"I myself, dear madam, after parting from the gentlemen, with a want of cordiality I sincerely regret, rode away from Dollan precisely at ten, and just twenty-five minutes after had my horse put into the stable of the Furstenhof, that is, I was just five times as long in going over the mile and a half from Dollan to the Furstenhof, as in walking the five hundred steps from the Furstenhof here."

"You were twenty-five minutes in coming the same distance that will occupy the others an hour!" cried Alma.

"Pardon me; I couldn't go by the same road our friends took across the Dollan moor, or it would have spoiled my surprise. I rode over another that leads through Neuenhof, Lankenitz, Faschwitz, etc. Frau Wollnow doubtless knows the direction--a way quite as long, and certainly as bad, as I unfortunately perceive too late, by the condition of my clothes."

"Oh! how I admire these bold feats of horsemanship!" exclaimed Alma, opening her eyes very wide to express her enthusiasm. "Sit down here beside me, dear Herr Brandow."

She had forgotten the arrangement she had made for Gotthold's reception, and as she pushed the back of the chair with her outstretched hand, the picture slipped down and fell on the floor.

Ottilie, who saw it, uttered a loud exclamation. Brandow sprang forward to raise it, but had scarcely cast a glance at it, when he dropped it from his hands with a low cry.

"My poor picture!" exclaimed Ottilie.

"I beg ten thousand pardons," said Brandow. "I see that when a man has ridden a mile and a half in twenty-five minutes, he is not quite master of his limbs."

In fact, he trembled violently as he again took the picture in his hands; nay, he seemed to find it difficult to stand. Ottilie, who noticed it, at last invited him to sit down.

"Shall I not put the picture away first?" asked Brandow.

"On no account!" exclaimed Alma. "I can't part with it, and to you, my dear friend, it must have a double interest. Just see in what bold relief these beeches stand in the foreground. How easily the eye glides over the fields in the centre and lingers in refreshing repose, ere it wanders longingly towards the dim blue horizon of the sea on the right, or turns with delight to the brown moor on the left."

"Oh! certainly, certainly," said Brandow, without looking at the picture; "it is intended for Dollan, isn't it?"

"Intended for Dollan!" exclaimed Ottilie, "why, Herr Brandow, you wanted to buy it yourself. Don't you remember the time when your wife and I were standing before the picture and you came up?"

"Oh! certainly, certainly," said Brandow.

"I would like to bet that the gentlemen are on that brown moor now,"

said Alma.

"Certainly; to be sure," replied Brandow.

"Impossible!" exclaimed Ottilie, "unless some accident has happened to the carriage, which we do not want to fear."

"Certainly, oh! certainly not," said Brandow, wiping the cold perspiration from his forehead with his handkerchief.

"You are faint, Herr Brandow; let me offer you some refreshments,"

said Ottilie, ringing the bell, and rising to give her orders to the maid-servant, who instantly entered.

At the same moment Alma leaned forward, and holding out her hand to Brandow, whispered, "My dear friend, how glad I am to see you! What have you done to Hugo? I should think it would be for the interest of us all that you should remain good friends."

Brandow took the little white hand, and hastily raised it to his lips.

"Oh! certainly, certainly, my beautiful friend," he replied, "that is the very reason I am here; it is really nothing at all. I was a little excited by--I--oh! my dear madam, why do you trouble yourself? A gla.s.s of wine, if you insist upon it, but nothing else, I beg of you, nothing else."

He had turned towards Ottilie. Alma--threw herself back into the sofa corner, pouting. Brandow's manner was certainly very strange to-day, so cold, not in the least like his usual one. Alma determined to punish him for it when Gotthold came, and to render the pain more severe, resolved to be particularly charming during the few minutes that would intervene.

But the minutes pa.s.sed, the clock struck eleven, half-past eleven--an hour had elapsed since Brandow's arrival, and still no sound of carriage wheels was heard, nothing but the rustling of the tall poplars in the little square before the house, and the plashing of the rain against the window-panes whenever a pause in the conversation occurred.

