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Saint Michael: A Romance

by E. Werner · English · Gutenberg #35116 · 638,246 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Saint Michael: A Romance

Author: E. Werner

Translator: A. L. Wister


        
Release date: January 30, 2011 [eBook #35116]
                Most recently updated: January 7, 2021

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35116

Credits: Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK SAINT MICHAEL: A ROMANCE ***




Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books






Transcriber's Notes:

   1. Page Scan Source:
      http://books.google.com/books?id=lPUqAAAAMAAJ&dq

   2. The diphthong oe is represented by [oe].








                             SAINT MICHAEL



                               A ROMANCE



                       TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN
                                   OF
                               E. WERNER



                                   BY
                           MRS. A. L. WISTER





                              PHILADELPHIA
                        J. B. LIPPINCOTT COMPANY
                                 1901.






                           *   *   *   *   *
              Copyright, 1886, by J. B Lippincott Company
                           *   *   *   *   *







                             SAINT MICHAEL.


Easter had come; the season of light and refreshment for universal
nature! Winter, as he departed, had shrouded himself in a veil of
gloomy mist, and spring followed close after fleeing abysmal clouds.
She had sent forth the blasts, her messengers, to arouse the earth from
its slumber; they roared above meadow and plain, waved their wings
around the mighty summits of the mountain ranges, and stirred the sea
to its depths. There was a savage conflict and turmoil in the air,
whence issued, nevertheless, a note as of victory. The blasts were
those of spring, and were instinct with life,--they heralded a
resurrection.

The mountains were still half buried in snow, and the ancient
stronghold that looked down from their heights upon the valley towered
above snow-laden pines. It was one of those gray, rock-crowning castles
that were formerly the terror of the surrounding country, and are now
for the most part deserted and forgotten, with naught but ruins to tell
of ancient splendour. This, however, was not the case in this instance:
the Counts von Steinrueck carefully preserved the cradle of their race
from decay, although otherwise they cared very little for the old pile,
secluded as it was from the world in the depths of the mountains. In
the hunting season only, when there was usually an arrival of guests,
life and bustle awoke the echoes within its ancient walls.

This year was an exceptional one, however. Guests, it is true, were
assembled here in the early spring, but upon a very solemn occasion.
The castle's lord was to be borne to the grave, and with him the
younger branch of the family was extinct in the male succession, for he
left behind him only his widow and a little daughter. Count Steinrueck
had died at one of his other estates, his usual dwelling-place, and
there the grand obsequies had been held, before the corpse had been
brought hither to be interred in the family vault very quietly and in
presence of none save the nearest of kin.

It was one of those stormy days in March when the entire valley is
filled with masses of gray clouds. The dim afternoon light penetrated
to the apartment which the dead Count had been wont to occupy during
his short autumnal visits to the castle. It was a long, rather low
room, with a single large bow-window, and its arrangement dated from
the time of the castle's magnificence. The dark wainscoting, the huge
oaken doors, and the gigantic chimney-piece supporting the Steinrueck
escutcheon, and sustained by pillars, had remained unchanged for
centuries, while the heavy antique furniture, and the old family
portraits on the walls, alike belonged to a long-vanished period of
time. The fire smouldering on the hearth could scarcely give an air of
comfort to the gloomy room, which, nevertheless, represented a bit of
history,--the history of an influential family whose fortunes had long
been closely allied with those of its country.

The door opened, and two gentlemen entered, evidently relatives of the
house, for the uniform of the one and the civilian's dress of the other
showed each conventional signs of mourning. In fact, they had just
returned from the funeral, and the face of the elder man had not yet
lost the solemnity of expression befitting the occasion.

"The will is to be opened to-morrow," he said, "but it will be a mere
form, as I am perfectly aware of its dispositions. To the Countess is
left a large income with Castle Berkheim, where she has always resided;
all the other estates go to Hertha, whose guardian I am to be. Then
come a series of legacies, and Steinrueck is bequeathed to me as the
head of the elder branch."

At the last words the younger man shrugged his shoulders. "That child
inherits an enormous property," he said. "Your inheritance is not
exactly brilliant, papa; I imagine this old castle with the forests
belonging to it costs almost as much as it yields."

"No matter for that; it is the ancestral stronghold of our family which
thus comes into our possession. My cousin could have left me nothing
more valuable, and I am duly grateful to him. Shall you return
tomorrow, Albrecht?"

"I had arranged to stay from home for a few days only, but if you
desire----"

"No, there is no necessity for your staying. I shall, of course, apply
for an extension of my leave. There is much to be attended to, and the
Countess seems so entirely dependent that I shall be compelled to stay
and assist her for a while."

He went to the bow-window and looked out upon the veiled landscape. The
Count had already passed the prime of life, but there was about him no
sign of failing vigour; his figure was fine, his carriage commanding.
He must have once been extremely handsome, and, indeed, might still
have been called so even at his age; his abundant, slightly-grizzled
hair, his quick, energetic movements, and his full, deep voice, as well
as the fire of his eye, gave him a decided air of youth.

His son was his opposite in all these characteristics; his figure was
slender, and he looked delicate in health. His pale face and thin
features gave the impression of timidity, and yet those features
certainly resembled his father's. Striking as was the contrast they
presented, the family likeness between father and son was unmistakable.

"The Countess seems to be an utterly dependent creature," he said;
"this trial finds her perfectly helpless."

"It is very hard for her, losing her husband thus after so short an
illness and in the prime of life,--sensitive natures are sure to be
crushed by such a blow."

"Still, some women would have borne it better. Louise would have
resigned herself with fortitude to the inevitable."

"Hush, hush!" the Count interrupted him sternly as he turned away.

"Forgive me, sir; I know you do not like to be reminded, but to-day
such reminiscences will thrust themselves before me. Of right Louise
should now be the mourner here. She would hardly have been left with
only a large income. Steinrueck would have made her sole mistress of all
that he possessed; he used to submit to her in everything. How, how
could she reject him? And to sacrifice everything, name, home, family,
to become the wife of an adventurer who dragged her down to ruin! It is
enough to revive faith in the old legends of love-philtres; such things
can hardly be accounted for by natural means."

"Folly!" the Count said, coldly. "Our fate lies in our own hands.
Louise turned aside to an abyss, and it engulfed her."

"And yet you might, perhaps, have received the outcast again if she had
returned repentant."

"Never!" The word was uttered with uncompromising severity. "And,
besides, she never would have returned. She could go to destruction in
the disgrace and misery which she had brought upon herself, but Louise
never could have pleaded for mercy with the father who had thrust her
forth. She was my own child, in spite of all!"

"And your favourite," Albrecht concluded, with an outbreak of
bitterness. "I know it well; I have been told often enough that in no
quality do I resemble you. Louise alone inherited your characteristics.
Beautiful, intellectual, energetic, she was the child of your
affections, your pride, your delight. Well, we have lived to see
whither this energy led; we know how, at that man's side, she sank
lower and lower, until at last----"

"Your sister is dead," the Count interrupted him, sternly. "Let the
dead rest!"

Albrecht was silent, but the bitterness did not pass from his look; he
evidently could not forgive his sister for what she had brought upon
her family. There was no further conversation, however, for a servant
appeared and announced "His reverence the pastor of Saint Michael."

This arrival seemed to have been expected, for the servant, without
awaiting permission, ushered in the priest.

He was a man about fifty years of age, with perfectly gray hair, a face
expressing grave serenity, and dark-blue eyes, while his carriage and
manner bespoke the repose and gentleness befitting his calling.

Count Steinrueck advanced several steps to receive him, and greeted him
courteously but formally. The elder branch of the family was
Protestant, and as such had no especial consideration for a Catholic
priest. "I desire to express my thanks to your reverence," he began,
motioning the pastor to a seat. "It was the special wish of the widowed
Countess that you should conduct the funeral services, and on this
mournful day you have given her such loyal support that we are all
grateful to you."

"I only fulfilled my duty as a pastor," the ecclesiastic replied,
calmly, "and deserve no gratitude. But I come to you now, Count, to
make an appeal upon another subject, where my interference is uncalled
for and perhaps, in your eyes, unjustifiable; yet, since the late
melancholy event has brought you unexpectedly to our mountains, I could
not but request this interview with you."

"Let me repeat that I am at your service, Herr Pastor Valentin. If the
matter is of a private nature, my son will leave----"

"I pray the Count to remain," Valentin interposed. "He is aware of the
matter that brings me hither; it concerns the foster-son of the
forester Wolfram."

He paused as if awaiting an answer, but none was forthcoming. The Count
sat still, with an unmoved countenance, and Albrecht, although he
suddenly became attentive, was silent; therefore the priest was
compelled to proceed.

"You will remember, Herr Count, that it was through me that you
received intelligence of the boy's place of abode, coupled with the
request that you would befriend him."

"A request with which I immediately complied Wolfram took charge of the
child by my desire, as I informed you."

"True; I should indeed have much preferred to see the child in other
hands, although such was your disposition of him. Now, however, the boy
has grown older, and cannot possibly be left among such surroundings. I
am convinced that you could not desire it."

"And why not?" rejoined Steinrueck, coldly. "I know Wolfram to be
thoroughly trustworthy, and I had my reasons for choosing him. Do you
know anything to his discredit?"

"No; the man is honest, after his fashion, but rude and half savage in
his solitude. Since his wife's death he scarcely comes in contact with
mankind, and his household differs in no wise from that of a common
peasant. Such a one can scarcely be a good home for a growing boy,
least of all for the grandson of Count Steinrueck."

Albrecht, standing behind his father's chair, stirred uneasily; the old
Count frowned, and rejoined, sharply, "I have but one grandchild, my
son's boy, and I pray your reverence to keep this fact in mind in your
allusion to the matter under discussion."

