She was woman enough to know that this signature of hers would be a blow to him, although he must be in a great measure prepared for it.

She had been able to interpret looks, and had been conscious of unguarded moments in which he had betrayed himself; but, that he had mastered his weakness to the very last moment, that he would not understand when she hinted to him of the possibility of a reconciliation, that he was peremptory to her as she had been to him, that he opposed his pride to hers--these were offences for which he must now suffer, even though the cost to herself should be tenfold greater.

The demon of pride rose up within her again in all its fatal strength.

How often had it successfully held the field against all better feelings, not always for her own good or for that of others! But to-day another voice made itself heard as well. "Arthur is fighting like a man against the misfortunes which are awaiting him on all sides, but he will succ.u.mb to them at last."

And when he should so succ.u.mb, he would be alone, alone in his defeat as he had been in the battle. He had no friend, no confidant, not one.

The officials might serve him devotedly, strangers might admire him; but there was no one to cleave to, no one to feel for him, and the wife, whose place was at his side, was at this moment signing the paper by which she prayed for a separation with the briefest possible delay from the husband whom she had already abandoned, and who was now struggling day by day against imminent ruin.

Eugenie let fall the pen and stepped back from the writing-table. After all, what had been Arthur's crime? He had shown himself indifferent to a wife who, as he believed, had married him solely with a view to his wealth. When she had convinced him of his error, she had added contemptuous words such as no man will bear if he has a spark of honour in him. Here, too, his father's sins had been visited on him, and he had abundantly suffered for them during his short married life.

Since that first conversation no further trouble had come to her, except that her husband had held back from her in distant coldness, but he--what had he not endured? Eugenie best knew what the three months had really been, which to those about them had presented only the superficial calm of indifference, and which had held stings sharp enough to irritate a man beyond endurance.

It is possible to wound with every look, with every breath, and this had been done. Looking down on him from the elevation of her rank and position, she had tried to crush him into that pitiful nothingness which, in her opinion, was his proper condition. Day by day she had used her weapons, all the more ruthlessly when she found he was vulnerable. She had made of his home a place of torment, of his marriage a curse, and all this that she might revenge herself on him for his father's unscrupulous treatment of her family. With fullest intent she had driven him so far that he himself had proposed a separation, because he could no longer endure life at her side. If, at last, he drew himself up and pushed aside the hand which had so racked and tortured him, whose was the fault?

She sprang up from the seat on which she had thrown herself, and began to pace up and down in terrible agitation as though trying to escape from herself. She knew well what she was trying to obtain from herself, whither her efforts were tending.

There was but one thing now which could help and save, but that was impossible, that could not be! If she were to make the sacrifice of all her pride, and the sacrifice were not accepted frankly and freely as it was offered? Might she not have been mistaken, have read those eyes amiss; they had never been unveiled for more than an instant, and then only reluctantly. If he were again to meet her with that same freezing look, asking her by what right she was doing that which would have been any other woman's simple duty? If he were again to say that he would stand or fall alone, if he were to bid her go once more? No, never!

better the separation, better a whole life of misery and regret, than incur the possibility of such humiliation.

The departing sun, tipping the trees out yonder with gold, had long since set and twilight had fallen, but it brought no quiet or coolness to the heated overcrowded streets. Without, the sultry evening air was full of the same hum and stir; the stream of people still pa.s.sed and repa.s.sed unceasingly, and the sound of voices and of the rattle of carriages was still borne up confusedly to the windows above.

But, through it all, another sound was heard, faint at first as a mere whisper, but growing ever nearer, ever more distinct. Had it been wafted over from those green forest-heights and made its way through the great busy thoroughfares of the city up to the young wife's ears?

What it was she hardly knew; it was like the soughing of the wind in the pine branches, and, through it, echoed once more all the old forest music with its mysterious chords.

There came back to her vividly that first glimpse of spring, those bitter-sweet moments pa.s.sed under the shelter of the friendly woods.

The mists rose up around her again, the storm howled, and the brooks tumbled tumultuously down into the valleys below. Out of the thick grey mist one figure stood out clear and definite--the one figure which since that time had never left her sleeping or waking--and looked at her reproachfully with its great brown eyes.

He who has pa.s.sed through such a crisis as this, when all the powers of the soul are concentrated on the resolution shaping itself within, may have known these rapid flashes of memory, may have seen again old scenes in their fullest details rising up before the mind's eye, without visible or external cause, but with a force irresistible.

Eugenie felt that the air around her was full of these memories, felt that, one after the other, the weapons were falling from her hands, until at last there remained only the magic influence of that hour when she had made the discovery that her hate was at an end, and that, in its place, something else was springing up, something against which she had striven, as it were, to the death, but to which she must now make surrender.

It was soon over, that last short struggle between the old demon of unbending pride, unable to forgive the repulse it had once met with, and the woman's heart telling her that she was loved, spite of all.

This time the forest voices had not spoken in vain. They gained the victory at last. The paper, which was to divide two people who had sworn to be one for ever, lay torn upon the ground, and the young wife was on her knees, raising her beautiful face, down which the hot tears were streaming, and sobbing,

"I cannot--I cannot do him and myself this wrong. It would strike home to us both. Come what may, Arthur, I will stay by you."

