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THE UNDYING PAST

WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES

THE UNDYING PAST

THE UNDYING PAST

I

The mid-day sun beat fiercely on the much-trodden square in front of a provincial railway station. The old white mare nodded drowsily between the shafts of the yellow mailcart which rattled down from the little town to meet every train. Two or three hotel omnibuses, painted brownish-grey, with mud-splashed wheels, also came clattering down the dusty boulevard, at the other end of which rose two stucco towers with their vanes piercing the deep blue of the July sky.

A clanging bell had already signalled the train's departure from the neighbouring station. The station-master put on his red cap, the barmaid began to wipe with a duster the glass case protecting the cheese and other viands, and a couple of postmen crunched over the gravel, wheeling trucks containing letter-bags and parcels.

"Not a single soul inside again," grumbled the restaurant-manager through the waiting-room window, as he watched the hotel omnibus drive up. "What is the use of keeping beer cool if nobody comes to drink it?"

The barmaid nodded meditatively as she flicked the flies from a pile of stale rusks.

Then there came in sight, dashing along the boulevard, an open landau drawn by a pair of spirited bays.

The restaurant-host's face brightened. "The party from Stolten Court!" exclaimed he, seizing his cap. "The young gentlemen's leave is over, then."

The carriage steered clear of waiting passengers with a sweeping curve as it bowled up to the station stairs.

One of the young cuirassier officers who occupied the back seat of the carriage pulled himself slowly erect, and, in all his fair-haired splendour, climbed out, pushing aside with a brusque movement the restaurant-manager, who had officiously thought it necessary to tender his services. The other youth, equally gigantic and fair-haired, and perhaps a trifle more phlegmatic, followed. They threw open on either side the carriage doors, and, with an action of the arm that seemed borrowed from a Court quadrille, assisted the stupendous female form sitting on the front seat of the carriage to alight.

With swelling bosom and wide-spreading hips, her fat hands imprisoned in new light kid gloves, her grey gauze veil thrown back, displaying a snub nose, the lady calmly descended, with a glance over her shoulder of somewhat sharp disapproval at the old gentleman who followed her.

"Leave me alone, boys," he snapped, when his sons would have helped him too. "Your broken-down old father is still able to help himself."

He threw off his dust-coat on the seat behind him, and with an elastic bound sprang down without touching the carriage steps. He stood there, a dapper figure in his short, elegantly cut coat, his little eyes twinkling with self-satisfaction out of a face lined from fast living, the cheeks of which hung down on either side of an aggressively curled-up grey moustache. He had to look up to his wife and sons, who were all more than a head taller than himself.

The party entered the small waiting-room reserved for first-class passengers, which, besides two bare polished tables, and portraits in lithograph, veiled in green gauze, of the county nobility and gentry, boasted nothing but apparatuses for the annihilation of flies; which consisted of a glass bottle full of soapy water, two plates containing poisoned paper, and a few glasses covered with brandy-soaked bread bored with holes. Within and around these traps revolved hundreds of half-drowned and poisoned flies in their last death-struggle.

The host of the restaurant offered his refreshments to the "Herr Baron"--Königsberg beer or tea, also an incomparably fine brew of lemonade, were to be had. Herr von Stolt ordered beer, and sent his sons out to look after their luggage.

They closed the door behind them as they took their leave, and disappeared in the direction of the buffet, where they were soon heard chaffing the barmaid.

"Thank God that they are going away," said the lady, with a sigh, loosening her violet hat-strings, from which a broad double chin billowed forth awe-inspiringly. "It is high time."

Her spouse suppressed a smile, and then asked, "Why?"

"Have you seen anything of either of them between meal-times during the last fortnight?" she answered with another question.

"Now, now, it is not so bad as all that," repeated he; "but, as you say, they were certainly out a good deal."

"And where did they go? That is the point."

"Well, where should they go? To the Prussian Crown, or some such resort, to drink a little champagne and amuse themselves with the girls. I did the same when I was their age."

"And you aren't much better now."

"Really--I must protest, Malwine."

She drew herself up and measured him from head to foot with the compassionate glance of a wife to whom marital forgiveness has perforce become a habit.

"We won't drag you into the matter, my dear," she answered. "You know no good can come of it. Neither do I reproach the boys on that score. They are welcome to run after all the girls in the neighbourhood, whether dairymaids or barmaids, to their hearts' content."

"You are very long-suffering, Malwine."

"Certainly I am. But what doesn't please me is that my sons should grow too fond of society women--married women belonging to our own set, too. Königsberg, for two cuirassiers who have inherited money from their father and height from their mother----"

"That I am shorter than you are, dear Malwine," he interrupted, "is a fact that I am weary of hearing you insist on. I will do my best to grow."

"I was going to say," she continued, "that Königsberg is not exactly a paradise of all the virtues--quite the contrary." A maternal sigh escaped her huge billowy bosom. "All the more important, therefore, that home should remain for them a purer world. Tell me, what would happen when they begin to regard the circle from which I shall one day choose for them wives with critical eyes? And why? Because there are creatures in it who have no idea of maintaining their dignity in associating with young men."

"Upon my word, I don't know what you are driving at," Herr von Stolt said, and gazed intently at the toes of his riding-boots.

"Why feign to be ignorant," answered his wife. "You know perfectly well the person I mean, being as intimate with her as your sons."

"I have long since given up meddling in local scandals, my dear," he said, with a snigger; "but if with all these obscure hints it is Felicitas Kletzingk whom you mean, you are decidedly on the wrong scent. There never was a more guileless little woman. We know what Ulrich is. He is always either spending the day in Berlin or sitting lost in a brown study. And his little wife, of course, will amuse herself."

Frau von Stolt broke into a harsh laugh.

"Of course; now let us hear the old category of her perfections. She is an angel--on that point all the men within a circuit of ten miles are agreed. She is so ingenuous and so melancholy; so talented and so good; so gentle, and, in short, a paragon. But we women see deeper, my friend. We are not to be taken in by any wiles, flute-like tones, and smiling fawn-like eyes. Then for us, truly, there lies behind it all no temptation to appropriate what is not our own."

"Malwine, you are becoming insulting," retorted Herr von Stolt, twirling the ends of his grey moustache with an injured air.

"If only there were something in her!" the lady exclaimed, undaunted; "but I assure you she is commonplace to the very core. There is nothing genuine about her. She has her looks, and nothing else. I can't conceive what can have attracted Ulrich with his position and fortune to this person. Rhaden's widow, poor, with a child, and compromised to boot."

"How compromised?"

"Don't be absurd, Alfred," was the reply. "You men have always been of opinion that Rhaden fell in the duel with Sellenthin because there was a case of adultery at the bottom of it."

"Yes, certainly before her second marriage. So much I will admit. But Leo Sellenthin and Ulrich have been friends from childhood, and what friends! Something quite extraordinary, like David and Jonathan. Would Ulrich have married this woman if there had been anything between her and his friend? It stands to reason that there could have been nothing, doesn't it?"

Frau von Stolt relapsed into meditation. Her husband's argument apparently had convinced her.

"But apart from that altogether," she began again, after a pause. "Leo is abroad, and not coming home. What concerns us now is Felicitas Kletzingk's present conduct, and I must say that it almost amounts to a scandal."

Herr von Stolt shrugged his shoulders.