The priest's gentle gaze fell grave and reproachful upon the speaker.
"Pardon me, Herr Count, but your daughter's legitimate child has a just
claim to be entitled your grandson."

"Nevertheless he is not such; that marriage had no existence for me or
for my family."

"And yet you acceded to my request when Michael----"

The Count started. "Michael?" he repeated, slowly.

"The boy's name. Did you not know it?"

"No; I did not see the child when it was given to Wolfram to educate."

"There could be no question of education with a man of Wolfram's lack
of culture, and yet much might have been effected by it. Michael had
been neglected and allowed to run wild in the uncertain life led by his
parents. I have done what I could for him, and have given him all the
instruction that I could, considering the seclusion of the forester's
lodge."

"Have you really done this?" There was displeased surprise in the tone
of the question.

"Certainly; no other instruction was possible in that seclusion, and I
could not for a moment suppose that the boy was to be intentionally
degraded and intellectually starved in that solitude. Such a punishment
for his parent's fault would have been too hard."

There was stern reproof in the simple words, and they must have hit the
mark, for an angry gleam flashed in Steinrueck's eyes. "Whatever your
reverence may have learned of our family affairs, your judgment with
regard to them must be that of a stranger, and as such some things may
seem incomprehensible to you. It is my duty, as the head of the family,
to preserve its honour intact, and whoever assails and attaints that
honour will be thrust forth from my heart and home, though such assault
proceed from my own child. I did what I was forced to do, and in case
of a like terrible necessity I should act similarly."

The words were uttered with iron determination, and Valentin was silent
for a moment, probably feeling that no priestly admonition could affect
such a nature. "The Countess Louise has found rest in the grave," he
said at last, and his voice trembled slightly as he uttered the name,
"and with her also the man to whom she was wedded. Her son is alone and
unprotected, and I come to ask for the boy what you would not refuse to
any orphaned stranger commended to your care,--an education which will
enable him in future to confront life and the world. If he remains in
Wolfram's charge he is entirely excluded from anything of the kind, and
will be condemned to a half-savage existence in some lonely mountain
forest lodge, a life no higher in aim than that of the merest peasant.
If you, Herr Count, can answer to yourself for this----"

"Enough!" the Count angrily interrupted him, rising from his chair. "I
will take the matter into consideration and decide definitively with
regard to your _protege_. Upon this your reverence may rely."

The pastor arose on the instant; he perceived that the interview was at
an end, and he had no desire to prolong it. "My _protege_?" he
repeated; "may he be yours also, Herr Count,--he surely has a right to
be so." And with a brief, grave inclination of his head to each of the
gentlemen, he left the room.

"A most extraordinary visit!" said Albrecht, who had hitherto been
silent. "What right has this priest to meddle in our family affairs?"

Steinrueck shrugged his shoulders. "He was formerly our cousin's father
confessor, and now occupies a confidential position with his family,
although he lives high up in a lonely Alpine village. He and no other
must attend Steinrueck's body to the grave. I shall make him understand,
however, that I am inaccessible to priestly influence. I could not
quite deny myself to him, since it was he who some time ago asked my
aid for the orphan boy, any more than I could refuse the aid he asked."

"Yes, the boy had to be cared for, and it has been done," Albrecht
coolly assented. "You attended to the matter yourself, sir. This
Wolfram--I have an indistinct remembrance of the name--was once a
gamekeeper of yours, was he not?"

"Yes; my recommendation procured him his position as forester with my
cousin. He is taciturn and trustworthy, troubling himself little
concerning matters beyond his ken. He never asked what my relations
with the boy intrusted to him were, but did as he was bidden, and took
him home."

"Where he belongs, of course. You do not contemplate making any
change?"

"That remains to be decided. I must see him."

Albrecht started, and his features betrayed surprise and annoyance.
"Wherefore? Why have any personal contact with him? One keeps as far as
possible out of the way of such disagreeable matters."

"That is your fashion," the Count said, sharply. "Mine is to confront
such evils, and contend with them, if necessary, face to face." He
stamped his foot in a sudden outburst of anger. "'_Intentionally_
degraded and intellectually starved as a punishment for his parent's
fault!' That this priest should say it to my face!"

"Yes, it only remained for him to undertake the defence of the
parents," Albrecht interposed, disdainfully. "And they called their boy
Michael. They presumed to give him your name,--the ancient traditional
name of our family. The insult is apparent."

"It may have been the result of repentance," Steinrueck said, gloomily.
"Your son is called Raoul."

"Not at all; he was christened by your name, which he bears."

"In the church register! He is called Raoul; your wife has seen to
that."

"It is the name of Hortense's father, and she clings to it with filial
devotion. You know this, and you have never found any fault with it."

"If it were the name alone! But it is not the only thing foreign to me
in my grandson. There is no trace of the Steinrueck in Raoul, either in
face or in character; he resembles his mother."

"I should not reckon that against him. Hortense has always been
considered a beauty. You have no idea how many conquests she still
makes."

The words were uttered in seeming jest, but they met with no response
in the manner of the old Count, who remained grave and cold. "That
probably accounts for her attachment to the scene of such triumphs. You
spend more time in France with her relatives than you do at home. Your
visits there are more frequent and more prolonged as time goes on, and
there is some talk now, I hear, of your being attached to our embassy
in Paris. Then Hortense will have attained her desire."

"I must go wherever I am sent," Albrecht said in self-exculpation, "and
if they select me----"

"What? playing your diplomatic game with me?" his father interrupted
him harshly. "I know well enough what secret wires are pulled, and the
position is but an insignificant one. I expected better things of your
career, Albrecht. There were paths enough open to you whereby to attain
eminence, but to do so needed ambition and energy, neither of which
qualities have you ever possessed. Now you are applying for a position
which you will owe entirely to your name, and which you may occupy for
a decade without advancing a step,--and all in obedience to the wishes
of your wife."

Albrecht bit his lip at this reproof, uttered as it was with almost
brutal frankness.

"In this respect, papa, you have always been unjust; you never
regarded my marriage with any favour. I thought myself secure of your
approval of my choice, and you have all but reproached me for bringing
home to you a beautiful, talented daughter from one of the most
distinguished----"

"Who has never been other than a stranger to us," Steinrueck interrupted
his son. "She has never yet perceived that she belongs to us, not you
to her. I could wish you had brought home to me the daughter of the
simplest country nobleman instead of this Hortense de Montigny. It is
not good, the mixture of hot French blood in our ancient German race,
and Raoul shows far too much of it. Stern military discipline will be
of use to him."

"Yes,--you insist that he shall enter the army," said Albrecht, with
hesitation. "Hortense is afraid--and I fear also--that our child is not
equal to much hardship. He is a delicate boy; he will not be able to
endure such iron discipline."

"He must learn to endure it. Your delicate health has always excluded
you from the service; but Raoul is healthy, and it is high time to
withdraw him from the effeminating effect of pampering and petting. The
army is the best school for him. My grandson must not be a weakling; he
must do honour to our name; I'll take care of that."

Albrecht was silent; he knew his father's inflexible will. It still
gave him the law, husband and father though he were, and Count Michael
Steinrueck was the man to see that his laws were obeyed.


                           *   *   *   *   *


"I can't help it, your reverence; the fellow is a trial. He knows
nothing, he understands nothing; he wanders about the mountains from
morning to night, and grows stupider every day. He'll never make a
decent forester; 'tis all trouble lost."

The words were spoken by a man whose appearance betrayed his forester's
calling. He was provided with gun and hunting-pouch, and was sturdy and
powerful of frame, with broad shoulders and coarse features. His hair
and beard were neglected, his dress--a mixture of hunting and peasant's
costume--was careless in the extreme, and his speech was as rude as his
exterior; thus he confronted the priest. The pair were in the parsonage
of Saint Michael, a small hamlet high up among the mountains, and a
place of pilgrimage. The priest, seated at his writing-table, shook his
gray head disapprovingly.

"As I have often told you, Wolfram, you do not understand how to treat
Michael. You can never do anything with him by threats and abuse; you
only make him shyer, and he is already shy enough in his intercourse
with human kind."

"That all comes from his stupidity," the forester explained. "The boy
does not see daylight clearly; he has to be shaken hard to rouse him,
since I made your reverence a promise not to beat him again."

"And I hope you have kept your word. The child has been much sinned
against; you and your wife maltreated him daily before I came here."

"It did him good. All boys need the stick, and Michael always needed a
double portion. Well, he got it. When I stopped, my wife began; but it
never did any good,--it never made him any the cleverer."

"No; but he would have been ruined by your rough treatment if I had not
interfered."

Wolfram laughed aloud. "Ruined? Michael? Not a bit of it. He could have
borne ten times as much; he's as strong as a bear. It's a perfect
shame; the fellow could tear up trees by the roots, and he lets himself
be teased by the village children without ever stirring a finger. I
know right well why he wouldn't come along with me to-day, but chose to
follow me. He won't come through the village; he chooses to come the
longer way, through the forest, as he always does when he comes to you,
the cowardly fellow!"

"Michael is no coward," said the pastor, gravely. "You ought to know
that, Wolfram; you have told me yourself that there is no controlling
him when he once gets angry."

"Yes, he's right crazy then, and must be let alone. If I didn't know
that he's not all right here"--he touched his forehead--"I'd take him
in hand, but it's a terrible cross. It's strange, too, that he shoots
so well, when he sees the game, though that's not often. He stares up
into the trees and the sky, and a stag will run away right under
his nose. I'm not curious, but, indeed, I'd like to know where the
moon-calf comes from."

Valentin looked pained at these words, but he replied, calmly, "That
can hardly interest you. Do not put such ideas into Michael's head, or
he might ask you questions which you cannot answer."

"He's too stupid for that," asserted the forester, with whom his
foster-son's stupidity seemed to be an indisputable article of faith.
"I don't believe he knows that he was ever even born. But Tyras is
barking,--he must see Michael."