"Where is your sister?" asked the Baron, when, an hour later, he entered the lighted drawing-room and found his sons there alone. "Has not Lady Eugenie been told that we are waiting for her?" he continued, turning to the servant who had been preparing the tea-table, and was about to leave the room.

Conrad forestalled the answer.

"Eugenie is not at home." said he, signing to the man to go.

"Not at home!" repeated the Baron, in astonishment. "Has she driven out so late as this? Where can she have gone?"

Conrad shrugged his shoulders.

"I don't know. Directly I came in I ran up to her rooms. She was not there, but I found this lying on the floor."

He drew out a paper, and an odd little twitch played about his lips as, seemingly with the utmost gravity, he pieced the two halves neatly together and laid them before his father. The Baron looked down at them, but could make nothing of it.

"Why, that is the pet.i.tion drawn out by the proctor, which I gave to Eugenie to sign! I will have the servants up. If she has really gone out, they must know where the carriage was to take her."

He laid his hand on the bell, but Conrad stopped him, and said very quietly:

"I think, sir, she must have gone to her husband."

"Are you out of your senses, Conrad?" cried the Baron. "Eugenie gone to her husband!"

"Well, I only fancy so. We shall soon know for a certainty, for I found this note on her writing-table addressed to you. I brought it down, it is sure to give us some information."

Windeg tore open the envelope. In his hurry, he did not notice that Conrad so far transgressed all etiquette as to go behind him and read over his shoulder. There could be no mistake now about the triumphant expression of the young officer's face. It was so evident, that the two younger brothers, who understood nothing of what was going on, looked first at him and then at their father with anxious and inquiring looks.

The note contained only a few lines.

"I am going to my husband. Forgive me, papa, for leaving so suddenly, so secretly. I will not lose an hour, and I do not wish to encounter your opposition; I must have withstood it, for my resolution is taken.

Do nothing more in the matter of the divorce, and recall that which has been done already. I do not give my consent to it, I will not leave Arthur.

"Eugenie."

"Was such a thing ever heard of?" the Baron broke out, letting the note fall from his hands. "A daughter of mine dares to change her mind in this way and to make a clandestine flight from my house. She withdraws herself from my protection, destroys all my hopes and plans for her future, and goes back to this Berkow, who is on the very brink of ruin, goes back among all those miners in revolt, when the whole neighbourhood is in a state of anarchy. This verges on madness. What has happened? I demand to be told, but first this senseless plan must be frustrated, while there is yet time. I will go immediately" ...

"The express train to M---- left half-an-hour ago," interrupted Conrad, "and the carriage is just coming back from the station. It is too late now, any way."

At this moment the carriage, which had, no doubt, been used by Eugenie, was heard coming in at the gates. The Baron began to see that it was too late, and now the vials of his wrath were turned upon his son.

He reproached him with being the sole cause of all. With his ridiculous laudation of his brother-in-law, with his exaggerated accounts of the man's situation, he had stung Eugenie's conscience, until a morbid sense of duty had driven her to her husband's side, for no other reason than because he was unhappy; and when once she was there, who could tell whether a complete reconciliation might not come about, if Berkow were selfish enough to accept the offered sacrifice?

But Windeg swore by all that was dear to him, that he would carry through the divorce in spite of all. The thing was set on foot, it was in the hands of counsel, and Eugenie must and should be brought to reason. He, the Baron, "would see whether he could not use his authority as a father, although two of his children"--with a crushing glance at poor Conrad, who, for the nonce, was the only criminal at hand, "although two of his children appeared to disregard it altogether."

Conrad let the storm pa.s.s over his head, and spoke no syllable in his own defence; he knew from experience that it was the best way. He sat with drooping head and downcast eyes, as if he were a prey to the most unmitigated remorse for the thoughtlessness of his conduct and the evil it had wrought.

But when the Baron, still furious, left the room and went to shut himself up in his private apartments, there further to ponder and growl over this incredible business, the young lieutenant sprang up with a bound, the roguish expression of his handsome face and the sparkle in his eye telling plainly how little the paternal anger had gone to his heart.

"To-morrow morning Eugenie will be with her husband," said he to his brothers who now a.s.sailed him with questions and reproaches, "and my father may try to come between them with his lawyers and paternal authority as much as he pleases. Arthur will take good care of his wife when once he knows she belongs to him; he has not known it so far. As for us," here he cast a very meaning glance at the door by which his father had disappeared, "we shall have stormy weather for the next week. The worst is yet to come, when my father finds out how things really are between those two, and that something else is in question here than mere conscience and a sense of duty.

"One comfort is, Arthur will have sunshine; with it and Eugenie at his side he will win through, never fear. Thank goodness, there is an end of the divorce suit, courts of justice and counsel included, and if one of you has a word to say against my brother-in-law, let him say it to me. I'll answer him."

CHAPTER XXIII.

Early in the forenoon of the following day a postchaise, travelling along the road from M----, came to a halt at the entrance of the valley where lay the Berkow works, the first outlying buildings of which were already to be seen quite close at hand.