiculously prim attitude," said Hertha. "On that lonely Ebersburg you absolutely forget how to move about among people. You see no one there but your father, and perhaps the peasants of the village where you attend mass."

Gerlinda was silent and hung her head. No one? She thought of the guest who had arrived in the storm and rain and had departed in the sunshine; but she had never mentioned him hitherto, although his coming had been a great event in her lonely life. An involuntary shyness closed her lips; least of all could she have spoken of it here and now. The memory of the sunny morning dream in the ruinous old castle was not for the ear of the young lady who could so coolly tutor and criticise her little friend.

Hertha turned away, and as she did so she accidentally brushed from her dressing-table her bouquet, without noticing its fall. Gerlinda picked it up.

"Thanks," said Hertha, indifferently, as she took the flowers. They seemed to have been but loosely put together, for one of the roses had become detached from its sister buds and lay directly at the feet of the young Countess, who looked down at it with a rather strange expression. Perhaps she was thinking of that other evening when just such a fragrant half-opened bud had fallen from her hand, only to perish beneath the tread of an iron heel.

"Let it alone," she said, as Gerlinda was about to stoop again. "What does a single rose matter? I have enough here."

"But it is your lover's gift," said the young girl.

"I am going to carry these this evening, and Raoul cannot ask anything more. If the formal congratulations were only over! It is so deadly tiresome to listen to the same thing from everybody, and to have to respond to all those conventional phrases. I am not at all in the mood for it to-night."

The words sounded impatient, and there was nervous impatience in the way in which she began to pace the room to and fro. Gerlinda's eyes, opening wide with amazement, followed the proud, queenly figure in the trailing satin robe; she could not understand how a girl at her betrothal should not be in the mood to receive congratulations, and she asked, naively, "Do you not like Count Raoul?"

Hertha paused suddenly. "That's an odd question. What put it into your head? Certainly I like him; we have been brought up for each other. I knew when I was a child that he was to be my husband. He is handsome, gallant, amiable, my equal in name and rank; why should I not like him? I suppose you think that there ought to be in a marriage of to-day all the romance of your old chronicles, where the lover had to fight and struggle for his bride. You told us such a story yesterday about some Gertrudis----"

"Gertrudis von Eberstein and Dietrich Fernbacher," Gerlinda hastily began, as if the name had been a cue. "But she could not marry him, because he was not of knightly descent, but only the son of a merchant."

"She could not?" said Hertha, tossing her head. "Perhaps she would not; probably she felt a repugnance at the idea of exchanging the ancient name of her race for that of a wealthy tradesman. Can't you understand that, Gerlinda? What would you do if, for example, you loved a man beneath you in rank?"

"It would be dreadful!" said the little demoiselle, with all the horror natural to an offshoot of the tenth century, adding, with entire conviction in her tone, "My papa says that could not happen."

"But it has happened, and in your own race. How did the affair end? did your ancestress give up her Dietrich?"

Poor Gerlinda was not in the least aware that she was continually the butt of Hertha's and Raoul's sarcasm, and that they were always inducing her to make herself ridiculous. She was desirous of showing her gratitude for the hospitality extended to her, and she supposed in her ignorance and innocence that every one at Steinrueck was interested in the stories which to her were so vastly important. So she clasped her hands gravely, and began to recite, in her usual manner, an extract from her family chronicles, which did not on this occasion end with a happy marriage, as in the case of Kunrad von Eberstein and Hildegund von Ortenau, but with a parting. The story was long, and there was an endless succession of the noble names and the dates which Raoul found so terrible, but the young Countess was not in a mocking mood to-day. She had gone to the window, and stood there motionless, looking out, until Gerlinda concluded: "And so Gertrudis was married to the noble lord of Ringstetten, and Dietrich Fernbacher went on a crusade against the infidels and never returned."

"And never returned,--never!" Hertha's lips uttered the words softly and dreamily, while again the strange expression appeared in her eyes which seemed to be gazing at something in the far distance, beyond the mist and gloom that veiled the landscape outside.

There was a long silence, which Gerlinda hardly dared to break; but at last she said, gently, "Hertha, I think it is time."

Hertha looked up as if awaking from a dream. "Time? For what?"

"For us to go down; they are expecting us."

"True, true; I had forgotten! Go first, Gerlinda. I will come immediately; I have a trifle to arrange about my dress. Pray go!"