In fact, the dog was barking joyously, the sound of approaching
footsteps was heard, and in the next instant Michael entered the room.

The new-comer was a lad of about eighteen, but his tall, powerful
figure, with its awkward movements, showed nothing of the grace and
freshness of youth. The face, plain and irregular in all its lines, had
a half-shy, half-dreamy expression that was hardly attractive. The
thick, fair curls were matted around the temples and brow, below which
looked out a pair of eyes deep blue in colour, but as vacant as if no
soul enlightened their depths. His dress was as sordid and neglected as
the forester's, and in his entire appearance there was absolutely
nothing to attract.

"Well, have you come at last?" was his foster-father's gruff reception
of him. "You must have gone to sleep on the way, or you would have been
here long ago."

"I came through the forest," replied Michael, going up to the priest,
who kindly held out his hand to him.

Wolfram laughed scornfully. "Didn't I tell your reverence? He didn't
dare to go through the village,--I knew it."

Michael paid not the slightest heed to the apparently well-grounded
accusation, being well used to such treatment from his foster-father,
who now took his hat and made ready to go.

"I must go up to the fenced forest," he said; "it looks badly there:
more than a dozen of the tallest trees are torn down; the Wild Huntsman
has made terrible work there lately."

"You mean the storms of the last week, Wolfram?"

"No, it was the Wild Huntsman, your reverence. He is abroad every night
this spring. The day before yesterday, as we came through the wood at
dusk, the whole mad crew swept by not a hundred yards away. They raged
and howled and stormed as though all hell had broken loose, and I
suppose a bit of it had done so. Michael, stupid fool, would have
rushed into the thick of it, but I caught his arm in time and held him
fast."

"I wanted to see the demon at close quarters," said Michael, quietly.

The forester shrugged his shoulders. "There, your reverence, you see
what the fellow is! He runs away from human creatures and such like,
but he wants to be right in the midst of things which make every
Christian shudder, and cross himself! I really believe he would have
joined the phantoms if I had not held him back, and then he would now
have been lying dead in the forest, for he who joins the Wild
Huntsman's chase is lost."

"Will you never be rid of this sinful superstition, Wolfram?" said the
priest. "You pretend to be a Christian, and are nothing better than a
heathen. And you have infected Michael, too; his head is full of
heathenish legends."

"It may be sinful, but it's true for all that," Wolfram insisted. "I
don't suppose you see anything of it. You are a holy man, a consecrated
priest, and the ghostly rabble that haunt the forest at night is afraid
of you, but the like of us see and hear more of it than is agreeable.
Then Michael is to stay here?"

"Of course. I will send him back in the afternoon."

"Good--by, then," said the forester, tightening the strap of his gun.
He bowed to the priest, and departed without taking further notice of
his foster-son.

Michael, who seemed to be perfectly at home in the parsonage, now
fetched various books and papers from a cupboard and arranged them on
the writing-table. Evidently the wonted instruction was about to begin,
but before it could do so the sound of a sleigh was heard outside.
Valentin looked up in surprise; the rare visits that he received were
almost exclusively from the pastors of secluded Alpine villages, and
pilgrims were scarcely to be looked for at this time of year. Saint
Michael was not one of those large and famous places of pilgrimage
whither the faithful resort in crowds at all seasons. Only the poor
dwellers on the Alps brought their vows and supplications to the
secluded hamlet, and only upon church festivals was there any great
gathering there.

Meanwhile, the sleigh had drawn up before the parsonage. A gentleman in
a fur coat got out, inquired of the maid who met him at the door
whether the Herr Pastor was at home, and forthwith made his way to the
study.

Valentin started at the sound of the voice, and then rose with
delighted surprise in every feature. "Hans! Is it you?"

"You know me still, then? It would be no wonder if each of us failed to
recognize the other," said the stranger, offering his hand, which was
warmly grasped by the priest.

"Welcome, welcome! Have you really found me out?"

"Yes, it certainly was a proof of affection, the getting up to you
here," said the guest. "We have been working our way for hours through
the snow; sometimes fallen hemlocks lay directly across the road,
sometimes we had to cross a mountain torrent, and for a change we had
small avalanches from the rocks. And yet my coachman obstinately
insisted that it was the high-road. I should like, then, to see your
foot-paths; they must be practicable for chamois only."

Valentin smiled. "You are the same old fellow,--always sneering and
criticising. Leave us, Michael, and tell the gentleman's coachman to
put up his horses."

Michael left the room, but not before the stranger had turned and
glanced at him. "Have you set up a famulus? Who is that dreamer?"

"My pupil, whom I teach."

"You must have hard work to gel anything inside that head! That
fellow's talent would seem to lie solely in his fists."

As he spoke the guest had taken off his furs, and was seen to be a man
about five or six years younger than the pastor, of hardly medium
height, but with a very distinguished head, which, with its broad brow
and intellectual features, riveted attention at the first glance. The
clear, keen eyes seemed used to probe everything to the core, and in
the man's whole bearing there was evident the sense of superiority
which comes of being regarded as an authority in one's own circle.

He looked keenly about him, investigating the pastor's study and
adjoining room, both of which displayed a monastic simplicity; and as
he turned his eyes from one object to another in the small apartment,
he said, without a trace of sarcasm, but with some bitterness, "And
here you have cast anchor! I never imagined your solitude so desolate
and world-forsaken. Poor Valentin! You have to pay for the assault that
my investigations make so inexorably upon your dogmas, and for my works
being down in the 'Index.'"

The pastor repudiated this charge by a gentle gesture. "What an idea!
There are frequent changes in ecclesiastical appointments, and I came
to Saint Michael----"

"Because you had Hans Wehlau for a brother," the other completed the
sentence. "If you would publicly have cut loose from me, and thundered
from your pulpit against my atheism, you would have been in a more
comfortable parsonage, I can tell you. It is well known that there has
been no breach between us, although we have not seen each other for
years, and you must pay for it. Why did you not condemn me publicly? I
never should have taken it ill of you, since I know that you absolutely
repudiate my teachings."

"I condemn no one," the pastor said, softly; "certainly not you, Hans,
although it grieves me sorely to see you so greatly astray."

"Yes; you never had any talent for fanaticism, but always a very great
one for martyrdom. It often vexes me horribly, though, that I am the
one to help you to it. I have taken good care, however, that my visit
to-day should not be known; I am here _incognito_. I could not resist
the temptation to see you again on my removal to Northern Germany."

"What! you are going to leave the university?"

"Next month. I have been called to the capital, and I accepted
immediately, since I know it to be the sphere suited to me and to my
work. I wanted to bid you good-by; but I nearly missed you, for, as I
hear, you were at Steinrueck yesterday at the Count's funeral."

"By the Countess's express desire I officiated."

"I thought so! They summoned me by telegraph to Berkheim to the
death-bed."

"And you went?"

"Of course, although I gave up practice long ago for the professorial
chair. This was an exceptional case. I can never forget how the
Steinruecks befriended me, employing me when I was a young, obscure
physician, upon your recommendation, to be sure, but they placed every
confidence in me. I could, indeed, do nothing for the Count except to
make death easier, but my presence was a satisfaction for the family."

Michael's entrance interrupted the conversation. He came to say that
the sacristan wished to speak for a moment with his reverence, and was
waiting outside.

"I will come back immediately," said Valentin. "Put away your books,
Michael; there will be no lessons to-day."

He left the room, and Michael began to gather up the books and papers.
The Professor watched him, and said, casually, "And so the Herr Pastor
teaches you?"

Michael nodded and went on with his occupation.

"It's just like him," murmured Wehlau. "Here he is tormenting himself
with teaching this stupid fellow to read and write, probably because
there is no school in the neighbourhood. Let me look at that."

And he took up one of the copy-books, nearly dropping it on the instant
in his surprise. "What! Latin? How is this?"

Michael did not comprehend his surprise; it seemed to him quite natural
to understand Latin, and he answered, quietly, "Those are my
exercises."

The Professor looked at the lad, whose dress proclaimed him a mere
peasant, scanned him from head to foot, and then turning over the
leaves of the book, read several lines and shook his head.

"You seem to be an excellent Latin scholar. Where do you come from?"

"From the forester's, a couple of miles away."

"And what is your name?"

"Michael."

"Your name is that of the hamlet. Were you named after it?"

"I don't know,--I think I was named after the archangel Michael." He
uttered the name with a certain solemnity, and Wehlau, noticing it,
asked, with a sarcastic smile, "You hold the angels in great respect?"

Michael threw back his head. "No, they only pray and sing through all
eternity, and I don't care for that; but I like Saint Michael. At least
he does something: he thrusts down Satan."

There must have been something unusual either in his words or in his
expression, for the Professor started and riveted his keen eyes upon
the face of the lad, who stood close to him, full in the sunlight that
entered by the low window. "Strange," he murmured again. "The face is
utterly changed. What is there in the features----?"

At this moment Valentin reappeared, and, seeing the book in his
brother's hand, asked, "Have you been examining Michael? He is a good
Latin scholar is he not?"

"He is, indeed; but what good is Latin to do him in a lonely forest
lodge? I suppose his father is too poor to send him to school?"

"But I hope to do something for him in some other way," said the
pastor; and as Michael took his books to the cupboard he went on, in a
low tone, "If the poor fellow were only not so ugly and awkward!
Everything depends upon the impression that he makes in a certain
quarter, and I fear it will be very unfavourable."

"Ugly?--yes, he certainly is that; and yet a moment ago, when he made
quite an intelligent remark, something flashed into his features like
lightning, reminding me of--yes, now I have it--of Count Steinrueck."

"Of Count Steinrueck?" Valentin repeated, in surprise.