"Here is an example," continued his wife--"just one example. The other morning I had occasion to turn out our sons' pockets."

"So you are in the habit of turning out other people's pockets!" exclaimed Herr Stolt, perceptibly disturbed by the discovery.

"Yes, why not? It is advisable to keep one's self abreast of their little peccadilloes in love as well as professional affairs. And what do you think I found? Letters from Madam Felicitas--small olive-green missives, reeking with that abominable perfume with which she always scents herself."

Herr von Stolt involuntarily sniffed the air, and smiled dreamily as he did so.

"It was my privilege to read through a real--what do you call it?--æsthetic correspondence, as exaggerated as you please, all about noble humanity, moonshine, communion with nature, and other rubbish. Not that there is any question of our good sons being capable of living up to such a silly rôle for though they have an excellent knowledge of horses, this sort of high-falutin is quite beyond their comprehension, thank God. Besides, I talked to them each separately, and put my emphatic veto upon it."

"And has that done any good?" asked Herr von Stolt, with a grin.

"To a certain extent it has. But of course I could not prevent their actual visits to Felicitas. I don't understand how Ulrich can wink at his wife's intercourse with these young men. Not only our two, but Otzen and Neuhaus, and the second Sembritzky, and a lot more of them are constantly there, all young and green."

"Hum! there are older visitors too, I'm thinking," interposed Herr von Stolt, thoughtfully.

"Yes. There is yourself, for instance."

"Really, Malwine!" he ejaculated reproachfully.

"Dear Alfred, we understand each other."

"When I do happen to ride over to Uhlenfelde, it is to see Ulrich."

"Especially when Ulrich is in the Reichstag?"

The matrimonial recriminations ended abruptly, for at this moment a tall spare masculine figure, in a white dust-coat which hung without a fold, glided past the waiting-room window. It rather resembled a walking towel, on which some one had stuck a head.

"Talk of the devil!" exclaimed Frau Malwine, and jumped up to see whither the passing form had betaken itself.

"Who was it?" asked Herr von Stolt, who was sitting with his back to the window.

"Ulrich von Kletzingk."

The door of the vestibule opened, and he who had gone by came in.

He had a pale sickly face of a reflective cast, with sharp small nose and hollow cheeks, set on narrow shoulders and a long freckled neck. It was framed in a light beard, which hung about it like a ragged fringe. The high, rather receding forehead was furrowed with three perpendicular lines denoting mental fatigue, and it ended in a shock of bristly dark-brown hair standing erect. The most remarkable feature of this intellectual head were the dark brilliant eyes, which shone forth from their blue sockets like torches of energy. After emitting luminous flashes, they seemed to slumber wearily again till a new excitement set them aflame once more.

When he was aware who occupied the room, a shadow of nervous uneasiness descended for a moment on the new-corner's face, but passed quickly away. The tone in which he greeted the husband and wife was moderately friendly, if not cold. His voice was not pleasant to hear. It was shrill and high pitched, and however rapidly he spoke, the words seemed to be forced with pain and difficulty from his narrow chest.

Frau Malwine beamed. She was no longer the mother of the Gracchi, in which part she had been just posing to her husband. She exhausted herself in expressions of affection for Frau Felicitas, and added the tender reproach that it was ages since she had seen anything of her. Twice when she had been expected, an extra supply of meringues had been baked, of the kind which was the pride of her modest ménage, but Frau Felicitas had not come. Ulrich Kletzingk allowed this outpouring of gush to pass over him quietly. Only the nervous playing with the buttons of his riding-glove betrayed that he was not quite at ease.

"You put us to shame, madame," he answered. "Your friendship, however, has been too unobtrusive, for I think that it is some months since we saw you at Uhlenfelde."

Frau Malwine, a little disconcerted at the reminder that she owed Uhlenfelde a call, nevertheless, in the same strain of affected naïvété, went so far as to explain that she was sure she had been well represented by her sons.

Kletzingk bowed and smiled politely.

"At any rate," she continued, with animation, "I ought to express my thanks to you, Herr Baron, for the happy influence the atmosphere of your house has exercised on my young scapegraces. My only fear is that I may have abused your hospitality in sending them over to you nearly every day. I trust that they have always given my kind regards?"

"I believe so, probably." He gazed out of the window. At that moment he longed for nothing more earnestly than to be delivered from this woman's offensive chatter.

Herr von Stolt, who hitherto had been content to smile in his sleeve in cynical enjoyment of his wife's sallies, now joined in the conversation. He inquired after the condition of the crops at Uhlenfelde, and gave a good report of his own. The harvest had been got in satisfactorily on the whole; only the wheat was middling. He left the rest to Providence. "But do tell me, Kletzingk," he said, suddenly taking another tack, "what is up at Halewitz? The rye there is yellow as guineas and still uncut. I could scarcely believe my eyes as we drove by there to-day."

Baron Kletzingk bit his lips, bent his head, and stared silently at the ground.

"I don't mean to reproach you for it, of course," Stolt added hastily; "we all know that you are not responsible for this estate falling into a neglected hell--pardon the expression, Malwine--but our friend has been globe-trotting for four years. In my opinion it is time that he came home."

"I am expecting him now," replied Kletzingk.

The effect of this announcement was stupendous.

Herr von Stolt nearly choked in suppressing a cry of amazement, and his wife bounded up as if she had been shot from a cannon.

"Leo Sellenthin! It is impossible! Coming now by this train?"

"Yes, by this train."

"Where is he coming from?"

"That I don't know, dear madame. My last letter to him was addressed to La Plata."

"And you tell me all this as if it were the simplest thing in the world. Aren't you pleased?"

"How could I be otherwise than delighted?" Kletzingk responded. "With him I lost half myself."

"Ah, to be sure. And, do tell me, Leo and you--the old intimacy exists still?"

"Still, madame, and I hope and trust that it will continue to exist in defiance of anything the world may choose to say."

His eyes rested steadily on her face, while she turned to study a fly-paper with interest.

The two young cuirassier officers rushed in to announce that the train was in sight. When they saw the baron they appeared suddenly abashed. They waited awkwardly till he offered them his hand, and then seized it with somewhat excessive warmth. But Kletzingk was far from paying heed to their manners. It was with an effort that he roused himself sufficiently to bid the old lady and gentleman a courteous farewell.

"I hope Sellenthin will speak to us," called Frau von Stolt after him.

He did not hear. With his long stork-like steps he hurried on to the platform. His breast heaved, and the veins started out in knots on his wide arched temples. He stood there with his clenched fist pressed to his left side, and stared with frightened eyes at the incoming train.

"Uli!" cried a resonant voice in jubilation echoing along the platform, and a blond head was thrust out of one of the carriage windows. Beneath the yellow hair were cheeks tanned to copper hue, a pair of merrily twinkling eyes, and a long flowing beard which the draught from the train swept backwards like a besom.

Frau von Stolt caught hold of her husband's arm. "He has not improved in looks," said she.

"Grown rather wild," he assented.

Four eye-glasses were directed with breathless attention to the two friends as they flew into each other's embrace.

"It was wise of him, after all, to wait till the grass had grown over that affair," went on Frau Malwine.

But Herr von Stolt, as sceptical well-wisher, reserved his opinion. He let his eye-glass fall, made a grimace, and merely muttered--

"Unsavoury story; unsavoury story!"

