Part 41 (1/2)

”It would not have been better,” said the girl decidedly. ”I am not made of stuff to endure all that Karl puts up with so patiently from day to day, and things would have been between you and me much as they are now between me and him, only I should have been the one who had all to bear. I never had the least bit of your heart, your love was given elsewhere, in quite a different place.”

There was bitter reproach in her words, but even this allusion could not rouse Ulric to-day. He was standing up now and gazing over towards the park as it lay shadowy in the distance, searching, as it were, for something between the trees.

”You mean I might have done better nearer at home, if I had sought for it, and you are right; but this is not a thing to be sought after, Martha. It seizes you all at once, and never looses you again while there is breath in your body. I have learnt to know it I have given you pain, my girl; now for the first time I know how much. But, believe me, no blessing comes with such love; it gives one more to suffer than the bitterest hate.”

Words like these, nearly approaching to a prayer for forgiveness, sounded strangely from Ulric Hartmann's lips; he was little used to ask whether he gave pain or not. There was about him a sort of dull resignation quite foreign to his nature, and the grief which moved him now was all the more profound that it showed itself by no pa.s.sionate outburst. Martha forgot her repugnance and her fear, and went close up to his side.

”What ails you, Ulric? You are so strange to-day. I have never seen you like this. What is the matter?”

He pushed the curly hair from his brow, and leaned up against the wooden gate.

”I don't know. Something has been weighing on me all day long. I can't shake it off, and it takes my strength from me. I want it for to-morrow, but directly I try to think, all grows black and dark before me, as if there lay nothing more beyond, as if to-morrow all would be at an end--all!”

Ulric started up suddenly with a dash of his old spirit.

”Absurd nonsense! I think the water down there has bewitched me with its confounded brawl. I have so much time just now to be listening to it, really! Good-bye.”

He turned to go, but the girl held him back anxiously.

”Where are you going? To see the men?”

”No, I am going first on an errand of my own. Good-bye.”

”Ulric, I implore you, stay!”

But the young miner's short-lived softened mood was over already. He tore himself free impatiently.

”Let me go. I have no time for talk--another time!”

He pushed open the garden gate, and, setting off in the direction of the park, soon disappeared in the growing darkness.

Martha stood with folded hands, looking after him. Wounded feeling and bitter pain strove together in her countenance, but the pain gained the upper hand.

”No blessing comes with such a love.”

The words found an echo in her heart. She felt that there was no blessing on hers either.

Meanwhile Eugenie Berkow sat alone in her husband's study. There had been little opportunity as yet for these two to enjoy their newly-won felicity. Twice had Arthur been compelled to leave her; in the morning when he had thrown himself into the thick of the tumult and quelled it for the time being, and now again when he had been called away to a conference with the officials.

But, in spite of her anxiety about him and of the dangerous situation in which they were placed, the young wife's face beamed with a reflection of that deep inward happiness which, gained at the cost of many an arduous struggle, was no longer at the mercy of outward storms.

She was with her husband, at his side, under his protection, and Arthur was, it seemed, a man able to make his wife forget all else in that one fact.

Suddenly a door was opened, and steps resounded in the adjoining room.

Eugenie rose to meet the newcomer, whom she naturally took for her husband, but her first feeling of surprise at seeing a stranger gave way to one of terror as she recognised Ulric Hartmann.

He was startled too at seeing her, and stood still in some embarra.s.sment.

”Ah, it is you, my lady! I was looking for Herr Berkow.”

”He is not here, I am expecting him,” she answered quickly, in a trembling voice.