"I don't mean the man who has just died, but his cousin, the head of
the elder branch. He was in Berkheim the other day, and I became
acquainted with him there. He would consider my idea an insult, and he
would not be far wrong. To compare Steinrueck, dignified and handsome as
he is, with that moonstruck lad! They have not a feature in common. I
cannot tell why the thought came into my head, but it did when I saw
the fellow's eyes flash."

The pastor made no reply to this last observation, but said, as if to
change the subject, "Yes, Michael is certainly a dreamer. Sometimes in
his apathy and indifference he seems to me like a somnambulist."

"Well, that would not be very dreadful," said his brother.
"Somnambulists can be awakened if they are called in the right way, and
when that lad wakes up he may be worth something. His exercises are
very good."

"And yet learning has been made so hard for him! How often he has had
to contend with storm and wind rather than lose a lesson, and he has
never missed one!"

"Rather different from my Hans," the Professor said, dryly. "He employs
his school-hours in drawing caricatures of his teachers; my personal
interference has been necessary at times. He is too audacious, because
he has been such a lucky sort of fellow. Whatever he tries succeeds;
wherever he knocks doors and hearts fly open to receive him, and
consequently he imagines that life is all play,--nothing but amusement
from beginning to end. Well, I'll show him another side of the picture
when once he begins to study natural science."

"Has he shown any inclination for such study?"

"Most certainly not. His only inclination is for scrawling and daubing;
there's no doing anything with him if he scents a painted canvas, but
I'll cure him of all that."

"But if he has a talent for----" the pastor interposed.

His brother angrily interrupted him: "That's the worst of it,--a
talent! His drawing-masters stuff his head with all sorts of nonsense;
and awhile ago a painter fellow, a friend of the family, made a tragic
appeal to me,--Could I answer it to myself to deprive the world of such
a gift? I was positively rude to him; I couldn't help it."

Valentin shook his head half disapprovingly. "But why do you not allow
your son to follow his inclination?"

"Can you ask? Because an intellectual inheritance is his by right. My
name stands high in the scientific world, and must open all doors for
Hans while he lives. If he follows in my footsteps he is sure of
success; he is his father's son. But God have mercy on him if he takes
it into his head to be what they call a genius!"

Meanwhile, Michael had put away his books, and now advanced to take his
leave. Since there was to be no lesson, there was no excuse for his
remaining any longer at the parsonage. His face again showed the same
vacant, dreamy expression peculiar to it; and as he left the room
Wehlau said in an undertone to his brother, "You are right; he is too
ugly, poor devil!"


                           *   *   *   *   *


The Counts of Steinrueck belonged to an ancient and formerly very
powerful family, dating back centuries. Its two branches owned a common
lineage, but were now only distantly connected, and there had been
times when there had been no intercourse between them, so widely had
they been sundered by diversity of religious belief.

The elder and Protestant branch, belonging to Northern Germany,
possessed entailed estates yielding a moderate income; the South-German
cousins, on the contrary, were owners of a very large property,
consisting chiefly of estates in fee, and were among the wealthiest in
the land. This wealth was at present owned by a child eight years of
age, the daughter whom the late Count had constituted his sole heiress.
Conscious of the hopeless nature of his malady, he had summoned his
cousin, and had made him the executor of his will and his daughter's
guardian. Thus had been adjusted an estrangement that had existed for
years, and that had its rise in an alliance once contracted, only to be
suddenly dissolved.

Besides his son, the present Count Steinrueck had had another child,--a
beautiful, richly-endowed daughter, the favourite of her father, whom
she resembled in character and in mind. She was to have married her
relative, the Count now deceased; the union had long been agreed upon
in the family, and the young Countess had consequently spent many weeks
at a time beneath the roof of her future parents-in-law.

But before there had been any formal betrothal between the young
people, there intervened with the girl of eighteen one of those
passions which lead,--which must lead--to ruin, not because of
difference of rank and social standing, not because of the consequent
estrangement of families, but because they lack the only thing that can
confer upon a union a blessing and endurance,--true, genuine affection.
It was an intoxication sure to be followed by remorse and repentance
when, alas, it was too late.

Louise became acquainted with a man who, although of bourgeois
parentage, had worked his way into aristocratic circles. Brilliantly
handsome, endowed with various accomplishments and a winning grace of
manner, he succeeded in gaining entrance everywhere; but he was one of
those restless, unsteady beings who can never adjust themselves for
long to any environments. Possessed by a positive greed for the
luxuries and splendours of existence, he had no capacity for attaining
them by his own energy; he was an adventurer in the truest sense of the
word. He may have loved the young Countess sincerely, he may have only
hoped to achieve social position through her means; at all events, he
contrived so to ensnare her that she resolved, in spite of the certain
opposition of her father and of her entire family, to become his wife.

When the Count learned how matters stood, he took them in hand with an
energy that was indeed ominous. He believed that by commands and
threats he could bend his daughter to his will, but he only aroused in
her the obstinacy which she had inherited from himself. She utterly
refused to yield him obedience, opposed resolutely all effort to carry
out her betrothal to her cousin, and, in spite of every precaution,
contrived to hold communication with her lover. Suddenly she
disappeared, and a few days afterwards news was received that she had
become the wife of Rodenberg.

The marriage was perfectly valid, in spite of the haste and secrecy
with which it was contracted; Rodenberg had arranged and prepared
everything. He reckoned upon Count Steinrueck's final acknowledgment of
his daughter's husband: he would not surely cast them off; he trusted
to the father's affection for his favourite child, but he did not know
the Count's iron nature. Steinrueck replied to the announcement of the
marriage by an utter repudiation of his daughter; he forbade her ever
again to appear in his presence: for him she was dead.

He persisted inexorably in this course until his daughter's death, and
even after it had taken place. At first Rodenberg made several attempts
to induce his wife's father to grant him an interview, but he soon
perceived the uselessness of any such attempt; the Count was neither to
be persuaded nor coerced, and since all sources of aid were thus cut
off, the man plunged with his wife and child into a Bohemian mode of
life harmonizing with his lawless nature.

What followed was the inevitable result,--misery and want, a gradual
sinking into ruin; the lot of the wife beside the husband for whom she
had sacrificed name, home, and family, when all hopes founded upon her
and upon her wealth had vanished, can easily be imagined. She was true
to her nature, and clung to the man whom she had married, without one
attempt to obtain help from her father, knowing that even her death
would be powerless to effect a reconciliation. She and her husband had
now been dead for many years, and the wretched family tragedy was
buried with them.


                           *   *   *   *   *


An entire week had passed since the funeral at Steinrueck. Count
Michael, who occupied the rooms that had been his cousin's, was sitting
in the bow-windowed apartment, when he was told that Wolfram the
forester had arrived in obedience to his desire. The Count was in full
uniform, being about to ride to a neighbouring town, where the
sovereign's brother had instituted a memorial celebration. Of course
every one of consequence in the country around had been invited to take
part in the ceremonial, and the lord of Steinrueck could not refuse to
be present on the occasion, although, in view of the family
bereavement, he was to withdraw before the subsequent festivities. The
hour for his departure was at hand, but there was still time for his
interview with the forester.

As he sat at his writing-table he took from one of its drawers the star
of an order set with large brilliants. As he was about to fasten it on
his breast he saw that the ribbon was loose, and as Wolfram entered at
the moment, he laid it in the open case on the table.

The forester was in full dress to-day, and really looked well. His hair
and beard were carefully arranged, and great pains had been bestowed
upon his hunting-suit; nor did he seem to have forgotten the demeanor
required in presence of his former master, for, with a respectful bow,
he paused at the door until the Count motioned to him to approach.

"Ah, here you are, Wolfram," he said, kindly; "I have not seen you for
a long time. Is all going well with you?"

"Pretty well, Herr Count," the forester replied, standing as straight
and stiff as a ramrod. "I earn my wages, and the late Count was
satisfied with me. I never have a chance to leave the forest year out
and year in, but we get used to that and don't mind the loneliness."

"You were married, I think; is your wife still living?"

"No; she died five years ago, God rest her soul, and we never had any
children. Some people advised me to marry again, but I didn't want to.
Once is enough for me."

"Was your marriage not a happy one, then?" asked Steinrueck, with a
fleeting smile at the forester's last remark.

"That depends on one's way of looking at things," the forester replied,
indifferently. "We got along pretty well together; to be sure, we
quarrelled every day, but that's to be expected; and then if Michael
interfered we both fell upon him and made up with each other."

The Count suddenly lifted his head. "Whom did you fall upon?"

"Eh?--yes, that was stupid," Wolfram muttered in confusion.

"Do you mean the boy who was given in charge to you?"

The forester cast down his eyes before the Count's angry glance and
meekly defended himself. "It did not hurt him, and it didn't last long
either, for the reverend father at St. Michael forbade us to beat the
boy, and we obeyed. And the fellow deserved what he got, besides."

Steinrueck did not reply; he knew that he had given the boy into rude
keeping, but this glimpse of the realities of the situation rather
startled him, and after a minute's pause he asked, sternly, "Did you
bring your foster-son with you?"

"Yes, Herr Count, I have done as you bade me."

"Then let him come in."

Wolfram went to call Michael, who was waiting in the antechamber, and
the Count looked eagerly and anxiously towards the door by which in
another moment his grandson would enter, the child of the outcast
daughter whom he had so sternly thrown off, and yet whom he had once
loved so tenderly. Perhaps the boy would be the image of his mother, at
all events he would resemble her in some feature, and Steinrueck did not
know whether he most feared or longed for such resemblance.

The door opened, and Michael entered with his foster-father. He too had
bestowed greater care than usual upon his dress in view of this
interview, but it had availed him little. His Sunday coat fitted him no
better than his week-day garb, and, moreover, although new, was rustic
in cut and material. His thick, matted curls refused to be smoothed,
and were tossed more wildly than usual above his brow, while the
shyness and embarrassment which he felt in such a presence made his
face more vacant of expression than usual, and his awkward carriage and
movements still more heavy and clumsy.