Then, apparently radiant with joy, he hurried forward to shake the hand of the home-coming neighbour.

II

Cool twilight reigned in the back parlour of the Prussian Crown. The outside shutters were closed, and only one small chink let in the now lessened heat of the sun shining through the green boughs of the limes without, and streaming across the floor in a bar of subdued gold.

In this room for generations any one who was anybody in Münsterberg society, or who, through professional service, had any claim on it at all, had been in the habit of meeting. Besides wealthy landowners and the officers of the Münsterberg cavalry, the justice of the peace, a couple of doctors, and two or three magistrates assembled there nearly every evening for convivial intercourse. It also served as a convenient rendezvous for the wives of the country gentry when they came into the town for shopping, and in the holidays it was the place chosen by their sons wherein to celebrate their "Kneips." On these occasions the door was kept locked and adorned with a placard bearing the words "Closed for cleaning"--a precautionary measure to ensure the rising generation against parental intrusion.

It was here on familiar ground, in the room which had once witnessed the feats in champagne-drinking of "Quartaner" Sellenthin, that the reunited friends came to rest and refresh themselves. While Ulrich Kletzingk, white and exhausted from heat, reclined in the corner of a sofa, his long legs outstretched, the returned traveller, wildly happy, paced up and down between the tables, breathing in greedily the old scent, that he knew so well, of mingled tobacco, leather, and beer.

At first, a thoughtless, almost animal gladness in being together again, deprived them of speech. Their hearts were so full of each other, that they seemed to have nothing to say. Then at last Ulrich opened the conversation with a casual question.

"Did you come by Hamburg?"

Leo came and planted his six feet of massive height in front of his friend.

"Yes. The day before yesterday I set foot on German soil, and went straightway to a restaurant to breakfast. I had a couple of congenial souls from Buenos Ayres with me. They and I went on breakfasting the whole day and night through, till it was time for breakfast again the next morning."

At this he laughed, showing the whole of his magnificent set of teeth, and rolled his tongue with a clicking sound over his gums. He stood there, straddle-legged, with his hands in his pockets, in the flower of his broad-chested, full-blooded, manly strength. His thick, reddish-blond beard waved back in two semicircles over his firm rounded cheeks, which, like the short nose, might have been moulded in bronze, and then it mingled with the curly moustache in a riot of waving strands, shading from light to dark. The hair at the back of his head was cropped to the roots, and displayed the shape of the powerful skull, which was posed on the ruddy full neck like the copula of a dome.

"And that reminds me," he continued, "that I have had nothing to eat since I left Hamburg. What does it mean? It isn't the way prodigal sons are generally treated. Shall I still have to go hunting for my meat in the saddle now I am in Europe?"

And then he roared through the hollow of his hand. "Landlord! waiter! scullion!" till the walls shook from the echoes of his voice.

The landlord, greasy and smiling, with two old-fashioned Prussian ringlets over his ears, appeared in the doorway. He expressed himself respectfully overjoyed to find that the Herr Baron had not lost his healthy voice in foreign countries. That was a sign the rest was in good condition.

"In such good condition, my friend," replied Leo, "that if you venture again to criticise my voice, you will find yourself being chucked out of one of your own windows."

The landlord, in alarm, begged pardon, and, promising to send up the best contents of his larder, retired with a servile bow.

"To tell you the truth, old fellow," Leo said, turning to his friend, "I don't like your looks. You lay there like one crucified."

Ulrich Kletzingk clenched his teeth, and raised himself into an erect position.

"Thank you," he said, "I am quite revived now."

"What about the heart? How are the attacks now? Who, I should like to know, has been rubbing your head for you all this time when the little white mice swarm?"

Ulrich smiled, as we smile at children's talk which does our heart good to hear.

"How long it seems since I heard your old expressions!" he said, affectionate tenderness bringing a mist before his dear eyes. "Now all I want is to hear you call me 'little girl,' and then I shall feel old times have really come back again."

"I will call you so if you like," Leo replied. "But kindly answer my question."

"Yes. At first my attacks of heart exhaustion were much less frequent; and then, when they were bad, you know, there was my--my wife--although----" He stopped short.

Leo Sellenthin looked at the floor and frowned; his full sensuous lips closed tightly. He nodded two or three times, and muttered--

"Yes, of course. Your wife--your wife."

The landlord brought in the wine. They drank to each other, and clinked glasses, and at the bell-like sound their eyes met. Ulrich stretched his lean freckled hand across the table to his friend in silence, and Leo grasped it with hearty fervour.

"We drink to each other, old boy!" he exclaimed.

Ulrich looked as if he wished to add something, but suppressed it, and then repeated, "To each other."

"And that all may be the same as ever between us?"

"And that all may be the same as ever."

Leo threw his glass behind him against the wall, and it smashed. Ulrich did the same. Then, when fresh glasses were brought, Leo in two draughts emptied the bottle.

"You merely sip," he said half apologetically.

But in his case it would seem that it was not thirst alone which drove him to drink. He jumped up restlessly, sat down and jumped up again, to pace the room with energetic strides. He acted like one who gathers himself together courageously to meet an emergency.

Ulrich's eyes followed him, and a smile of comprehension dawned on his face.

"By-the-by, Leo," he began, giving his embarrassed friend a lead. "Did you ever congratulate me on my marriage in your letters? I can't remember whether you did or not."

"No, I didn't," Leo answered gruffly.

"Was that polite?"

"No, but there is no necessity for me to be polite to you?"

"Don't you approve of my marriage?"

"Approve! Good God--don't you see that nothing is to be gained by asking me two years after the marriage has taken place whether I approve of it? My approval or disapproval doesn't matter, but what does matter"--he came nearer and laid both hands on his friend's shoulder, staring into his eyes anxiously and searchingly--"Uli, are you happy?"

Ulrich laughed. It was a laugh of great irony at his own expense that escaped the narrow chest, from which he breathed with such difficulty, and a less sharp ear than Leo's would not have detected in it an undertone of weariness or hesitation.

"Why this sudden seriousness?" he asked. "You know that so long as I sit on the Liberal bench, thresh my own straw, and can prove that man was first created a baron, my happiness is assured."

"You are evading my question," Leo responded; "that being so, I will forthwith devote myself exclusively to this young chicken, but not to the cucumber which accompanies it." So saying he began to eat, apparently with a ravenous appetite.

