Again they sat at table side by side as before the accident, and Magelone forced herself to discuss indifferent topics indifferently, but all the while the question would obtrude itself, "What did her cousin's 'into the world' mean?" Was he only jesting, or was it a concealed menace, or the mere whim of a sick man?

"He is too indolent to go away,"--it was thus she consoled herself,--"and grandpapa would not allow it, nor would I." So long as she could consider Johann Leopold as securely her own he was more than indifferent to her, but now when it looked as if he were freeing himself, withdrawing from her sway, she wanted at all hazards to hold him fast, and this not from calculation alone. He had repulsed her advances to-day, but ice does not melt beneath the first sunbeam, and her amiability must conquer, like the sunshine, through persistency. If the doctor were only gone! His keen, observing glance made her uncomfortable.

Her wish was shortly to be fulfilled; Ludwig departed on the following morning. Very early, while he was busy packing, Johann Leopold came to his room. "I do not mean to disturb you," he said, throwing himself down on a sofa, "but I cannot spare one moment of you. You have spoiled me; I shall be doubly lonely now."

Ludwig frowned. "Do not be so weak," he said; "it is not fitting. You look badly,--you have not slept well."

"I have not slept at all," Johann Leopold replied. "After our conversation of last evening, after your answer to my questions----"

"You wanted the truth," Ludwig interrupted him, "and I thought I owed it to you."

"You did, and I thank you for it; but it is hard to bear."

Ludwig's lips quivered, as they always did when he was moved, and for a while he went on stuffing some things into his portmanteau; then he said, "Finish it all quickly; there should be no half measures where the knife is necessary."

Johann Leopold pa.s.sed his hand wearily across his forehead and eyes.

"You are right; it is time I should do what must be done."

"If you see that, do it instantly,--to-day,--within an hour! Can I help you? Perhaps it would be easier for you if I spoke with the Freiherr----"

Johann Leopold started up and changed colour. "No, no, I must do it myself; I must first be clear in my own mind. But I thank you," he added more quietly, "and later I may entreat your help in another way. I may reckon upon it, may I not?"

"Upon my best efforts, a.s.suredly," Ludwig answered, pressing the delicate white hand extended to him. "But what do you mean? I am not fond of vague promises."

"You shall know more as soon as possible. Your ship sails on the 14th of March,--time enough to arrange everything," said the other, sinking back among the sofa-cushions.

"Time enough to fall back into the old indolence," thought Ludwig, but he did not utter his thought, and hurriedly finished locking his trunk and portmanteau.

The servant came to say that the carriage was waiting.

"Stay here!" Ludwig said, decidedly, as Johann Leopold rose. "The morning is bitterly cold; it is another kind of hardening process to which I would have you subject yourself. Good-by."

They shook hands, and before Johann Leopold could add a word of grat.i.tude to his 'Farewell,' Ludwig had left the room and closed the door after him.

Leave-taking was so painful to him that he had suppressed all mention to the family of the time of his departure, and had only late on the preceding evening requested of Johann Leopold to order his conveyance in the morning; but he was not to escape thus. In the lower story old Christian requested him to step into the drawing-room for a moment, and there, to his surprise, he found the entire family, with the exception of Johann Leopold; even Magelone had not ventured to absent herself.

The Freiherr came towards him with outstretched hands. "My dear doctor, you wanted to steal away," he said, "but we could not allow it. It is not my fashion to talk of grat.i.tude, but I hope you know what obligations we are all under to you. You have grown dear to us, and I beg and hope that you will in future consider Donninghausen as another home in the full sense of the word. So soon as you return from your travels we shall expect you." And he kissed the young man's forehead, as he was wont to do in taking leave of all belonging to him. Aunt Thekla with tears in her eyes wished him a happy journey, and hoped he had breakfasted well. Magelone offered him her finger-tips with a smile, and Johanna, who had on her hat and cloak, declared that she was going to drive to Thalrode with him.