And it seemed as if the later it grew, the more frequent such pauses became; for Ottilie, contrary to her custom, spoke very little. Alma, as usual, thought it enough to give people, by a gracious smile, permission to amuse her, and Brandow, this evening, was by no means the entertaining companion he was generally considered. The restlessness with which he darted from one subject to another had a feverish haste, his laugh sounded forced, at times he did not seem to notice that not a word had been uttered for some minutes, but sat staring at the picture, until he suddenly started and began to talk again in an extremely loud voice, whose harsh tones jarred upon Ottilie's nerves. Her anxiety increased every moment. She had already risen several times, gone to the window, and pushing aside the curtain, gazed out in the night, which was made, if possible, darker still by the feeble gleam of the tiny flames in the street-lamps.

"I am very anxious," she exclaimed at last, turning from the window.

"It is certainly strange," said Brandow, "it is now ten minutes of twelve; they ought to have been here an hour ago."

"And my husband does not come either," said Ottilie.

"Be glad that he is having a good time," replied Alma. "Are you going already, my dear friend?"

"I will try to obtain some news of them," answered Brandow, who had hastily risen and taken his hat.

"You won't venture out into this darkness again?" cried Alma.

"Why, Alma!" exclaimed Ottilie.

Brandow was in the act of taking leave, when the doorbell rang, a heavy step pa.s.sed through the counting-room, and Herr Wollnow entered.

Ottilie hurried towards him, and in a few words told him how matters stood. Herr Wollnow greeted the late guest with cold politeness. He saw no special reason for being anxious as yet, if Herr Brandow was not.

"But he is," cried Ottilie.

"In that case Herr Brandow would have gone in search of information long ago," replied Wollnow.

"I am anxious, and I am not," said Brandow. "It is certainly a very dark night, and the road is not particularly good in one or two places, but Hinrich Scheel is a remarkably good driver, and--yes, it has just occurred to me--Gustav von Pluggen drove over the same road only a few minutes before our friends."

"Which does not prove that some mischance may not have befallen one or the other party, or perhaps both," answered Wollnow. "I say mischance, ladies, not misfortune, but even a trifling mischance--the breaking of a wheel, or anything of that sort--is no joke on such a night as this; and I am most decidedly in favor of going to meet our friends. I will accompany you, Herr Brandow, if agreeable to you."

"Certainly, of course, but I came on horseback," replied Brandow.

"Then we will take a carriage at the Furstenhof; if anything has happened, a carriage may be useful to them."

Alma thought it very uncivil in the gentlemen to leave the ladies alone at such a moment, while Ottilie gave her husband a shawl, and whispered with a most affectionate kiss, "That's my own good Emil!"

Wollnow had requested the ladies to stay in the room. When the door was closed, he said, "I am sure some misfortune has happened to them; and so are you, are you not?"

His black eyes flashed so strangely, and looked so keen and piercing in the light of the lamp he carried in his hand, that Brandow shrank as if a question on which the result of the whole matter depended had been put to him in a court-room.

"Oh! certainly not, by no means," he faltered; "that is, I really don't know what to think."

"Nor I either," replied Wollnow curtly, putting the lamp on a table near the hall-door, and drawing back the bolt.

The light fell brightly upon the door, and as Wollnow opened it darkness yawned outside. Suddenly against the black background appeared a figure at the sight of which even the calm Wollnow trembled, while Brandow, who was directly behind him, staggered back with a low cry--the figure of a man, whose clothing was drenched with water and besmeared with sand and clay as if he had just risen from the earth, and whose pale face, framed in its dark beard and shaded by a broad-brimmed hat, was terribly disfigured by a narrow stream of blood which ran from his temple across his cheek.

"In Heaven's name, Gotthold, what has happened?" exclaimed Wollnow, holding out both hands to his friend, and drawing him into the house.

"Where are the ladies?" asked Gotthold in a low tone.

Wollnow motioned towards the sitting-room.

"Then keep them away. Sellien is in the Furstenhof, we have just bandaged his wounds, he is still unconscious; Lauterbach despairs of his recovery. I thought it would be better for me to bring the news.

You here, Brandow?"