Ulrich watched him for a few minutes in silence. Then he said, "You are right, after all. It is not worth while to try and pass off as a joke what is of vital gravity. That is an outrage on one's inner self.... You ask me if I am happy. Look at me, and say if it is possible for me to be happy? You know that I have always been ænemic and weakly. Only by the most vigilant and rigorous training of my will-power have I been able to develop myself into an even partially useful human being, and by the expenditure of energy in contending with pitiful hindrances, which another, a healthy man, knows nothing about, or, if he does, thinks nothing of. I have had to sacrifice so much sense of personal enjoyment at the same time, that any real happiness where I am concerned is not to be thought of for a moment. Yet I ventured to offer my hand to Felicitas. I, an invalid, a student, and a hermit, with nothing to recommend me except my estate and my honourable intentions, to Felicitas, a creature so soft, and made for pleasure, so irresistibly open to every impression of the imagination and every sensuous charm, who repays the world in such full measure for what she receives from it. Surely it were a crime if I tried to interest her in my quiet abstract speculations. In allowing her every imaginable freedom, I purchase the right to live near her as her husband. She is fond of men's society ... very well.... I acquiesce calmly in all the youth of the neighbourhood flocking to pay her court, and to hear her confess to me in her sweet, shamefaced way what fools men make of themselves for her sake affords me a sort of secret satisfaction. I give her whims carte-blanche, whether she builds artistic ruins in the park, or gallops over the meadows by night, or swims in the river in the moonlight, or when the sun is shining shuts the shutters and lies in bed by lamplight till evening, it is all the same to me. She may do exactly as she likes, and the breath of gossip dare not touch her, for she is my wife. I regard her as some beautiful exotic, which has been committed to my care, the strange loveliness of which must be worshipped unconditionally, even if its nature and the laws of its growth are not understood; but how absurd to chatter on about her thus! You know her."

"Yes, I know her," Leo made answer, grimly.

Something in his tone excited Ulrich's suspicion.

"Do you mean to imply that you don't agree with me?"

"I--I imply nothing."

"Please, I would much rather you spoke out."

"Well, then, if I must speak out, I would say that, in spite of all the hard discipline with which you have schooled yourself, you remain as rank and romantic a sentimentalist as ever. For proof that you always were one, take the Isle of Friendship. Ah, by-the-by, does it still exist, our Isle of Friendship?"

"The stream has not swept it away. It stands firm and steadfast, like us two," Ulrich said with a seraphic smile.

"Ah, that is capital! Steadfast as we are. But now, if you please, just recall how you asked of your old godfather, as a present for your confirmation, to be allowed to build a Pagan temple on the island, with we two as Castor and Pollux inside, and think of all the mock sacrifices and solemn ceremonies, and such-like mummery."

"Childish follies, reminiscences of my Homeric readings." Ulrich interposed.

"Yes, but why did these sort of ideas never occur to me? Simply because I am a plain, happy-go-lucky, country squire, whose imagination has never of necessity been stretched to conceive of anything beyond a fiery horse, women, and wine. But you ... well, the temple speaks volumes.... You have a knack of converting those you care for into ideal beings, who exist absolutely only in your fancy."

"Do you mean to say that I overrate Felicitas?"

"When will you have done with your inquisitorial 'Do you mean to say?' Remember that I am not a poacher. But to return to Felicitas. You know that I knew her when she was in pinafores. Quite apart from the fact that she was often at Halewitz, being a distant cousin to me, at one time--once I was devilish fond of her. But I never regarded her in the light of what you call a rare exotic bloom. Either I hadn't a sufficiently discerning eye, or, blockhead that I am, I know women better than you with your sevenfold wisdom."

Ulrich fixed his eyes steadily on the floor.

Leo, after he had looked at him with a shyly inquiring glance, took heart and blurted out, "Man, tell me this. Why on earth were you so mad as to make her your wife?"

Ulrich shrank and cowered under the direct blow. "I fail to understand you, Leo," he said, on the defensive; and Leo saw with some alarm that he had gone too far.

"I mean after ... what had happened," he explained, scarcely audibly.

"And what had happened? Because her husband fell by your hand in honourable combat, was I to be prevented from winning her? True friends that we are, we are not quite identical. If I had not always felt sure that I had acted according to your principles, I might almost say in your interest!"

Leo laughed loud. "Good heavens! in mine?" he exclaimed, interrupting him.

"Yes, certainly, and I will tell you why. You remember that memorable evening when you came tearing to my place and said to me, 'Rhaden has sought a dispute with me at cards, and I have been obliged to challenge him. You must be my second, of course.' Now, do you also recollect what I asked you at the same time?"

Leo gazed at him blankly. "I remember," he murmured.

"I said, 'This wrangle might easily be only a blind. The country rings with all sorts of scandal. You know that I would not lend myself to perpetrate a wrong, and so I ask you solemnly, as our friendship is sacred, does any tie exist between you and Felicitas, forbidden by laws human and divine?' You answered, 'No,' and I was satisfied, because the idea of either of us lying to each other would be too absurd. Is it not so?"

"Yes, it would have been absurd," repeated Leo, and pressed his lips together.

"There was nothing wonderful in the fact that one of the duellists should fall at the hands of the other, no matter how paltry the cause of quarrel. We all knew Rhaden's vindictive nature. I don't deny that you wished to spare him, but you got heated, and as luck would have it your third bullet took a fatal direction. The thing happened, and we had to take the consequences. It was quite right of you to go away for a time out of reach of the women's cackle, and whether you were equally wise, after your period of detention in a fortress was over, to go so far abroad and let nothing be heard of you for six months, is to my mind doubtful, for it simply opened one door of conjecture after the other to the gossips and slanderers."

He stopped, and damped his projecting lips on the edge of his wine-glass. His cheeks burned, and the thin transparent face seemed illumined by an inward fire. But he continued in the same strain of merciless, matter-of-fact calm.

"You will probably not have forgotten anything that passed at our last meeting? You had just received sentence--two years--a round sum, as you expressed it, half of which, thank God, you were let off. You wanted to give yourself up that same evening. We were sitting over our wine celebrating a separation, as to-day we celebrate our reunion. That is four and a half years ago, and meanwhile many things have changed. You handed over to me the necessary papers, and made me the trustee of your property. Unfortunately, without strictly stipulating that I should have complete authority in your absence. But more of that hereafter. Next you said distinctly, 'I have yet another favour to ask of you. You know that through me Felicitas is placed in an unpleasant position. Naturally it would not be possible for me to venture in her neighbourhood, even if I were to be soon set at liberty, and as the question "What will become of her?" is much on my mind, I beg you with all my heart to protect her ... stand by her, and see that no breath of the hateful calumny crosses her threshold.' Is that correct?"

"Correct! Yes, yes," Leo said irritably, and stabbed at the remains of the fowl, which lay in cold congealed gravy.

"And what did I ask you then?"

"Don't know. It doesn't matter. It really doesn't matter; only make haste and have done."

"I asked you," Ulrich went on unperturbed, "'Do you bear any old love towards her in your heart?' and you replied, 'I did, but it is all past now.' And I asked you further, 'Then is she free?' and you said, 'As far as I am concerned, she is.'"

"But, man, how could I suspect that you yourself----"

"Does that alter the case? Was she less free on that account?"

"Get out with your judicial hair-splitting. You have spoilt my appetite," said Leo, laying down his fork.

"Forgive me, dear old boy," Ulrich responded; "but I can't spare you this explanation, lest you should end by reproaching me with having thrown dust in your eyes, and having made a breach between us by my marriage."

"It seems to me that is what it will amount to, as it is," Leo growled, looking gloomily before him.

"What! you say that?" Ulrich stammered, as if he could scarcely believe his ears.

"Perhaps you will give me your views as to how our relations are to continue."

"My view is, that if at heart all is the same as of old, the ways and means of continuing our intercourse need concern us least."

"That is excellent, quite excellent, and only what one would expect from a man of ideal sentiment. But it is just as it always was; your knowledge of life deserts you wherever love and friendship and fine feeling come in. A woman, old fellow, stands between us now. And do you imagine for a moment that this woman could bring herself to forget what has happened sufficiently to tolerate calmly my coming and going at Uhlenfelde? And even if she were willing, how could I consent to it? Remember there's a boy running about your house--you are fond of him, eh?"