With sparkling eyes he followed her into the corridor, but at the head of the stairs he paused and took her hand. "Dear Johanna, I thank you; but let me drive off alone," he said. "It is only prolonging a farewell if you accompany me. Stay here for my sake. Good-by! good-by!"

His last words were scarcely audible. He took her in his arms, and for the first time in his life kissed her on the lips,--a long, ardent kiss, that thrilled her to the heart. Then, while she stood as in a dream, he ran down the stairs. The next moment the door of the carriage was shut, and the wheels rattled over the pavement of the court-yard.

CHAPTER XII.

CELA N'ENGAGE a RIEN.

The first days of March had come. The Freiherr wished to ride to the saw-mill, and asked Johanna to go with him; but, just as they had mounted their horses, a farmer arrived to speak with the Freiherr, who never allowed a working-man to wait. So he gave Johanna directions, and she started off for the saw-mill in the clear morning, escorted by Leo.

The long frost had been followed by a rain, and now the sun was shining.

An east wind blew fresh over hill and dale, here and there only on the edges of the meadows narrow strips of snow still lingered, while the fields at the foot of the mountains showed the tender green of the winter wheat. The brook, freed from its icy fetters, foamed along between high banks, and from every bush by the roadside finches, thrushes, and redb.r.e.a.s.t.s proclaimed that winter no longer held sway.

Johanna, too, felt the happy influence of the 'blind motions of the spring.' Latterly she had been greatly depressed,--anxiety on Ludwig's account, she said to herself. He had written that his princ.i.p.al object in going to India was to study climatic fevers; but what really troubled her, although she did not acknowledge it to herself, was Otto's silence.

More than five weeks had pa.s.sed since she had written to him, and she had received no reply. Magelone asked nearly every day, "No letter from Otto yet? I call it very discourteous." And Johanna could not bring herself to confess that the cold tone of her letter was probably the cause of his silence. She could not herself understand how, after their last conversation, she could have brought herself to write so. She repeatedly told herself that Otto could not possibly reply, and yet she looked for some word from him, eagerly and anxiously, as each post came in.

To-day she had felt especially melancholy, but the airs of spring swept away all trouble from her mind. As she looked around her she forgot herself, and felt only the refreshing renewal of life everywhere abroad.

She had followed the travelled road upwards,--the saw-mill was at the upper end of the valley,--through the village, over the bridge, and across the meadows on the right bank of the stream. But whilst stopping at the mill to deliver her grandfather's message, she looked longingly over to the steep left bank. In spite of the miller's remonstrances, she rode her horse over the wooden bridge; he clambered up the rocky ascent, and away went steed and rider along the narrow path on the edge of the forest. She felt as though she had wings.

Suddenly at a turn of the valley she perceived two horse-men coming up the stream on the right bank, and, recognizing her grandfather and old Martin, the groom, she remembered that the Freiherr had called after her, "If I can, I will come to meet you."

He, too, saw her now. He stopped, beckoned, shouted to her something that she could not understand, and then turned his horse. But she had already turned hers. She gave the spirited creature a slight cut with her whip, and as she shook her bridle-rein it leaped from the high bank directly across the foaming stream. For an instant Johanna felt stunned as she found herself on the right bank. Leo ran to and fro on the other side, barking in great distress.

The Freiherr rode towards her. "Are you mad, child?" he called out to her from afar, whilst old Martin observed, with a grin, "There's no denyin' that our Fraulein rides equal to any dragoon."

And her grandfather, too, made but a poor feint of displeasure. When he found both horse and rider unharmed, he added, "Thunder and lightning!

that was a leap that I should have been proud of myself when I was a young fellow. How did you come to take it, my girl?"

She laughed. "I hardly know myself," she said. "I did not take time to think; I had to do it."

