Part 54 (1/2)
”I came to say farewell,” continued Egon. ”I intended to add a question--a prayer--to this leave-taking, but that is over now. I have only to bid you farewell.”
Adelaide raised her eyes, in which hot tears glistened, and offered her hand.
”Farewell, and may G.o.d take you in His care and keeping during the campaign!”
But Prince Adelsberg shook his head silently.
”What shall I do with life?” he finally cried in overwhelming sorrow.
”I should like best--no, do not look at me so entreatingly! I know now that I made a fatal mistake, and I will not torture you with a confession; but, Adelaide, I would gladly die could I buy with death the look and tone you had just now for another. Farewell!”
Once more he pressed her hand to his lips, then hastened away.
CHAPTER LII.
The storm had increased in violence during the afternoon. It roamed in the forest, dashed among the open heights and chased the clouds over the sky with increasing wrath. It raged with full force around that forest height which had once witnessed such a significant encounter between two people, but the man who leaned there now alone and lonely at the trunk of a tree did not seem to feel it, for he stood immovable in the midst of it.
Hartmut's face was deathly pale; a stony, unnatural calm rested upon it, and the sparkle of the eyes had died out, while the hair fell heavy and damp over his brow. The storm had torn his hat from his head; he had noticed it as little as the rain which drenched him.
He had found himself at this place after hours of roaming through the forest--here, where a remembrance drew him unconsciously. It was the right place for his purpose.
The news which had been looked for so feverishly had finally come; no letter; nothing but a few lines without any preface, and with only the signature, ”Egon--Prince Adelsberg.” But in these lines there lay annihilation for him who received them. Cast out forever--judged by his friend without a hearing! Doom had awfully fulfilled itself in the son of Zalika.
The cras.h.i.+ng of a huge limb which broke under the pressure of the storm and fell whizzing to the ground, aroused Hartmut from his despairing revery. He had not even started at the crash, but slowly turned his glance to the heavy ma.s.s which fell close to him. A foot nearer and it would have struck him--would perhaps have made an end of all the shame and torture in one moment; but death was not made so easy for him. That blessing came to him only who loved life--he who wished to throw it away must do so with his own hand.
Hartmut took the gun from his shoulder and put the b.u.t.t to the ground; then he laid his hand upon his breast to find the right place. Once more he glanced up to the veiled skies with their scudding ma.s.ses of clouds, and down to the little dark forest lake in the deceiving meadow, over which the fog cl.u.s.tered as at that time at home. The beckoning, charming will-o'-the-wisp had appeared to him there; he had followed the flame of the depths, and now it drew him down hopelessly; there was no further rising into the heights where other, brighter lights shone. A bullet in the heart and everything would be at an end.
He was about to grasp the trigger when he heard his name called in a tone of deadly anxiety. A slender figure in a dark cloak sprang toward him from the edge of the forest, and the weapon fell from his hand, for he gazed into the face of Adelaide, who stood trembling before him.
Moments pa.s.sed without a word from either. It was Hartmut who recovered first.
”You here, gracious lady?” he asked with enforced calmness. ”Are you out in the forest in this weather?”
”I should like to put the same question to you.”
”I have been hunting, but the weather is unpropitious, and I was about to discharge my gun----”
He did not finish, for the sad, reproachful glance upon him told that the lie was in vain. He broke off and looked gloomily before him.
Adelaide, too, gave up all pretense, and in her voice all her anxiety trembled as she cried: ”Herr von Falkenried, what did you intend to do?”
”What would have now been done had you not interfered,” said Hartmut, harshly. ”And believe me, gracious lady, it would have been better if coincidence had brought you here a few moments later.”
”It was no coincidence. I was at the forestry at Rodeck, and heard that you had been gone for hours. An awful presentiment drove me to look for you here. I was almost sure I should find you here.”
”You looked for me? Me, Ada?” His voice shook at the question. ”How did you know that I was at the forestry?”
”Through Prince Adelsberg, who called to see me this morning. You received a letter from him?”
”No, only a communication,” returned Hartmut with quivering lips. ”No single word was directed to me personally in the short lines; they brought only a communication in a business tone which the Prince thought necessary. I fully understood it.”