A melancholy gleam of acquired parental pride fluttered over Ulrich's face.

"I am very fond of him," he said softly.

"When I knew him he was quite a little chap, four years old at most. He often sat on my knee. He was lovable, that much I know about him. But what is the good of recalling it? The boy has the features of the man whom I once saw, through the smoke of my pistol, fall to the ground with a bullet in his side. Isn't that enough?"

Ulrich breathed heavily and stared at him.

"And now I tell you, once for all," Leo continued, raising his voice, "that if you had asked the advice, which would only have been fitting before taking so grave a step, of your stupid old comrade Leo Sellenthin at the time you resolved to plunge into this marriage, prompted either by mad generosity or an equally mad passion, he would have answered you clear and straight, as is his way, 'Choose between her and me.' There!"

Ulrich grew a shade paler, and his left hand clasped the sofa-corner convulsively. He rose slowly, saying in a voice which anxiety at the thought of his friend breaking with him completely altered--

"Leo, you know that I cling to you as to a part of my own body. But I will know the truth. Are you trying to bring about a rupture? If so, say so."

A peal of laughter came from Leo.

"Ah, now I have caught it, as usual," he cried. "All our life long we have had these scenes. When we were fourth-form boys--well, you know what it used to be. Once when I tore myself from you because I got bored with philosophising in your company about the good of humanity, and preferred to lie under the garden hedge with Rupp and Sydow to bombard the pretty girls as they went by with paper pellets, then I got a note--'You are insincere ... a traitor ... I will do away with myself.' ... Ay, the devil take your confounded heroics."

He stood up and soothed his friend, who sank back again on the sofa-cushions, and caressed comically his bristly hair.

"There, there, little girlie," he laughed. "So long as you live you won't get rid of me, good for nothing that I am. Who would nurse you and stroke your head when the white mice bother you? and who would preach morality to me and cram worn-out wisdom into me when I got into scrapes, if----" He stopped suddenly and cast a side-long glance at the keyhole; then seized an empty bottle and hurled it with a kind of war-whoop at the hinges of the door, so that it smashed to pieces in contact with the iron.

Ulrich sprang up in horror. "What has happened?" he asked.

"Nothing much," Leo explained, perfectly calm again. "Only a worm of a head waiter was sneaking around, probably to listen to us, so I tried to give him his death-blow."

Ulrich looked at him in bewilderment.

"You think I have roughened somewhat out there amongst savages, eh?" Leo asked, with a good-natured laugh. "But never mind, I have come back to you sound and whole. A fellow who has sifted and proved himself, so that at this moment he doubts whether in the whole of God's earthly garden there grows a finer specimen than his lowly self. Sometimes when I have had to go six months without anything to eat, I have been able to subsist on my self-satisfaction, as the bear sucks its paws, and grown fatter. I have a magnificent maxim, which is 'Repent nothing.' And if at one time I was a wild customer, and have my conscience loaded to the utmost capacity, nevertheless I have been able to enjoy myself, and must be content. Only woe to him who reminds me of it. I will pay him out by bringing home to him all the vexation and resentment it has cost me. Then what has a man got faults for, if he mayn't be revenged for them on some one else?"

"A comfortable philosophy," laughed Ulrich.

"I make everything comfortable for myself," Leo replied, stroking his blond beard back over his shoulders; "sins as well as reformation. Now, when I have awakened to full consciousness of my youthful folly, and see that I have squandered the best years of my life, neglected my possessions, sinned against my friends--don't interrupt; I have, more than you think--grieved my mother's heart and made her suffer for my wickedness, if I burst forth in lamentation, or tormented myself with self-reproaches, or sank into a slough of despair, would it do anybody any good? Nobody. What should I undo that has happened in the past? Nothing! On the contrary, I should but complicate matters. And now shall I tell you how I happen to have come home? Your last letter was forwarded from Buenos Ayres to the steppes, where I had been camping for a few months. I had come in from a buffalo-hunt, sweating and tired as a dog, when it was put into my hand. You wrote of my property being in a bad way, of the master's eye being needed in all directions, that you could not stave off ruin much longer--and a good deal more. I knew well enough that it must be on the decline, especially once I played away such monstrous sums in that cursed den of thieves, Monte Carlo; but I had been too easy-going to think about it. Over in Europe was a world full of cares and worries; but here was freedom and sheer living for the joy of living. 'Let the whole fabric crumble,' said I to myself. 'Keep out of the way of the débris and stay here. Why shouldn't I?' Mother and sisters were provided for. I owed no one anything, so I left the camp, and wandered forth into the dusky steppe to reflect further on the matter. I felt that I might hit on the right solution there, for I don't believe there could be a spot more adapted for self-communion than that grassy desert, with the wide grey sky overhead. That is why the people of those parts, too, are so cursedly cute and murder each other without prejudice.

"Well, the long and short of it was that when I was striding along a ploughed path, between wheatears as tall as a man, my foot struck against something. It was the carcass of a horse which had fallen there. One comes across such a sight on the roads every fifty yards, and often it is not one dead horse only, but heaps of them. What struck me about this one was that they hadn't taken off its harness. It was still warm, and could have been dead scarcely twenty-four hours. Apparently it had belonged to the caravan of our expedition, and I resolved to give our guides a reminder for their negligence. Then as I contemplated this poor beast, that looked at me with wide-open, blue-grey eyes as if it were yet alive, there came into my head the saying of a man who endowed our squirearchy with new life, new strength, and new morale, words that he once spoke in the Reichstag--'A good horse dies in harness.' And all of a sudden I saw you before me--you with your miserable skeleton body, who, with colossal energy, have had to wrestle for every inch of what you have become; you whom every half-fledged stripling could knock down, but whom the lowest drunkards among your tenants worship with as much reverence and awe as their God--you who were born to be anything but a country squire, and yet have so trained yourself to it that you have converted the old tumble-down heritage of your ancestors into a modern model estate--you who sit up at night poring over scientific books, and never weary of drinking in new knowledge--you who have given our constituency a name in the Reichstag (don't protest; I know. Even out there people sometimes read German newspapers). Yes, I saw you before me, labouring on without pause or rest, till the weak remnant of flesh that still hung on your bones was demanded as tribute.

"'A good horse dies in harness,' I repeated over and over again to myself, and began to be just a little bit ashamed. And you see, for me to feel ashamed, when otherwise I was so well satisfied with myself, meant that there was something rotten somewhere. So, 'Egad!' said I to myself. 'Tilt with your thick skull against all obstacles, and be a damned steady fellow; and to begin your reformation at once you shall start for home at dawn of day.' And that same night, as a proof of my strong moral heroism, I drank the whole company (for the most part God-forsaken scum) under the table--at least I would have done so if there had been a table. When they were all lying in artistic attitudes on the grass I had my horse saddled, and with my two servants and the necessary provisions I began my gallop into space. The beasts sniffed in the morning air almost as if they scented the Halewitz stables. In three weeks I was at Buenos Ayres, in five at Hamburg ... eighteen hours later at the Prussian Crown, where I am sitting now. Come, drink another!"

The glasses clinked, and Ulrich's eyes, radiant with pride, hung on his new-found friend.

