Part 17 (2/2)
”Adelheid was of a different opinion,” responded her brother, as he gave a fleeting glance up the tower. ”She suffers neither from fatigue nor heat.”
”Or cold either. That was proven the day she was drenched to the skin.
She hasn't even a sniffle from it.”
”I have requested her to take a servant with her in future when she goes upon her rambles,” said Herbert quietly. ”To be lost in the forest and have to wade through a brook and then finally be forced to call to her aid a stray huntsman, are things that I do not care to have repeated.
Adelheid saw that as clearly as I, and will not go unattended for the future.”
”Ah, she's an excellent, sensible wife, a healthy nature through and through, with a proper aversion for adventure and romance,” said Regine warmly. ”Ah, there are other visitors on the tower. I thought we would be the only guests to-day.”
Wallmoden glanced indifferently toward the tall, aristocratic young man who had just emerged from the tower door and was coming toward them; Frau von Eschenhagen's glance was careless, too, but her look changed to one both sharp and intense, and she cried out:
”Herbert, look!”
”At what?”
”At that stranger. What a strange resemblance.”
”To whom?” asked Herbert, looking searchingly, too, into the face of the stranger, who was nearer them now.
”It's impossible! That is no pa.s.sing resemblance. It is he, himself,”
cried his sister.
She sprang up pale with excitement, with her eyes fixed and staring at the young stranger, who was just putting his foot on the first step of the shaded veranda. Now his eyes met hers, his large, dark, flaming eyes which had so often looked into her own and pleaded for him in his childhood, and all doubts vanished.
”Hartmut, Hartmut Falkenried! You!”
She stopped suddenly, for Wallmoden laid his hand heavily, very heavily, on her arm, and said sharply: ”You are in error, Regine, we do not know this gentleman.”
Hartmut was startled, when, upon reaching the top step, he recognized Frau von Eschenhagen. The lattice-work had prevented his recognizing her, and for her presence he was not prepared. But at the very moment when he realized who it was, the amba.s.sador's words sounded in his ears.
He understood only too well what the tone and words implied and the blood rushed to his temples.
”Hartmut!” Frau Regine called again, looking uncertainly at her brother, who still held her arm fast.
”We do not know him,” he repeated in the same tone. ”Must I repeat it to you again, Regine?”
She understood his meaning now, and turned with a half-threatening, half-pained glance from the son of her old-time friend, as she said bitterly: ”You are right. I was mistaken.”
Hartmut drew himself to his full height, and an angry look flashed across his face as he drew a step nearer.
”Herr von Wallmoden!”
”What is it?” answered the other in a sharp, but contemptuous tone.
”Your excellency has but forestalled me,” said Hartmut, forcing himself by mighty effort to speak quietly. ”I came to request you not to know me. We are strangers to one another.”
Then he turned with a haughty, defiant air, and disappeared within the little inn.
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