The words sounded so like a command that the young girl obeyed without further delay, and she had hardly reached the staircase leading to the lower story when she was met by a servant whom the general had sent to beg that the young Countess would make haste, since the first carriage had just driven into the courtyard.

Gerlinda turned to deliver the message herself; her footfall was noiseless, and she opened the door of Hertha's room as noiselessly, but paused in dismay upon the threshold.

Hertha was sitting, or rather lying, in an arm-chair by the window, with hands clasped convulsively and head thrown back, while from beneath her closed eyelids tear after tear coursed down her cheeks, and her breast rose and fell with wild, passionate sobs. The young girl was weeping,--weeping as violently and painfully as the child had wept formerly when the white Alpine roses, snatched from her destructive hands, had perished in the flames.

"Hertha, dear Hertha, what is the matter?" Gerlinda exclaimed, hastening to her side.

The girl sprang up, her eyes flashing with anger. "What do yon want? Why did you come back? Can I never be one moment alone?"

"I wanted--I came only to get you," said the young girl, retreating timidly. "Count Steinrueck begs you to come down; the guests are beginning to arrive."

Hertha arose and passed her handkerchief across her eyes. In a moment all trace of tears had vanished, and the young Countess stood calmly before her mirror, to give a last glance of inspection, as she took up her bouquet. "Let us go, then."

They went; the satin train rustled over the stairs, and a few minutes later they entered the reception-room, where Countess Hertha was awaited with impatience.

Carriage after carriage rolled into the court-yard; the guests began to fill the rooms, and at the end of an hour all were assembled, and General Steinrueck announced in due form the betrothal of his grandson to the Countess Hertha.

Every cloud had vanished from Raoul's brow, he had eyes only for his betrothed, standing proud, beautiful, and triumphant at his side, with a smile for every congratulation, for every compliment. All thought this very natural, as was the beaming content on the face of the general, whose special work this betrothal was. He had with a firm hand united those which birth, name, and wealth should of right join together, and what a handsome, happy couple they made!

* * * * *

A dull October sky hung above the endless sea of houses of the capital, extending more widely with every year. There was the usual bustle in the principal streets, where the crowd, the noise, and the rattling of carriages were confusing enough to any one coming from the quiet seclusion of the mountains to plunge into this flood of life.

General Steinrueck had his apartments in the military public buildings, where he occupied a suite of rooms on the first floor. Its arrangement was, so far as the Countess Hortense's apartments were concerned, comfortable, and even luxurious. Steinrueck conformed to his daughter-in-law's taste in this regard, and let her have her own way in all outward matters, although otherwise he kept a tight rein on his family affairs. His position enabled him to live expensively, in spite of the comparatively small income derived from his estates.

The general's special rooms, on the contrary, were plainly furnished, and his study was almost Spartan in its simple arrangement. No tender half-light reigned here, as in the Countess's drawing-room; there were no soft rugs or Oriental hangings; even the artistic decoration of pictures and statuary was lacking. The daylight entered broad and clear through the tall windows, papers, letters, and books were carefully arranged upon the writing-table, the furniture of light oak, destitute of carving and covered with dark leather, could not have been plainer, and the pictures on the walls were evidently of value only as family relics or as mementos. The room was made for labour and not for luxury, and in its strict simplicity it corresponded perfectly with the character of its occupant.

Steinrueck was seated at his writing-table, talking with his grandson, who had just returned from Berkheim, whither he had escorted his betrothed and her mother. Raoul really looked like a happy lover; his face was all sunshine as he told of his journey; and the Count's stern features too were lit up by a smile; the fulfilment of his favourite scheme made him gentler and more accessible than was his wont.

They had been talking of the visit which Hertha and her mother were to pay them, and of the marriage which was to take place in the coming summer, and Raoul said at last, "You will have to dismiss me, grandfather; this is the time for your military audience."

"Not yet," the general replied, with a glance at the clock. "We have a quarter of an hour yet, and, moreover, there is nothing special for to-day,--only a few introductions and reports from younger officers."

He took a written list from his writing-table and looked over it. Suddenly his face darkened, and he muttered, half aloud, "Ah, to-day, then."

Raoul, who was standing beside his grandfather's chair, had also glanced at the list, and had noticed a name with which he was acquainted. "Lieutenant Rodenberg. Has he been appointed staff-officer?"