"Do your people know of your arrival?" he asked.

"They haven't any idea of it. Unknown, I shall slink into my house and lands, like my prototype, the noble long-suffering old Ulysses. I am afraid I shall not find the outlook very brilliant."

"I will not prejudice you beforehand," Ulrich said. "We shall have time to talk business when you have seen things with your own eyes. Your steward, Kutowski, will scarcely be able to succeed in hoodwinking you, however much he may try. They are all well, your people. Your mother's hair is whiter, but she is quite as jolly, and quite as pious, as ever, and your sister Elly has grown into a sweetly pretty girl, and already is much admired. Your sister Johanna----" He paused, and the lines of care on his forehead deepened.

"Well, what about her?" asked Leo, in surprise.

"You will see for yourself," was the response. "Her long widowhood does not seem to have been good for her. She is lonely and embittered. She has given up coming to Uhlenfelde, and is on bad terms with my wife. Why, no one knows. She also seems to bear a grudge against me."

"Nonsense! I can't believe that!" exclaimed Leo. "She always swore by you, and does still, I am sure."

"Apropos," Ulrich interposed, "do you know there is a new member in your household?"

"Indeed! Who may that be?"

"Hertha Prachwitz--Johanna's stepdaughter."

Leo recollected. He had never seen her, but his mother had raved about her in nearly every letter.

"I suppose you know," Ulrich said, smiling, "that she is heiress to the Podlinsky estates. It is said that your mother jealously guards this treasure, with the express purpose of offering her to you immediately on your return."

Leo laughed.

"That is just like her, dear old lady. Since I was in jackets she has coupled me with every female possessor of a respectable fortune. I shall have no objection to seeing the little heiress. But, what is more important than that or anything else, Uli----"

"Well?"

"What are you and I to do?"

"Yes, what are you and I to do?"

The friends looked at each other in blank silence.

III

The river flowed on its way in the last rays of the setting sun. Its smooth surface was still steeped in purple, and a wide-meshed network of silver ribbons, at one place melting into each other, at another clearly defined and intermingled with fantastic shapes, reeds, flowers, and sedges, spread itself over the darkly glowing water. But the willows, which kept watch like sentinels on the bank in vague shadowy rows, were already casting broad bands of darkness across the edge of the shining mirror, and these were slowly encroaching on its centre.

The distance lay veiled in a blue haze. Here and there a damp mist mounted from the meadows and clung in silvery wisps about the tops of solitary clumps of poplars which rose above the level, wide-spreading fields, and stood outlined sharply against the rosy glow of the evening sky. Silence reigned far and wide. From time to time a dog in some invisible farmyard bayed sleepily. A broody reed-sparrow now and then gave an anxious twitter, as if in fear of an enemy, and high aloft the subdued cry of a kingfisher, returning late from the chase to its nest, sounded through the air.

There was life on the water. A raft on its way into the valley revolved lazily in the circle of light, which grew gradually smaller, and being now cut in two, threatened to vanish soon altogether in darkness. Like a great snake with fiery jaws it drifted there. The flames beneath the supper-cauldron blazed, and blue-grey vapour ascended to paint a long strip of cloud on the evening sky, where here and there a star shyly opened its eye.

A vehicle came rattling along the high-road which led from Münsterberg to the ferry in the village of Wengern, and drew up at the ferry station, which was deserted and dark, ferry-boat and man having retired to rest on the other side. The powerful outline of Leo's athletic figure filled the back seat. He was leaning back indolently, whistling snatches of a nameless song and sending forth clouds of smoke from a short clay pipe. Pulling himself erect, he cried out in a voice of thunder to the opposite bank, "Ferryman, a-hoy!"

Some time elapsed before he was answered by a sign of life. The light of a lantern moving hither and thither at last settled its course, and from the end of the raft cast a long gold line across the stream.

The driver, who was a young strapping peasant lad, belonging to the stables of the Prussian Crown, turned round on the box, and begging the "gnädiger Herr's" pardon, suggested that it was not the proper big ferry-boat but only a skiff which was coming across.

Leo gave vent to his ire in a salvo of Spanish oaths, and the driver thought the best thing to do would be to send the ferryman back.

"So that I may kick my heels here for another half-hour," Leo said. "No, my lad, I would rather use my own strong legs, and enter my ancestral home on foot. Have you a home, my lad?"

"Why, of course, sir," the driver replied. "My father sent me out to service that I might learn something of the ways of the world."

Leo chuckled, and went on smoking in silence. Every word of the broad, homely dialect that fell on his ear, every fair sunburnt honest countenance that met his eye, renewed his affection for his half-forgotten birthplace.

"And I, fool, didn't want to come back," he murmured to himself.

The boat landed.

The ferryman was still old Jürgens, with the plaid woollen comforter round his neck and the same great patches of sailcloth on the knees of his trousers. He began to grumble and scold.

"Why hadn't they shouted across 'Horse and carriage.' Did not every baby in arms know by this time that was the right way of summoning the big ferry barge instead of the small boat."

"You are quite right, Jürgens," said Leo, tapping him majestically on the shoulder; "it is a grave scandal that your system of governing the stream is not more respected."

At the first sound of his voice the old man shook with fright. Then he snatched off his cap and stammered in confusion, "The master! the master!"

The post of ferryman at Wengern was in the gift of Halewitz, and it had been given twenty years ago to old Jürgens (for even then he had been old), in reward for his long and faithful services to the family. It was no sinecure; but where does such a thing as a sinecure exist in the country of Prussia?

The aged retainer struggled to keep back his tears; he seized the leonine paw that rested on his shoulder, and seemed as if he would never stop stroking it with his horny gnarled hands.

Leo, who was every moment feeling more at home in his patriarchal inheritance, ordered his luggage to be left in the little ferry-house, and, lavishly overpaying the young driver, dismissed him.

The boat put off and glided with a slight grinding on the pebbles of the shallow water into mid-stream. Leo, content, absently let his hand dip into the water, and delighted in the little sparkling rivulets that ran up his arm. Meanwhile the old man gazed at him from the end of the boat with big tear-dimmed eyes.

"It would be best," he said at last, "to row the 'gnädiger Herr' as far as the Isle of Friendship, which is halfway there."

Leo nodded. The Isle of Friendship! So well known was the tie which bound him and Ulrich together that their friendship had become a romance current amongst the people, so that even the name they had given in joke to the place where as boys they had loved best to meet, which they had never mentioned except to a few near relations, had grown into a geographical landmark for the public. Ah, but if they knew! If they could see the ghost which had arisen between them!

"Repent nothing," a voice cried out within him; and he struck the water with his clenched fist, till a fountain of glistening drops started up around him.

Old Jürgens nearly dropped his oars, in alarm, and stuttered out a query.

Leo laughed at him. "I didn't mean anything, old man," he said. "I was simply quarrelling with brother within."

"No good to be got out of him--maybe he's a devil," said the old ferryman, philosophically, and rowed on.

The boat had turned its keel down the river, which shimmered faintly as it wound along between the dusky blackness of the willow-bushes, now widening almost into a lake, then narrowing where a headland, like an outstretched knee, jutted darkly into the ripples.