The Count cast one sharp, rapid glance at him, and but one; then he
compressed his lips in an expression of bitter disappointment. This,
then, this was Louise's son!

"Here is Michael, Herr Count," said Wolfram, as he roughly pushed the
lad forward. "Make your bow, Michael, and thank the kind gentleman who
has befriended such a poor orphan. It is the first time you have seen
your benefactor."

But Michael neither bowed nor uttered a word of thanks. He gazed as if
spell-bound at the Count, who was indeed an imposing figure in his
uniform, and seemed to forget all else.

"Well, can't you speak?" asked Wolfram, impatiently. "You must excuse
him, Herr Count, it's only his stupidity. He hardly ever opens his
mouth at home, and whenever he sees anything new and strange like all
this he loses the little wit he has."

It was with an expression of positive dislike that the Count at last
turned to the boy, and his voice sounded cold and imperious as he
asked, "Is your name Michael?"

"Yes," was the reply, uttered mechanically as it were, while the young
fellow's eyes never stirred from the tall figure, and the commanding
countenance turned so haughtily towards him. Steinrueck did not perceive
the boundless admiration in those eyes,--all that he saw was their
dreamy, vague expression, a curious stare that irritated him.

"How old are you?" he asked, in the same tone.

"Eighteen."

"And what do you know? what can you do?"

This question seemed to embarrass Michael extremely; he did not speak,
but looked at the forester, who answered for him. "He does not do much
of anything, Herr Count, although he runs about the forest all day
long, and he does not know much either. I have no time to look after
him; at first we sent him to the village school, and later on his
reverence took him in hand and taught him. But he couldn't do much with
him, Michael can't understand well."

"But he must adopt some calling. What is he fit for? what does he want
to be?"

"Nothing at all,--and he is fit for nothing," said the forester,
laconically.

"This is a fine account of you," said the Count, contemptuously. "To
run about the forest all day long is not much to do, and can be done
with but little instruction; it is a disgrace for a strong young fellow
like you to be fit for nothing else."

Michael looked surprised at these harsh words, and a dark flush began
to mount into his cheeks, but the forester assented with, "Yes, I think
so too; but there is nothing to be done with Michael. Just look at him,
Herr Count; no one can ever make a decent forester of him."

It seemed to cost the Count an effort to continue an interview so
repugnant to him, but he controlled himself, and said, sternly and
authoritatively, "Come here!"

Michael never stirred; he stood as if he had not heard the command.

"Have you not even learned obedience?" Steinrueck asked, in a menacing
tone. "Come here, I say!"

But Michael still stood motionless, until the forester, feeling himself
called upon to come to the rescue of what was probably stupidity,
seized him roughly by the shoulder, encountering, however, decided
resistance on the part of his foster-son, who shook him off angrily.
There was only defiance in the movement, but it looked like a desire
for flight, and as such the Count understood it. "A coward, too!" he
murmured. "There has been quite enough of this!"

He rang the bell and ordered the servant to have the carriage brought
round immediately. Then he turned to the forester, and said, "I have a
word or two to say to you; follow me," as, opening the door of a small
adjoining room, he preceded him into it.

Wolfram attempted, as he followed, to excuse his foster-son's conduct:
"He is afraid of you, Herr Count; the fellow has not a spark of
courage."

"So I see," Steinrueck rejoined, with infinite contempt; he could
forgive almost anything save cowardice,--that was inexcusable in his
eyes. "Never mind, Wolfram, I know you cannot help it; but you must
keep the fellow for a while yet; there is nothing for him but this
mountain forestry; he may dream away his life here for all I care,
since he is good for nothing else."

He went on talking to the forester without bestowing another glance
upon Michael, who stood motionless. The dark flush had not faded from
his face, which was no longer expressionless. Gloomily, with compressed
lips, he gazed after the man who had just passed so pitiless a verdict
upon himself and his future. He had often heard such words before from
the forester without their producing any effect upon him, but they had
a different sound when issuing from those haughty lips, and the
contemptuous glance of those eyes pierced him to the very soul. For the
first time he felt the treatment to which he had been accustomed from
childhood as a burning disgrace, crushing him to the earth.

He was alone in the room. Through the bow-window the sunlight streamed
in, and fell full upon the writing-table, where the diamonds in the
star of the order glittered and sparkled in every colour of the
rainbow. Even on the dark wainscoting bright gleams were playing, and
they mingled with the glow of the fire upon the hearth, which was
sinking away to embers.

"What are you doing here?" a child's voice suddenly asked.

Michael turned round; upon the threshold of the adjoining room, the
door of which had been left open, stood a child about eight years of
age, looking in amazement at the stranger, who now answered,
laconically, "I am waiting."

The little girl, the daughter of the deceased Count, approached and
gazed curiously at the lad, then, probably arriving at the conclusion
that this coarsely-dressed young man could not possibly be a visitor in
the castle, turned up her little nose, although, since he was waiting
for somebody, she could not object to his presence. She turned to the
hearth, where she amused herself by blowing into the embers and
watching the sparks.

She was a graceful little creature, slender and delicate as a fairy,
undeniably pretty, in spite, many would have said, of the red hue of
the hair that fell in long thick curls over her shoulders and down upon
the black crape of her dress, giving a strange charm to the childish
figure. A pair of large eyes, undeterminable in colour, looked out of
the rosy little face; they shone like stars, but there was an odd gleam
in them,--they were not innocent, childish eyes.

Before long she grew tired of watching the sparks, and looking about
for some other amusement her glance fell again upon Michael, whom she
now honoured with a longer inspection. "Where did you come from?" she
asked, standing directly in front of him.

"From the forest," he replied, as laconically as before.

"Is it far from here?"

"Very far."

"And do you like our castle?"

"No."

Hertha gazed at him with surprise in her bright eyes; she had asked the
question with much condescension, and this strange man had dared to
declare briefly and dryly that he did not like a Count's castle. As she
was apparently considering whether or not to be displeased, her glance
fell upon Michael's hat, which he held in his hand, and which was
adorned with a bunch of magnificent Alpine roses. "Oh, what beautiful
flowers!" she exclaimed. "Give them to me." And she had possessed
herself of the hat and pulled out the flowers before Michael could say
a word. He looked rather amazed to see this appropriation of his
property, but made no attempt to prevent it.

The child seated herself in an arm-chair beside the hearth, seeming
delighted with her flowers, and began to talk easily and familiarly.
She told about the big castle where she had been accustomed to live
with her mother and father, and where it was all much prettier than
here, of her pony upon which she had learned to ride, and which had
unfortunately been left there, of her mother, and of much else besides.
The apparent dulness of her hearer seemed to amuse her mightily; she
tried to make him talk, and actually did extort from him that he was
the forester's son, and lived high up in the mountains in the forest
lodge, a fact that interested her much.

There was something bewitching in the sweet, beguiling childish voice,
and in the fairy-like little figure nestling gracefully among the
cushions of the arm-chair, where the hair glistened against the dark
background. Michael slowly drew near, and gradually began to reply more
easily; this beguiling talk and laughter cast about him a spell the
power of which he vaguely felt, although he did not understand it, and
could not shake it off.

As she talked, Hertha continued to play with the flowers, which she
separated, arranged, and rearranged, but at last wearying of them she
began to pull to pieces the nosegay she had so ardently coveted. Her
little hands pitilessly destroyed the white blossoms, throwing them
heedlessly on the ground. Michael frowned, and in a tone of
remonstrance, but still more of entreaty, said, "Do not pull them to
pieces! Those flowers were hard to find."

"But I don't like them any more," declared the child, and she continued
her work of destruction. Without further ado Michael seized her by the
arm and held her fast.

"Let me go!" exclaimed the little girl, angrily trying to escape from
his grasp. "I don't like your flowers any more; and I don't like you,
either, any more. Go away!"

There was more than mere childish waywardness in these words. The "I
don't like you, either, any more," sounded haughty and contemptuous,
and meanwhile the strange gleam appeared in the eyes that made them so
unchildlike. Michael suddenly loosened his grasp of her arm, but at the
same moment snatched the flowers from her.

Hertha slipped down from the arm-chair, and her lips quivered as if she
were about to burst into tears, but her eyes flashed with anger. "My
flowers! give me back my flowers!" she screamed, stamping her little
feet with rage.

Just then Wolfram reappeared. His interview with the Count must have
been highly satisfactory, for he looked extremely contented. "Come,
Michael, we are going," he said, beckoning to his foster-son.

Hertha knew the forester, who had been at the castle in the hunting
season as one of her father's servants, and instantly surmising that he
would help her to obtain what she wanted, she ran up to him. "I want my
flowers back!" she exclaimed, with all the petulance of a spoiled,
wayward child. "They are mine; make him give them back to me!"

"What flowers?" said Wolfram. "Those Alpine roses? Give them to her,
Michael. She is our master's daughter."

The child shook her curls triumphantly, and stretched out her hand for
the roses; but Michael was upon his guard, and held the nosegay so high
that she could not reach it.

"Come, do you hear?" the forester said, impatiently. "Don't you
understand? You must give the little Countess the flowers this
instant."

"This instant!" Hertha repeated, the childish voice that had been so
sweet now sounding shrill and authoritative. Michael looked down at the
small despot for one or two moments and then suddenly tossed the
flowers into the fireplace.

"Go and get them, then!" he said, roughly; and, turning his back upon
her, he left the room.

"Upon my word, the fellow does me credit to-day! Only wait until I get
him home," muttered Wolfram, with suppressed rage, as he followed the
lad.