"Just like me!" exclaimed the Freiherr. "Yes, yes, you are my own flesh and blood, a genuine Donninghausen, and a rare one." He frowned, and for a while they rode along in silence. Then he said, "It is nonsense to leave you out of the family, and a stop must be put to it. I had intended to surprise you at the New Year's dinner with the intelligence that I am going to adopt you and give you my name, that there may be no longer any disagreeable memory between us. Johann Leopold's accident prevented it. I tell you to-day as a reward for your feat of horsemanship."

Johanna was startled. At another time she might not have ventured any remonstrance; now the exhilarating effect of her 'feat of horsemanship'

had not yet pa.s.sed off, and she replied, in a low, firm voice, "Thank you, my dear grandfather; I know how kindly you mean this, but I cannot accept your offer."

"Johanna!" he growled, interrupting her; but she was not to be intimidated.

"No, I cannot!" she repeated. "You pride yourself upon your forbears, and I am as proud of my father and the distinguished name he bequeathed to me. Grandpapa, I thank you from my very soul, but to repudiate this name would be a transgression of the fifth commandment."

At first her grandfather's eyes had flashed angrily, but the longer she spoke the gentler became his looks and his air. Johanna never had pleased him so well as at this moment, with her glowing cheeks and sparkling eyes. However she might cling in her childish delusion to the plebeian name, she showed race, Donninghausen race, and, moreover, her bold, fearless opposition did him good. To every despotic nature there come moments of weariness of a rule over slaves. And the allusion to the fifth commandment had its effect.

"If this is the way you take it, I must give up my plan," he said. "I enjoin upon no one any transgression of duty, any sin against G.o.d's commands. But you take a wrong view of it. When you marry----" He broke off suddenly, and his face grew dark again. Who in his own sphere would marry the actor's daughter, since she spurned in foolish arrogance the bridge which kind hands would have built for her? But ingrat.i.tude was always the reward of kindness. Otto, too, was deaf to his grandfather's well-meant admonitions, and Johann Leopold looked upon all his plans for his future with indifference, if not with aversion. This must not be!

The Freiherr returned to the castle in gloomy mood, and had scarcely reached his room when Johann Leopold made his appearance with his letters for the post.

"Stay here; I have something to say to you," the Freiherr ordered, as he turned to leave the room. Johann Leopold changed colour; the Freiherr noticed it, and the veins in his forehead began to swell. "Why do you turn so pale?" he asked, angrily. "Do me the favour to sit down, or I shall have you fainting away shortly. You are ill, nervous, and must be treated cautiously, Thekla says. Deuce take it! Brace yourself, my lad, and cheer up! The heir of Donninghausen must not go lagging about like an hysterical girl!"

The old Herr folded his arms across his broad chest and went to the window. Johann Leopold, who, in obedience to his grandfather, had taken a seat at the table in the centre of the room, said, with an evident effort, "You are right; the present condition of affairs is intolerable; nevertheless, I hope to be able to prove to you that I have worked hard to alter it. If I have been silent hitherto, it has been, in great part at least, out of regard for you."

The Freiherr turned round. "Worked hard--been silent--regard for me!" he growled. "What does all this mean? Collect yourself. Nothing extraordinary is required of you. Only some little sympathy with my task, the administration of the property which will, heaven only knows how soon, be your own; and your betrothal with Magelone."

Johann Leopold clutched the arms of his chair, his pale face grew ashen, and without looking up he said, almost with a gasp, "Dear grandfather, I can neither be the heir nor marry Magelone. I have inherited my mother's disease, and have resolved not to bequeath it further."

"Johann Leopold!" the Freiherr almost shouted, and in two strides he stood beside him. "Diseases can be cured," he added, after a pause.

The young man shook his head. "Not this one," he said, sadly. "When my father wooed the heiress of Moorgarten, her parents informed him that the terrible curse had been inherited in their family for generations; but he said, as you do, 'Diseases can be cured.' He loved the pale, grave girl, and in spite of her illness they were very happy during their brief married life,--so happy that my poor mother did not long survive her husband's death. Long enough, however, to know that the curse of her race had been bequeathed to me."