The deep ruddy glow on the horizon now covered a smaller space. A phosphorescent green, slashed with small silver-fringed clouds, slowly struggled higher and higher till it was lost in the dark blue of night. The twilight of midnight, the dreamy magic of which is only known to men who have their homes in northern climes, was descending on the earth.

Just in front of the boat floated the raft, a huge mass reflected in the shining water, with the smoke from smouldering brushwood curling softly upwards and hovering in the air above it. In a few minutes they overtook it. Figures crouching on the rafters raised their heads in languid curiosity and stared at the boat as it passed. Red flames flickered still under the cauldron, and from within the straw-roofed cabin, rough as any rubbish-heap in the fields, came the sound of a woman's voice singing a plaintive ditty.

In about half an hour the black shadowy outline of an island reared itself from the middle of the gleaming mirror of water. It resembled a massive flower-basket, for from the stony edge of its banks the ragged branches of the alders drooped far over into the stream.

This was it. At the sight of it a host of pictures and memories surged up from his heart's secret depths, where they had till now lain dormant, sent to sleep over and over again by the one grim, overshadowing thought that had brooded on his mind like a vulture, the deadening flap of whose wings had drowned for years all home voices and sentiment within him.

Leo started up, and sought with eager eyes to penetrate the thick boscage. But he could not descry a gleam of the white temple. It lay buried in the dusk of the trees. But there on the right bank were to be seen buildings black and ragged in outline; that was Uhlenfelde, the ancient, noble house where lanky Uli ruled as lord and master.

And beside him, as mistress---- "Be calm, don't think about it," he cried inwardly.

The boat took a sharp curve towards the left bank, where, amidst tall reeds, shone forth the white sand of a landing-place.

A few minutes later Leo was striding alone over the dewy meadows, from which there rose a sweet scent so thick and heavy one could almost grasp it with the hand. At his feet, to right and left, a thousand grasshoppers kept up a lively chorus. The little creatures, startled by his footsteps, hopped on like heralds before him, and in the branches of the elms which studded the meadow path he fancied that he heard from time to time a rustling whisper of welcome. A wilderness of blossom rioted in the uncut hedges. The honeysuckle bells swept his hands, and a thick rank growth of bindweed and runnet twined about his feet. A fine moisture sprinkled his brow refreshingly. He stood still and looked round him. All was his property as far as his eye could reach in the summer twilight. He was overcome by a sense of shame. This soft, warm nest, designed by a kind Providence, as it seemed, for his especial comfort, had he not, more thoughtlessly, it is true, than heartlessly, been ready to sacrifice it to the first stranger who came along?

A lofty consciousness of inherited possessions, the beauty of the summer night, and the nearness of home, combined to inspire and soften him. He pulled off his cap, folded his hands over the warm bowl of his pipe and prayed, with tears pouring down his cheeks. It was a man, ripe and strong, moderately gifted, but full of common sense, knowing well what he had learnt from life, what he might do and might not, who came thus boldly into the presence of his Maker and spoke frankly to Him.

When he had done, he puffed vigorously at his cooling pipe, and in a serene mood walked towards the ancestral seat of the Sellenthins, which greeted him out of the shadows.

IV

He came to a standstill at the gate-house. As he was about to pull the bell, a din of singing voices fell on his ear, interrupted by guttural laughter and applause, which elicited a new and more confused outburst of song. The noise seemed to proceed from the bailiff's house, which was the dwelling of Uncle Kutowski as well as of the two bailiffs. Presumably the stream of light, which till now had been concealed from his eyes by the gate-post, came from the same quarter.

"They manage to have a rollicking good time of it without me at Halewitz, evidently," he said to himself, frowning, and was going to climb over the wall near the wicket gate, when he remembered in time the broken bottle-glass stuck in the cement of the bastions for the reception of thieves and tramps.

There was nothing to be done but to slink round in the shadow of the park wall to the little secret garden door which once had been contrived for him by Uncle Kutowski, so that his excursions by night should not come to his father's ears. Of course it was an understood thing that in so zealously rendering this service. Uncle Kutowski also acted in his own interest, for he too had had good reasons for keeping his nocturnal adventures private and unbeknown to the master of the house.

Leo paced slowly along the dry moat which skirted the park, and over which the hundred-year-old limes of Halewitz cast the shade of their dark masses of foliage, till he came to the spot which he supposed was only known to himself and to his uncle. But, to his vexation and amazement, he saw that the little door was standing wide open, and, worse still, the wilderness of brambles and gooseberry bushes which, on the inner side, had almost buried the approach to the exit, had been uprooted and levelled and replaced by a convenient gravel path that seemed to invite alluringly any evil-disposed person to the privy door.

"Thus do our old vices punish us," thought Leo; and he recalled with a stab at his heart the period of his life when at this door, night after night, there stood ready for him a saddled horse, which Uncle Kutowski had procured for him, and which towards morning would be driven out to grass, sweating and covered with foam.

"Wait a bit, you scoundrels," he muttered betwixt his teeth; "I'll show you which is the right path."

There were still lights illuminating the windows of the castle that faced the flower-parterre. A broad stone terrace ran nearly the whole length of the rambling building, and old vines which never bore fruit draped the balustrade. In the middle of the terrace a flight of dilapidated steps, flanked by two pock-marked nymphs in sandstone, led down to the garden. The glass doors of the garden salon were open, and the hanging lamp with its three sconces lighted the table, from which supper had been cleared away, and sent a warm red glow across the terrace as far as the venerable heads of the nymphs, whose fragile profiles it touched with gold.

Leo walked as softly as the crunching gravel and his own vigorous footsteps would allow, towards the light. He avoided the wooden kiosque, the white plaster pillars of which, seen from the opposite side, gave a finish to the perspective of the landscape, and rounding the fish-pond, from whose slimy depths rose a soft gurgling, he banged his head against the obelisk. It was a stupid erection of brickwork and mortar, with a bronze tablet let into the middle, recording for posterity the heroic deeds of Standard-bearer Fritz von Sellenthin at the battle of Hohenfriedberg.

"A pity the storms have not demolished this bric-a-brac," thought Leo, as he rubbed the lump on his forehead with a pained smile.

At this moment there appeared framed in the brightly illuminated doorway two girlish figures with their arms round each other. They moved forward with a lazy rocking motion, and the gold rays of the lamp flashed on their heads and outlined the shadows cast by the two slender young forms with a narrow line of light.

They had flung on negligée attire with the ingenuous freedom of a pair of young virgins who feel secure in there being no man in the house, and presented themselves in dressing-jackets and with flowing tresses. One was nearly a head taller than the other, and a reddish gleam shot from the loosened plaits which floated over her head and shoulders. By daylight she would probably be a brunette. The shorter girl displayed unmistakably the famous Sellenthin gold in her blond locks.

For a moment it seemed as if they were going to descend into the garden, and Leo quickly took refuge in the shadow of the terrace wall, where he would be hidden from view by the vine espalier. But they stayed up above after all, seating themselves on the balustrade, and swinging their feet so that when they touched the ground a shower of dust, sand, and little stones fell on his head. The two girls gazed down into the garden, and looking up he could see the dainty shining oval of their faces bent towards him. He felt a little nervous at his post of observation. It was innocent schoolgirl chatter that he overheard, intermingled with kisses and giggles.