"Do you know him?" asked Steinrueck, turning hastily.

"Slightly. I went upon a hunting excursion last year with the Rodenbergs. I suppose he is one of the sons of Colonel Rodenberg, commanding officer at W----."

"No," said the general, coldly.

"Not? I did not know that there was any other of the name in the army."

"Nor did I; and I made the same mistake that you have done. I ought to explain to you, Raoul, who this Rodenberg is. Your mother has probably informed you long since as to our family history."

The young Count started, and looked inquiringly at his grandfather. "I know that this name is one to arouse painful associations. It cannot be----"

"Louise's son," Steinrueck said, sternly.

"Good heavens, this is too much!" exclaimed Raoul in dismay. "Is that wretched story, which we supposed buried in oblivion long since, to be revived? The boy was said to have run away, to be dead, or worse. How comes this fellow, the son of an adventurer, to occupy such a position?"

The general frowned; at the moment the old warrior's _esprit de corps_ outweighed all else, even his antipathy to the discarded and detested son of 'the adventurer.' Michael wore a sword, and was therefore not to be calumniated in his presence. "Take care!" he said, sternly. "You are speaking of an officer in the army, of a very capable officer, with regard to whom such expressions are not allowable."

"But, grandfather, you cannot but perceive that this Rodenberg may annoy us extremely, precisely because he is an officer, and as such justified in meeting us on terms of social equality. How are we to treat him? And he comes to the front just at this time, when my betrothal to Hertha makes us especially conspicuous in society. Of course his first object will be to proclaim abroad his relations with us."

"I doubt it, or it would have been done long ago. No one at present knows anything of the matter, as I have taken pains to ascertain. He certainly must know that we are not inclined to acknowledge any relationship."

"No matter for that. Acknowledged or not, he will sooner or later proclaim himself the grandson of Count Steinrueck, and take advantage of the fact. Do you really imagine that any bourgeois officer would renounce such advantage and suppress his relationship with the general in command?"

"I shall certainly endeavour to silence him upon the subject. You are right; at this particular time any revival of old, long-buried stories should be avoided at all hazards. I have seen Rodenberg but once; but from the impression I have of him I do not think that an appeal to his sense of honour will be in vain. He will not obtrude himself upon a family that does not choose to know him, and he has at least as much reason as we have to consign his father's memory to oblivion. However the affair may turn out, you must not utter a word concerning it to your betrothed or to her mother. They accidentally became acquainted with Rodenberg, and have not the slightest idea who he is."

"Just as I said! This man's being an officer is a positive misfortune," exclaimed Raoul, angrily. "In any other sphere of life he could be ignored; now he has already found an opportunity for presenting himself to the ladies of our family, doubtless with some ulterior motive. Of course they must not know who he is. How Hertha, in her pride, would scorn such a cousin! The matter must be kept absolutely secret, cost what it may. We surely are willing to make any sacrifice if----"

"You seem to forget that you are speaking of _Lieutenant_ Rodenberg," the general sharply interrupted him. "One cannot purchase silence of an officer in our army; the most that can be done is to appeal to his pride. He must and will understand that there is no honour in a connection with the son of his father; this is the only way in which he can be influenced."

Raoul was silent, but his manner showed that he did not share in this view of the case. Further conversation was impossible, for Lieutenant Rodenberg was at that moment announced, and the general gave orders that he should be admitted. "Leave me," he said in an undertone to Raoul; "I wish to speak with him alone."

Raoul obeyed, but just as he was about to leave the room Rodenberg entered, and the two young men met in the door-way. Michael bowed slightly to the stranger, who merely bestowed upon him a half-hostile, half-contemptuous glance, and was about to pass him without further notice. The young officer, however, confronted him for a moment, barring his way without a word, but with an expression in his eyes that so authoritatively demanded the recognition of his salute that the Count half involuntarily returned it. He inclined his head and withdrew. Steinrueck observed this scene, which lasted only a few seconds, and little as he approved of his grandson's discourtesy, he was almost angry with him for yielding as he did.

Michael now approached, and the keenest observer would never have suspected the existence of a tie of relationship between the two men.

