Part 33 (2/2)

”Oh, dear Fraulein,” she cried, ”please, please do not be angry! Jakob has told me all. It was very wrong; but in deed and in truth he did not mean ill----”

”Never mind, Christine,” Johanna interposed, rising and wiping her eyes.

But the young wife held her fast by her skirt and begged all the more fervently: ”Please do not be angry with Jakob; please do not!”

He, too, now approached. ”Christine, don't go on as if I had committed a crime,” he said, his tone and air betraying increasing anger. ”I could not look on and see how the pair of them were deceiving our Fruleen. You know that they did not meet for the first time to-day. And did I not see, too, how the fine gentleman behaved to you? Did I not see it?” With these words he raised his clinched fist and shook it.

”Oh, Jakob, you did not mean to speak of that!” Christine said, in her gentle, soothing way. ”A gentleman like that doesn't mean anything when he jokes and laughs with one of us----”

”But I mean something, curse him!” shouted Jakob--and the savage sparkle of his eyes gave him more than ever the look of some beast of prey--”I'll kill him like a dog----” He suddenly fell silent before Johanna's sad, reproachful gaze. ”Just like a wounded deer when it's dying,” he said to himself; and he added aloud, ”Indeed, indeed I meant well, if the Fruleen could only believe it!”

Johanna collected herself. ”I believe it,” she made answer, after a short pause; ”and it is because I do so that I am convinced that, for my sake, neither of you will tell any one of what has pa.s.sed.”

”The Fruleen may rely upon us for that,” said Jakob, standing erect. And Christine, weeping, pressed her lips to Johanna's hand. Johanna gently withdrew it from her clasp. ”I must go now,” she said. ”Which way had I better take the soonest to find my horse?”

Jakob offered to bring the horse. Christine might conduct the Fruleen to the large beech-tree on the Donninghausen road, and he would take Elinor to her. Johanna agreed, and Jakob hurried off, while she followed her guide to the appointed spot.

Jakob soon appeared with the horse. Johanna jumped into the saddle, hurriedly bade the pair farewell, and galloped away.

”As if death were behind her,” Christine thought, as she gazed anxiously after her until the trees hid her from sight.

CHAPTER XXII.

DoNNINGHAUSEN OBSTINACY.

When Johanna reached Donninghausen, old Martin informed her that Squire Otto had been waiting for her a long while. For a moment she gazed at the old man, as if she had not understood him; then she replied, ”I can see no one,” and wearily went up the castle steps.

Martin shook his head as he looked after her, and as soon as he had taken Elinor to the stables betook himself to the park to inform Otto that the Fraulein had returned.

”The Fraulein looked as white as the wall,” he added, with the familiarity of a man who had been a servant in the house for more than forty years. ”And her eyes were twice the size they usually are. Sure she must be ill!”

Otto muttered an imprecation. He could not possibly go away without further question; to do so would give rise to all sorts of commentaries by the servants. Besides, the bell was just ringing for the second breakfast; not to obey its summons would be regarded by his grandfather as a transgression of the rules of the house, and it was more than ever inc.u.mbent upon Otto to keep the old man in good humour.

”This is another of my unlucky days. I should like to know whether other men have as much to bear as I,” he said to himself as he walked towards the castle. ”I wonder how Johanna will receive me? She cannot _yet_ have told my grandfather anything, and she will have at least to control herself. Perhaps it is best it should be so. The necessity of preserving appearances may bring her to her senses.”

But his hopes proved fallacious; Johanna did not appear. Aunt Thekla reported, with an anxious face, that hearing that Johanna was prevented by a violent headache from coming to breakfast, she had been to look after her, and had found her terribly pale.

”She was lying on the lounge,” the old lady went on, ”with her eyes closed, and could only say, in a faint voice, 'All I want, dear aunt, is rest!' I thought the fresh air would do her good; but when I began to draw aside the curtains she started up, begging me not to do so, but to leave her in darkness: he did not wish to see or to hear anything; and then she sank back and lay perfectly quiet.”

”Have you sent for the doctor?” the Freiherr interposed.

”No; she forbade it; I can't tell why. Her indisposition is her own fault; she has been taking one of those wild rides again, and does not want to confess it. Indeed, dear Johann, you must forbid her riding so much.”

”Nonsense!” cried the Freiherr. ”What has riding to do with it? You women could not exist without your headaches. Johanna is following the fas.h.i.+on. But what the deuce is the matter with you, lad?” he blurted out, turning to Otto, half laughing, half vexed. ”Letting every dish pa.s.s you untasted, and looking like----have you a headache out of pure sympathy? Don't drive me altogether wild!”

Otto tried to control himself; but Aunt Thekla's suspicions had been aroused and would not be laid to rest. After breakfast, while the Freiherr was reading the papers, she drew Otto into one of the window-recesses, and said, with decision, ”Something has occurred between Johanna and you. Tell me what it is. You know how I love you both.”

Otto would have refused to satisfy her anxiety; but when he looked into his aunt's kind, pleading eyes, he remembered how often he had as a boy appealed to her, and never in vain, for aid, and it struck him that he could find no better intercessor. ”You are right, my dear aunt,” he replied, kissing her hand. ”I will make my confession to you, hard though it is. You are my last, my sole hope,--and you will help me, I know, and not reproach me. Heaven knows I do that enough myself!” And he told her, briefly, and with as much frankness as he could command, the history of his betrothal, and of to-day's wretched scene in the forest.

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