Hertha was left alone; she stood motionless, looking wide-eyed after
the pair, but in another instant she bethought herself and ran hastily
to the fireplace. The flickering flame was devouring its prey; the
delicate white blossoms glowed red for an instant like fairy flowers,
and then curled up and sank to ashes.

The little girl folded her hands and looked on, her face still angry
and defiant, but gradually her eyes filled with tears, and when the
last of the flowers had perished in its fiery bed, she suddenly burst
into loud sobs.

When Count Steinrueck, after a few minutes, returned to his study, he
found no one there. A glance at the clock showed him that it was time
he were gone, and he hurriedly went to the writing-table to get the
order that was to complete his uniform. The case was still where he had
left it, but it was empty; probably the servant had seen what was wrong
with the ribbon and had taken it away to arrange it. Steinrueck rang the
bell. "My order," he said, hurriedly, to the man who appeared in answer
to the ring. "Is the carriage there?"

"Yes, Herr Count; but the order,--it is usually in the Herr Count's own
possession."

"Of course; I took it out to-day,--the large star of diamonds. Did you
not observe that the ribbon was loose?"

The servant shook his head. "I did not see the star. I was only in the
room a moment to receive the Herr Count's order about the carriage."

Steinrueck looked in extreme astonishment at the empty case. "Have you
not been in the room since?"

"No, Herr Count."

"Has no one else been here?"

"The forester's son was here when I left the room, and, I think, was
here alone for some time."

There was suspicion more than hinted at in these words, but the Count
shook his head decidedly. "Nonsense! that's impossible. Has no one else
been here? Bethink yourself."

"No, Herr Count; no one has even been in the corridor."

"But the bedroom on that side,--it is a thoroughfare."

"Only from the sleeping apartment of the Frau Countess by the
tapestried door."

Steinrueck turned pale, and involuntarily he clinched his hand, but he
still combated the dawning suspicion. "Look for it," he said. "The star
must be found; perhaps I mislaid it among the books and papers."

And without waiting for the man's assistance he began to look for the
jewel himself. He knew perfectly well that he had laid the star in the
case, which he had left open; nevertheless, he lifted every book and
paper, and searched every drawer, but to no purpose the thing was not
to be found.

"It is not here," the servant said at last, in a low tone. "If it was
lying here in the open case, there is but one explanation."

Steinrueck made no reply. He himself doubted no longer. "A thief, then!
A common thief!" The measure of his contempt and aversion was filled to
the brim.

There was silence for a few minutes; the servant stood waiting for
orders, startled by the expression on his master's face.

"Is Wolfram still in the castle?" the Count asked at last.

"I think he is. He wanted to see the major-domo."

"Then send his son to me! But not a word of what has happened!--not
even to the forester; send the boy here."

The man left the room, and for a moment Steinrueck covered his eyes with
his hand. This was terrible! And yet was it unnatural in the son of
such a father? The lad's whole appearance showed that he had inherited
not a drop of his mother's blood, and that other that filled his veins,
did it not proclaim itself what it was, and was it not a duty to
disclaim it and thrust it forth? Away with it!

The Count stood erect, resolute as ever, when Michael entered,
unwillingly to be sure, but with no idea of what this new summons
betokened.

"Close the door," said Steinrueck, "and come here!"

This time no second command was necessary: Michael obeyed without
hesitation. He stood before the Count, who, looking him directly in the
eye, held out to him the empty case. "Do you know what this is?" he
asked, with apparent composure.

The young man shook his head; he did not comprehend the strange
question.

"It was lying here on the writing-table," Steinrueck continued, "but it
was not empty as it is now. It contained a star of sparkling stones.
Did you not see it?"

Michael reflected. That, then, must have been the glittering object
that sparkled so in the sunlight, but of which he had taken little
heed.

"Well, I am waiting for an answer," said the Count, still keeping his
eye fixed on Michael's. "Where is the star?"

"How should I know?" asked Michael, more and more surprised at this
strange examination.

The Count's lips quivered. "You do not know, then? You are hardly so
stupid as you pretend to be. You act a farce extremely well. Where is
the star? I must know, and that instantly."

The threatening tone of the last words revealed the truth to the lad,
and he stood as if paralyzed, so horrified, so dismayed, that for the
moment he was utterly incapable of exculpating himself. His aspect
deprived Steinrueck of all shadow of doubt. He saw in it the
consciousness of guilt.

"Confess, fellow!" he said in an undertone, but with terrible emphasis.
"Give up what you have stolen, and thank God that I let you go
scot-free. Do you hear? Give up your booty!"

Michael shrank as if he had received a stab, but in an instant he burst
forth, "I a thief? I take----"

"Hush!" interrupted Steinrueck, angrily. "I will have no noise, no
commotion, but you do not stir from the spot until you have confessed.
Confess!"

He seized the young fellow by the arm, and his grasp was like iron, but
with a single wrench Michael freed himself. "Let go of me!" he gasped.
"Never say that again! Never again, or----"

"What! you would threaten besides?" cried the Count, who took this
outburst for the height of insolence. "Take care, boy; one word more,
and I shall forget to spare you."

"I am no thief!" shouted Michael; "and whoever dares call me so I'll
fell him to the earth!"

In an instant he had seized a heavy silver candelabrum from the table
and swung it like a weapon towards the Count, who recoiled a step,--not
from the menaced blow, but from the face confronting him. Was that the
same young man that had stood there a few moments before with the
vacant, dreamy countenance, the timid, sheepish air? He reared his head
now like a wounded lion ready to rush upon the stronger foe, rage and
savage hatred informing every feature. And Steinrueck's eyes, flashing
annihilation, encountered two other eyes, dark blue like his own, and
gleaming with the same fire. There was one breathless moment. No
coward, no thief, ever looked like that.

The door flew open,--the loud, menacing voice must have been heard in
the anteroom,--and the forester appeared on the threshold, the
frightened face of the servant looking over his shoulder.

"Boy, are you mad?" shouted Wolfram, hastening to his master's aid, and
seizing Michael by the shoulder. But the lad shook himself free as a
wounded stag shakes off the murderous pack, then dashed the candelabrum
on the ground, and rushed to the door. But here he was intercepted by
the servant. "Hold him!" the man cried out to the forester. "He must
not escape! He has robbed the Herr Count!"

Wolfram, who was about to secure his foster-son, paused in horror.
"Michael,--a thief?"

A cry burst from the lips of the tortured boy, a cry so desperate that
Steinrueck interfered hurriedly, and would have ordered both men to
refrain, but it was too late. The servant staggered aside beneath the
blow of Michael's powerful young fist, and the lad rushed past him and
away, as if goaded to madness by those terrible words.


                           *   *   *   *   *


When Wolfram the forester made his appearance at St. Michael's
parsonage, he seemed to be expected, for his reverence came to meet him
in the hall.

"Well, Wolfram, any tidings yet?"

"No, your reverence, not a trace of the fellow; but I come from the
castle; and I have something from there to tell you."

Valentin opened the door of his study and beckoned the forester to
follow him, but he was evidently not as much interested in news from
the castle as in the question which he repeated with anxiety. "Then
Michael has not been at home yet?"

"No, your reverence, not yet."

"This is the third day, and we have no trace of him. I trust he has
come to no harm."

"He couldn't come to harm," the forester said, with a harsh laugh.
"He's wandering about, not daring to come home, because he knows what
he'll get when he does come; but he'll have to show himself at last,
and then--God have mercy on him!"

"What do you mean to do, Wolfram? Remember your promise."

"I kept it as long as there was anything to be done with the fellow,
but that's over now. If he thinks that he can knock down and run over
everybody he shall learn that there is one man at least who is a match
for him. I'll make him feel that, so long as I can lift a finger."

"You will not touch Michael until I have had a talk with him," said the
priest, gravely. "You say you come from the castle. How are they there?
Has the missing order been found at last?"

"Yes, the very day it was lost. Little Countess Hertha had taken away
the glittering thing to play with, and after a while she ran with it to
her mother, and so the whole matter was explained."

"All because of a child's carelessness, then," Valentin said, bitterly,
"a degrading, shameful suspicion fell upon Michael, who----"

He broke off suddenly, and the forester grumbled, "Why did he not open
his lips and defend himself? I should have told them they were wrong,
but Michael stood stock-still, I suppose, until they tried to seize
him, and then behaved like a wounded bear. And to attack the Herr
Count! You can hardly believe it, but I saw him myself, standing with
the lifted candlestick. And I have to pay for the fellow's cursed
behaviour. The Herr Count was very cross to-day, he would hardly speak
a word to me, but he gave me a letter to bring to your reverence."

He took an envelope from his pouch and handed it to the priest. "Very
well, Wolfram. Now go, and if Michael shows himself at the lodge, send
him directly to me. I forbid you to maltreat him in any way until I
have talked with him."

The forester left, grumbling at being obliged to postpone his
punishment of the 'cursed boy,' but vowing that it should take place
for all that. When Valentin was alone he opened the letter from the
Count. It was brief enough:


"I wish to inform your reverence that the missing article has been
found, and of course the charge of theft is proved unfounded. With
regard to your _protege's_ conduct in behaving like a madman, even
daring to make an assault upon myself, instead of defending himself and
helping to explain the affair, you have doubtless heard all particulars
from Wolfram, and will comprehend why I must decline all compliance
with your wishes. This rude, unbridled fellow, with his savage
disposition, belongs to the sphere in which he has passed his life.
Wolfram is just the man to control him, and he will remain in his
charge. All education would be wasted upon such a nature, and I am
convinced that after what has occurred you will agree with me.

                                 "Michael, Count Steinrueck."


The priest dropped the letter and sat lost in sad thought. "Not a
single word of regret for the shameful suspicion that fell upon an
innocent fellow-being; nothing but contempt and condemnation. And yet
the boy is bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh."