The subaltern made his report in strict accordance with prescribed rules, and his superior officer, cool, grave, and attentive, received it in the usual way. Neither for an instant departed from strict military rule. But when all that the occasion required had been said and the young officer awaited his dismissal, the general addressed him: "I should like to discuss with you a matter of some moment to us both. When we first met, neither the time nor the place was fitting for such a discussion; to-day we are undisturbed. May I request your attention?"

"I am at your Excellency's command," was Michael's brief reply.

"Your bearing at that first interview proved to me that you understand in their entire scope the relations existing between us; how those relations are regarded by each of us remains to be explained."

"I see no necessity for any explanation on that point," Michael said, coldly.

The general bestowed a dark glance upon him; he had judged it best to preserve a cold, proud demeanour during this interview that might repel beforehand any familiarity of approach, and he now encountered a behaviour quite as haughty as his own: there was nothing here to repel. "But I see the necessity for our understanding each other," he rejoined with sharp emphasis. "You are the son of the Countess Louise Steinrueck" (he did not say "of my daughter"). "I can neither deny this nor prevent you from laying claim to a perfectly legitimate relationship. Hitherto you have refrained from doing so, and have treated the matter as a secret, which leads me to hope that you yourself perceive the undesirability of a revelation----"

"Which you fear," Michael completed the sentence.

"Which I at least deprecate. I will be perfectly frank with you. You have probably heard from Colonel Reval that an entertainment was lately given in my house to celebrate the betrothal of my grandson, Count Raoul, with the Countess Hertha Steinrueck, with whom, I believe, you are acquainted."

Something like emotion flashed up for an instant in the young officer's face, but it was gone before it could be perceived, and he replied, with apparently perfect composure, "So I have heard."

"Well, then. The marriage will shortly take place. During the winter the betrothed couple will appear at court, and in society. This union of the two last scions of my race renders it doubly my duty to keep the escutcheon of that race free from every stain. I do not wish to offend you, Lieutenant Rodenberg, but I presume that you are acquainted with your father's mode of life and with his past?"

"Yes."

The word came harsh and curt from the quivering lips, but it did not reveal the man's mental torture.

"I am sorry to touch upon such a subject to a son, but unfortunately I cannot avoid doing so. You are entirely guiltless in the matter, and you will hardly be a sufferer by it. Your intimate connection with Professor Wehlau prevents any annoying investigations. I hear that you pass for the son of an early friend of his, who has been brought up in his household; a perfectly satisfactory expedient. Moreover, your father has been dead more than twenty years, and he spent the latter part of his life in foreign countries. Then, too, so far as I know, he never openly transgressed any law of the land."

The words were like a dagger thrust,--'so far as I know!' Michael had grown ghastly pale; he made no reply, but shot a baleful glance at the man who so pitilessly stretched him on the rack, and who continued in the same cold, calm manner: "The affair would wear an entirely different aspect if you should mention your mother's name. It would, of course, create a vast sensation in aristocratic circles, and in the army it would give rise to endless gossip, which would be annoying, and perhaps dangerous, for in such cases rumour always transcends reality, and all that has been buried in oblivion for half a lifetime would be ruthlessly dragged to light. I leave it to you whether you could or would endure to have your father's memory thus resuscitated. With regard to my position in the matter, I can only appeal to your sense of justice, which will tell you----"

"Stay!" the young officer interrupted him in a half-stifled tone. "Spare me further words, your Excellency. I have already told you that this entire explanation was superfluous, since I have never for an instant contemplated giving publicity to a relationship quite as distasteful to me as to you. I thought I had made this sufficiently clear at our first interview, when I declined your offered 'patronage.' I see now that it was to have been the price of my silence."

Michael's words were uttered with extreme bitterness, and his hand rested heavily upon the hilt of his sword, but he preserved his self-control, although by an extreme effort of will. The general probably perceived this, for he said, in a tone perceptibly gentler, "That is a very erroneous view of the case. I repeat, I do not wish to offend you."

"You do not?" Michael burst forth, indignantly. "What is this entire interview but an offence, an insult, from first to last? What do you call it, then, this subjecting a son to listen to such words regarding his father, clearly explaining to him the while that therefore he himself has forfeited all claim to consideration? I can neither defend nor avenge my father,--he has deprived me of the right to do so,--and you suppose that I do not suffer under this consciousness! There was a time when it wellnigh ruined me, until I roused myself to do battle with the phantom. I am but at the outset of my career. I have no record to show as yet. When a lifetime filled with honest effort and fulfilment of duty lies behind me, that old phantom will have vanished. Men are not all as pitiless as yourself, Count Steinrueck, and, thank God! all have not an escutcheon that must be kept free from stain."