In one of the voices, which sounded low and muffled, there was a caressing note like the cooing of a dove. The other was a rich, full alto, which seemed to well forth from the depths of the speaker's chest; this fulness of tone was accentuated by the hard r, slightly reminiscent of the stable. With some difficulty he recalled his little sister in the first voice, and concluded that the other belonged to Johanna's step-daughter, the rich little heiress whom his mother had kept bewitched in the ancient castle for his especial benefit.

They talked of clothes, girl friends, and books; of getting up early, of milking and poultry-feeding; and finally they began to talk about himself. The letter from Buenos Ayres, which must have arrived that morning, was evidently in their minds. Johanna's step-daughter revealed to her little companion energetic plans, which convinced him that mamma had already begun her angling for the goldfish.

"Do you know what I shall do, Mouse?" said she. "I shall write to my guardian, the old judge, and ask him for the money necessary to fit out an expedition. Then I shall go with it to South America, and look for him, and paint Halewitz in such glowing colours that he'll get homesick and come back to Europe. And directly we reach Halewitz, I shall say, 'Now my mission is ended. Good-bye.'"

"In your place," suggested Elly, "I should marry him."

"I shall never marry," replied Hertha. "I am an orphan, and shall go into a convent."

Leo closed his eyes with an amused smile. This charming nonsense was music to him. Meanwhile, the drunken merriment in the bailiff's house grew louder. At the sound of it, Hertha spoke her mind with a will.

"It is a shame that an end cannot be put to such mismanagement. The master roams about the world, and his estates are going to ruin."

"Do you think it really is so bad as that?" asked Elly, anxiously.

"It is so bad that it couldn't be worse. Look at Ulrich Kletzingk's face when he rides over here. But he can do nothing. It was not he who was given full authority, but beautiful Uncle Kutowski. If I could, I would hound that fellow out of the place with a horse-whip."

"Spoken like a thorough good chap," thought Leo. "I'll have her for my wife, and then they'll find there'll be the devil to pay." Yet, at the same moment, anxiety on account of his neglected property weighed heavily upon his soul. The chorus of a drinking-song struck up opposite, the refrain ending in a cadence of hiccoughs. Leo's fists itched, but he controlled himself, for he did not wish to spoil the humour of the situation.

"I am afraid that he is there too," Elly whispered hesitatingly.

Leo was all attention.

"Of course he is there," Hertha laughed, with a ring of scorn in her voice; "he is certain to be wherever there is anything low going on."

"Don't always wound my feelings," Elly complained. "You know how gone I am on him."

"Hum! so the little one has begun already," thought Leo, and resolved to speak to her seriously, for falling in love was a Sellenthin family weakness.

"You may be gone on him as much as you like," replied Hertha, "but he should be open and above board, and not sneak over here behind people's backs when he comes to see Uncle Kutowski. That is scarcely fitting behaviour on the part of one we honour with our admiration."

"But what else is he to do?" asked Elly, in a troubled voice. "If mamma saw him she would tell Ulrich that he was hanging about. And the last time he only came through the park to serenade me. And that song, 'The Smiling Stars,' he composed especially for me. He told me so. And what he said about the serenade was, 'I was a little elated by wine, gracious Fräulein, otherwise I should certainly not have had the courage.' He always speaks so modestly and politely. He is quite out of the common."

"Just wait, you out-of-the-common young man," Leo said to himself; "you shan't escape."

At this point a dear familiar voice sent forth an affectionate warning to the children--"Come in, or you'll catch cold." It was the voice in which, as long as he could remember, his vagabond spirit had ever found rest and steadfastness.

He bounded up and clasped the espalier with both hands. A sudden impulse seized him to rush out of his hiding-place and hug the dear old mother to his breast. But again he controlled himself. Before he returned to his own he must first surprise the curious company at the bailiff's house, and take them red-handed in their crimes.

The shimmering light which had made the chipped heads of the nymphs glow vanished. The terrace steps were lost in darkness, and the wooden outer door creaked on its hinges. Then all was still. The coast was clear for Leo.

He opened the wicket-gate which connected the park with the courtyard, and went by a familiar path in the direction from which the noises, becoming more and more tipsy and indistinct, echoed over the sleeping square of yard. Not a single dog barked, all apparently being too well accustomed to the manners of this particular household.

The windows of the bailiff's room were open. In the lamplight clouds of tobacco-smoke could be seen issuing through the chinks of the venetian blinds. Leo leaned against the window-ledge so that he could look in on the topers at his ease.

The company lounged comfortably at the long green table, which was usually loaded with official papers concerning police-regulations, rents, and rates. Master Kutowski presided. With his bristly head cropped nearly bald, his long waving beard abundantly powdered with snuff, and shading from silvery white to yellowish-green, with his light glassy, moist little eyes, his red-lumpy and wart-covered nose, he presented a perfect picture of the convivial, sturdy, boon companion, yet one who, if brought to book, might pose easily as a sober worthy rather than a consummate rascal. He had pushed his Hungarian fez at a rakish angle over his left ear, and held a silver-set meerschaum between his black teeth. Leo recognized it. It bore the inscription, "In thanks for faithful friendship, from Leo Sellenthin, stud-agri."

On either side of him two guests had taken their places who were not resident on the Halewitz estates; on the left, an old animal-painter who for years had hung about the neighbourhood in summer, sponging on the hospitality of the bailiffs. He was nick-named "Cow-Augustus." On the right was a youth whom Leo seemed to know, but could not put a name to. His good-looking, smooth, but somewhat sallow face, cut about with diagonal scars like a rink with the marks of skaters, stood out with a cool, rather assumed air of distinction from the row of flushed, sunburnt, rustic countenances, from which type even the painter's, with its full stubbly beard, scarcely differed. The youth was apparently at the moment the only person sober at the table, and undoubtedly he was the only one who had cultivated the art of beer-drinking seriously and artistically, as if it had been his calling in life.

Next came, right and left, the two bailiffs of Halewitz, a couple of stewards from the neighbouring estates of Wengern and Kantzendorf, and four raw, rosy-cheeked lads, to all appearances pupils of the land-agent; lastly, at the bottom of the table was the lanky brewer, who superintended the pouring out of the drink. Thus the whole of the official staff to whom Leo's property had been entrusted for the last four years were assembled here in a jovial carousal. He propped his chin in his hands, feeling the grim humour of the situation, and awaited events, as the cat watches at a mouse-hole.

The young gentleman with the gashed face, who was addressed as "Herr Kandidat," and seemed to enjoy in a high degree the respect of the party, was loudly called upon to give them a solo. He affected to refuse at first.

"Have compassion on your own ears, gentlemen," he said mincingly, in the exaggerated lisping accent cultivated by our student contingent. He pronounced a like ae, ei like ai, and his r's like gurgling g's. Then he began to sing--

"Oh, smile down, ye smiling stars,
And let it be night around me ..."

Could he have guessed that some one stood listening at the window who hailed the first line of his song with a whistle of recognition, he would have chosen another. Nevertheless, he did not sing badly. In the deep notes his voice sounded soft and flexible, in the high it had the brilliant falsetto note which girls are apt to rave about. His delivery, with its sentimental diminuendoes and coquettish staccatoes, was reminiscent of the music-hall style, on which it was doubtless modelled. At any rate, it found an appreciative public now. A storm of enthusiastic applause broke forth when he had finished.