"Your reverence!" The words came from the half-opened door, and were
spoken in a suppressed voice. Valentin started up and breathed a sigh
of relief. "Michael! Are you here at last? Thank God!"

"I thought--you, too, would turn me off," Michael said, gently.

"I want to talk with you. Why do you keep at the door there? Come in."

The young man slowly approached. He wore the same Sunday suit which he
had worn on that eventful day, but it had evidently been exposed to the
wind and rain.

"I have been anxious about you," Valentin said, reproachfully. "No
trace of you for forty-eight hours! Where have you been?"

"In the forest."

"And where did you pass the nights?"

"In the empty herdsman's-hut on the mountain."

"In all the storm? Why did you not go home?"

"I knew that Wolfram would attempt to beat me, and I do not mean to be
beaten again. I wished to spare both him and myself what would have
happened."

His answers sounded monotonous, but the old indifference had gone;
there was something in Michael's whole air and bearing strange, gloomy,
decided. He was very different from his former self. The priest looked
at him with anxiety.

"Then you ought to have come to me. I expected you."

"I have come to your reverence, and what they have told you of me is
not true. I am no thief."

"I know it. I never for an instant believed that you were, and now no
suspicion rests upon you. The missing star has been found; little
Countess Hertha carried it off for a plaything."

Michael stroked aside the damp curls from his brow, and his face wore a
strange, hard expression. "Ah, the child with the red-gold hair and the
beautiful evil eyes. It is she that I have to thank, is it?"

"The little girl is not to blame; she simply, after the fashion of
spoiled children, carried off from her uncle's room what she supposed
to be a plaything, and took it to her mother. You were the one at
fault; you ought to have exculpated yourself calmly and sensibly,
and the affair would have been immediately explained, instead of
which--Michael, can it be true that you lifted your hand against Count
Steinrueck?"

"He called me a thief!" Michael gasped. "Oh, if you knew how he treated
me! I was to confess--to return what I had not stolen. He never asked
whether I were guilty or not. He would have liked to kick me out of the
castle."

There was a degree of savage bitterness in the lad's words, and
Valentin could understand it; he saw that his pupil had been irritated
to madness. "They did you wrong," he said, "grievous wrong, but you
ought not to have given way to furious passion, and the consequences of
your anger will recoil heavily upon yourself. The Count is naturally
indignant at what has occurred. You need no longer reckon upon his aid,
he will hear nothing more of you."

"Will he not? But he shall hear _from_ me! Once more at least."

"What do you mean? You do not propose to----?"

"Go to him! Yes, your reverence. Now that he knows to what unmerited
disgrace he subjected me, he shall take it all back!"

"You propose to call Count Steinrueck to account?" the priest exclaimed
in dismay. "What an insane idea! You must give this up."

"No!" said Michael, in a hard, cold tone.

"Michael!"

"No, your reverence, I will not, even although you forbid my going. I
choose to ask him why he called me thief."

All his thoughts revolved about this one point, the disgrace which had
been heaped upon him, and which burned into his soul like red-hot iron.
Valentin was at his wit's end; he saw that here his remonstrances could
avail nothing, and the savage desire for revenge that was plain in this
intent of the lad's filled him with dread. If Michael really carried
out his plan of taking the Count to task, and if the Count should
undertake to chastise the 'rough, unbridled fellow,' some terrible
misfortune might ensue; it must be prevented at all hazards.

"I never thought that my words would avail so little with you," he
said, sorrowfully. "Well, then, something else must appeal to you.
Whether the Count has wronged you or not, it would be a crime for you
to lift a finger against him; you must never--heed what I say--never
confront him as a foe; he stands nearer to you than you dream."

"To me? Count Steinrueck?"

"Yes. I meant to have told you hereafter of what I now reveal to you,
but your insane behaviour forces me to speak. You would else be in
danger of making a second assault upon--your grandfather!"

Michael started, and stood staring wide-eyed at the speaker. "My
grandfather! He is----?"

"Your mother's father. But you must cherish no hopes from the tie; your
mother was disinherited and cast off. Her marriage separated her
forever from her family, and was her ruin."

He paused and looked at Michael, who for the moment said not a word,
although it was evident that the revelation had agitated him terribly.
His features worked, and his chest rose and fell as though he were
labouring for breath; at last after a long pause he said, gloomily, "Go
on,--is there no more to tell?"

"No, my son, no more for the present. It is a sad story, ending in
grief and misery; a tissue of crime and misfortune that you could
hardly understand. Hereafter, when you are older and more mature, you
shall hear everything; for the present let the bare facts content you:
I vouch for their truth. You see now that the person of Count Steinrueck
should be sacred to you."

"Sacred? When he hounded me like a thief from his door?" Michael
suddenly burst forth. "He knew that he was my grandfather, and yet
could treat me so! Like a dog! Ah, your reverence, you ought not to bid
me hold him sacred. I hated the Count because he was so hard and
pitiless to a stranger, but now,--I should like to----"

He clinched his fist with so terrible a look that Valentin
involuntarily recoiled. "For the love of all the saints you would
not----?"

"Touch him,--no! I know now that I must not lift my hand against him,
but if I could call him to account otherwise, I would give my life for
a chance to do so."

Valentin stood speechless, dismayed, though this savage outbreak was
not alone what dismayed him. He too saw now what had so surprised his
brother, that strange gleam that flashed out suddenly like lightning to
vanish as instantly. The rugged, undeveloped features were the same,
but the dreamy face had gone; as if a veil had been raised all at once
there were revealed other eyes, another brow, and the movement with
which Michael turned to leave the room was full of savage resolve.

"Where are you going?" the priest asked, hastily. "To the forest
lodge?"

"No; I have nothing to do there now. Farewell, your reverence."

"Stay! Where, then, are you going?"

"I do not know,--away,--out into the world."

"Alone? Without means? Utterly ignorant of the world and of life? What
will you do?"

"Go to ruin like my mother," the lad replied, roughly.

"No, by heaven, that you shall not!" exclaimed the priest, rising with
unwonted determination. "If my vows tie my hands,--if I cannot take
care of you,--I can intrust you to another. It was a special providence
that brought my brother here; he will not refuse to help me: I can rely
upon him."

Michael shook his head in dissent. "Better let me go, your reverence; I
am accustomed to be maltreated and turned out everywhere; I do not want
to be a burden upon a stranger. I can scarcely be worse off out in the
world than I was with my parents. I can remember it from my earliest
childhood. Neither my mother nor I ever had a kind word from my father,
and he often used to beat us both; it was not very different from the
life at the lodge, except that I was not starved at the forester's."

Valentin shuddered; he could not help it at the thought of the woman
whom he had formerly seen in all the pride of her beauty and rank.
This, then, had been the end of it all. A terrible glimpse into the
depths of human misery.

"You _must_ not go, Michael," he said, gently but decidedly. "There can
be no question of your return to the lodge. Here you will stay until I
hear from my brother,--I know beforehand what he will say,--and until
then I take charge of you."

Michael did not gainsay this, and made no further attempt to depart. He
turned darkly away to the window, and stood there with folded arms
looking out, the same sullen determination in his look that had
characterized it when he would have rushed away. Yes, the somnambulist
had wakened when his name had been called, out the call had been rude,
and the awakening bitter.


                           *   *   *   *   *


A golden autumnal day had arisen from the dim morning mists; the
mountains were unveiled and the valleys were filled with sunshine.

The little mountain-town, which lay about a league from Castle
Steinrueck, nestling most picturesquely at the entrance of the valley,
was harbouring a distinguished guest. Professor Hans Wehlau, of
worldwide reputation as a light of science, was paying a visit to his
brother-in-law, the burgomaster of the little town. For ten years the
Professor had now been living in the capital of Northern Germany, where
he occupied a prominent position in the university. Since the death of
his wife he had rather withdrawn from society, from which his two sons
were also secluded by the duties of their several occupations; the
younger was completing at another university the studies in natural
science which he had begun under his father's tuition, and the elder,
an adopted son, the child of a friend who had died, having embraced a
military career, was stationed with his regiment in a provincial town.
All, however, were to share in this excursion to relatives among the
mountains. The Professor had been here for some weeks, and his sons had
arrived on the previous day.

The burgomaster's fine spacious house looked out upon the market
square, and the upper rooms, usually unoccupied, had been placed at the
disposal of the guests. The Frau Burgomeisterin did all that she could
to make the stay beneath her roof of her dead sister's husband
agreeable to him, and her efforts in this direction were all the more
praiseworthy since she was always upon a war-footing with him. She was
perpetually vacillating between respect for his reputation, very
flattering to her vanity in so near a relative, and detestation for the
'godless' scientific doctrines to which he owed his fame, and it was a
great trial to her that her nephew, whom, in the absence of any
children of her own, she loved like a son, should have been compelled
by his father's command to pursue the path of science.

It was early in the morning, and the Professor was standing at the
window of his room looking out upon the quiet market square. Wehlau had
changed but little in the last ten years. He had the same intellectual
face, with its sarcastic expression and piercing eyes; the hair,
however, had grown gray. Beside him stood the Frau Burgomeisterin, an
imposing figure, of whom the evil-disposed in Tannberg affirmed that
she ruled the ruler, and was the autocrat of her household.

"And our boys are here at last!" said the Professor, in apparently high
good humour. "You'll have noise and confusion enough now, for Hans will
turn the house upside down. You know him of old. They both look very
well: Michael, especially, has a very manly air."

"Hans is much the handsomer and more attractive," the lady rejoined,
very decidedly. "Michael has neither of these qualities."

"Granted, in the eyes of you ladies, that is! On the other hand, he has
an earnestness and solidity of character by which our harum-scarum Hans
might well take example. It is no small distinction for so young an
officer to be ordered for service on the general's staff. He surprised
me yesterday with this piece of information, while Hans will have some
difficulty in getting his diploma."