The general suddenly arose with the commanding air with which he was wont to rebuke presumption or arrogance. "Take care, Lieutenant Rodenberg; you forget in whose presence you are."

"In that of my grandfather, who can, perhaps, forget for a few moments that he is also my general. Fear nothing; it is the first time that I ever called you thus, and it will be the last. For me there are no tender or sacred associations with the name. My mother died in misery and want, in agony and despair, but she never once opened her lips to ask aid of him who could have saved both her child and herself by a word. She knew her father."

"Yes, she knew him," said Steinrueck, sternly. "When she fled from her father's house to be the wife of an adventurer she knew that every tie binding her to her home was severed, that there could be no return, and no reconciliation. Will her son presume to condemn the severity of an outraged father?"

"No," replied Michael; "I know that my mother openly defied you, that she had forfeited her home, and that if the father's heart was silent, and only his sense of justice spoke, he could not but repudiate her. But I know, also, that her worst crime lay in her following a bourgeois adventurer. Had he been her equal in rank, the prodigal, debauched son of some noble family, she would not have been so irrevocably condemned, her father's arms would have been opened to her in her misery, and her son would not now have had his father's memory cast up to him as a disgrace. I should have inherited an ancient name; all else would have been carefully suppressed. Most assuredly I should not have been consigned to the hands of a Wolfram, that I might go to ruin."

The general's eyes flashed, but he gave up treating the young officer any longer as a stranger; he now spoke angrily, but it was to a grandson: "Not another word, Michael! I am not accustomed to be thus addressed. Of what do you dare to accuse me?"

"Of what I can vouch for, for it is the truth," declared Michael, returning the Count's look of menace. "It would have been easy for you to place the orphaned boy in some remote educational establishment, where you never would have seen or heard of him, but where at least he might have been made fit for something in life; but this was just what must not be. Therefore I was exiled to a lonely forest, where, with only rude and rough companionship, blows and hard words were all the instruction I received; where all intellectual aspiration was suppressed, all talent ignored, and the only aim was to make of me a rude, ignorant boor, whose life was to be wasted in the depths of the forest. A stranger hand snatched me from that misery. I owe my education, the social position in which I now confront you, to a stranger. To my near relatives I should have owed only intellectual death."

Steinrueck seemed speechless at the young officer's incredible audacity, but it was not that alone that silenced him. Once before, years previously, he had heard similar words; the same reproach had been uttered by a priest. Now they were hurled in his face with fiery energy, and the accusation came from the lips of him whom he certainly had hoped to make harmless by a 'peasant life.' Count Michael was not the man to receive an offence or an insult in silence; but now he had no reply to make, for he felt the truth of what the young officer had said. If he had formerly refrained from any clear analysis of his mode of action, it was distinctly revealed to him now as in a mirror, and it was an ugly sight,--one quite unworthy the proud wearer of the Steinrueck name.

"You seem not yet to have entirely forgotten Wolfram's teaching," he said at last. "Do you wish to raise another disturbance, as you did formerly at Steinrueck? This looks like it."

He could not have done worse than to evoke this memory. Ten years had passed, but Michael's blood still boiled at the remembrance which goaded him to fresh indignation. "Then you called me thief," he said, in a terrible tone; "without proof, without examination, upon a mere suspicion! You would have allowed any one of your servants to exculpate himself, but your grandson was immediately pronounced a criminal. Yes, I then seized upon the first thing at hand that could serve as a weapon; I did not know that it was my own grandfather that had so disgraced me, but from the hour when I learned it I was filled with a burning desire for retribution."

"Michael!" the general interrupted him, warningly "Not another word in that tone, which is unbecoming both to your superior officer and to your mother's father. I forbid it, and you must obey!"

When Count Steinrueck spoke in this tone he was accustomed to implicit obedience; but here, for the first time, his personality failed of its effect. Even Raoul, who was by no means easily daunted, bowed before the angry glance of those eyes, but Michael did not bow. He did, indeed, by an effort recover his self-possession, but if his voice sounded more quiet and controlled, it had lost none of its firmness.