"That's not the poor boy's fault," his sister-in-law declared. "He has
never had more than a half-hearted interest in the profession that has
been forced upon him. It cost my poor sister many a secret tear to have
you insist so inexorably upon his burying his talent."

"And you whole rivers of them," the Professor added, with a sneer. "You
all made my life wretched combining with the boy against me, until I
issued my mandate, which he was forced to obey."

"With despair in his heart. In destroying his hope of an artistic
career you deprived him of his ideal,--of all the poesy of his young
life."

"Don't mention Poesy, I entreat," Wehlau interrupted her. "I am on the
worst of terms with that lady for all the mischief she does and the
heads she turns. I set my son straight, I rejoice to say, in time. I
have not noticed any despair about him. Moreover, he has not a particle
of talent for it."

"Good-morning, papa!" called a gay young voice, and the subject of the
conversation appeared in the door-way.

Hans Wehlau junior was a slender and very handsome young fellow of
twenty-four, with nothing in his exterior to suggest the dignity of the
future professor. His straw hat, before he removed it, sat jauntily
upon his thick, light brown hair, and his very becoming summer suit,
with a 'turn-down' shirt collar, had an artistic, rather than a
learned, air. His fresh, youthful face was lit up by a pair of laughing
blue eyes, and altogether there was something so attractive and
endearing about him that the Professor's evident paternal pride was
very easy to understand.

"Well, Head-over-heels, here you are!" he said, gayly. "I have been
preparing your aunt for the turmoil that you carry with you wherever
you go."

"On the contrary, sir, I have grown monstrously sedate," Hans declared,
illustrating his assertion by putting his arm around the waist of his
aunt, who had just innocently set down her basket of keys, and waltzing
with her around the room in spite of her struggles.

"Let me alone, you unmannerly boy!" she said, out of breath, when at
last he released her with a profound bow.

"Forgive me, aunt, but it was the suitable preface to my errand. The
kitchen department urgently requires your presence; and, as I like to
make myself useful in a house, I offered to inform you of it."

Her nephew's zeal in this respect seemed rather suspicious to the
mistress of the house, who asked, "What were you doing in the kitchen?"

"Good heavens! I was only paying my respects to old Gretel."

"Indeed? And young Leni was not there?"

"Oh, I had her presented to me, as I had not seen her before. It was my
duty as one of the family. My tastes are very domestic."

"My dear Hans," the Frau Burgomeisterin said, with decision, "I take no
interest in your domestic tastes, and if I find them leading you into
the kitchen, the doors will be locked in your face; remember that." She
nodded to her brother-in-law, and sailed majestically out of the room.

"Take care, take care!" said the Professor. "Favourite as you are with
your aunt, there are certain points upon which she will have no
jesting; and she is right. At all events, her mind must now be set at
rest with regard to your despair, as she calls it. She clings
obstinately to the idea that you are unhappy in your profession."

"No, sir, I am not at all unhappy," the young man asserted, seating
himself astride of a chair and looking cheerfully about him.

"I never supposed you were. Such youthful nonsense is sure to vanish of
itself as soon as one is occupied with graver matters."

"Of course, papa," Hans assented, occupying himself for the time with
rocking his chair to and fro, a proceeding which appeared to afford him
great gratification.

"And these graver matters are comprised in science," Wehlau continued,
with emphasis. "Unfortunately, I have of late--those chairs are not
made to ride upon, Hans; such school-boy tricks are very unbecoming in
a future doctor--I have of late had too little time to examine you
thoroughly in your studies. The voluminous work which I have just
completed has, as you know, absorbed all my attention. But now I am
free, and we can make up for our delay."

"Of course, papa," said Hans, who had taken the paternal admonition to
heart, and had left the chair, but was now seated on the corner of a
table, swinging his feet.

Fortunately, the Professor, whose back was turned to him, did not
see this, so the father continued to arrange some papers upon his
study-table, and went on calmly: "Your student days are past, and I
hope they have carried with them all your nonsense. I depend upon
greater seriousness, now that we are to begin scientific study in
earnest. Be diligent, Hans; you will be grateful to me one of these
days when you succeed me as professor."

"Of course, papa," the obedient son observed for the third time; but as
at the moment his father turned and cast an irritated glance at him, he
jumped lightly from the table.

"Will you never have done with these school-boy pranks? Pray try to
take example by Michael; you never see him conduct himself so."

"No, indeed," Hans laughed merrily. "The Herr Lieutenant is the
embodiment of military discipline at all times. Always in position, his
coat buttoned up to the throat. Who would have thought it when he came
to us first, a shy, awkward boy, staring about him at the world and
mankind as at something monstrous? I had to take him under my wing
perpetually."

"I imagine he very soon outgrew any wing of yours," the Professor said,
sarcastically.

"More's the pity. The case is reversed now, and he orders me about. But
confess, papa, that at first you despaired of making a human being of
Michael."

"As far as conventionalities are concerned, I certainly did. He had
learned more, far more, than I had supposed. My brother had been an
excellent teacher to him, and when he was once aroused, he applied
himself with such unwearied diligence and interest that I often
wondered at the strength of character shown in divesting himself of all
his childish, dreamy ways."

"Yes, Michael was always your favourite," Hans said, discontentedly.
"You never put any force upon him, but agreed instantly to his desire
to be a soldier, while I----"

"It was a very different thing," his father interrupted him. "As
matters stand, Michael was forced to shape his future and his mode of
life himself, and with his temperament he is best fitted for a soldier.
The reckless dash at a goal without a glance either to the right or to
the left, the stern law of duty, the despotic subduing of antagonistic
qualities beneath the iron yoke of discipline, all accord perfectly
with his character, and he will inevitably rise in the army. You, on
the other hand, must reap what I have sown, and therefore abide in my
domain; your life is conveniently arranged for you."

The young man's air betrayed but a small degree of satisfaction with
this arrangement; but he suddenly started up and exclaimed, gayly,
"Here comes Michael!"

Ten years are a long time in a human existence, and they seem doubly
long when they occur at the season when a man develops most rapidly; in
Michael's case the change wrought by the years bordered on the
marvellous. The former foster-son of Wolfram the forester and the young
officer were two different individuals, who had not a characteristic in
common.

Handsome, Michael Rodenberg certainly was not,--in that respect he was
far behind Hans Wehlau,--but he was one who could never pass unnoticed.
His tall, muscular figure seemed created to wear a uniform and to gird
on a sword. It had exchanged all the awkwardness of the boy for the
erect carriage of the soldier. His fair, close curls had lost none of
their luxuriance, but they were carefully arranged, and the bearded
face, if it could lay no claim to beauty, was interesting enough
without it. All that was boyish in it had vanished, the strong,
resolute head was that of ripe manhood,--a manhood too early ripened,
perchance, for the countenance expressed at times a degree of gravity
which was almost sternness, and which does not belong to youth.

In the eyes, too, there was none of the old dreamy look; their gaze had
grown keen and firm, but they never had learned to sparkle with the
joyous inspiration of youth. There was something chilling in them, as
indeed in the whole air of the young man, which only at intervals, in
conversation, was animated by a genial glow. Yet, as he stood there,
erect, firm, resolute, he was the ideal of a soldier from head to heel.

"In uniform?" asked the Professor, surprised, as Michael bade him
good-morning. "Have you an official visit to pay here?"

"After a fashion, yes; I must go over to Elmsdorf. The former chief of
my regiment, Colonel von Reval, since he resigned, has always spent the
summer and autumn at his country-seat there. He probably thinks that I
have been here some time, for I found upon my arrival yesterday a few
lines from him inviting me to Elmsdorf. My aunt will, I hope, excuse
me; the colonel has been very kind to me."

"You were always his special favourite," Hans remarked. "When he
returned at the close of the Danish war, he came to see papa to
congratulate him upon having so distinguished a son. I was furious at
the time, for as I had heard nothing for weeks except songs of praise
in your honour, with animadversions upon my insignificance, your
doughty deeds were deeply annoying to me."

"Most certainly no one ever congratulated me upon possessing _you_, at
least during your university course," Wehlau observed, sharply.
"Moreover, we expected you here last week; why did you come so late?"

"On Michael's account; he could not get leave until he had accompanied
his regiment into quarters after being on special duty. When I went to
his quarters to find him, I had a piece of luck----"

"As usual!" the Professor interjected.

"Yes. I had made up my mind to spend a week in that dull provincial
town, but on my arrival I heard that Michael was three miles away, in a
gay little watering-place, near which his regiment was exercising. Of
course I hurried after him, with a blessing upon the wisdom of the
military authorities. The Herr Lieutenant was indeed head over ears in
strict attention to duty, and quite deaf and blind to all else, even to
an acquaintance for which every other officer of his corps envied him,
and of which he would not take the least advantage. No one else could
gain admission at Countess Steinrueck's; she was very much of an
invalid."

The Professor was evidently struck by the name, and cast a keen glance
at Michael. "Countess Steinrueck?"

"Of Berkheim. You know her, papa; for, as she herself told me, you were
often at her father-in-law's when you were a young physician, and at
her request you went to her when her husband was dying. She is very
grateful yet to you for doing so."

"Of course I know her; but how did you make her acquaintance, Michael?"

"By accident," was the laconic reply.

"It was certainly by no fault of his," Hans said, in a mocking tone
that plainly betrayed his ignorance of the part played in Michael's
life by the name of Steinrueck. "I must tell you the story in detail,
papa; it begins very romantically. Well, Michael was sitting in the
forest,--that is, he was in command of his men there and ordering them
to fire,--when a carriage came driving along a road in the distance.
The horses were frightened by the firing and ran away; the coachman
lost his reins, and the danger was imminent, when from the dim forest
near by a gallant knight rushed to the rescue, stopped the horses, tore
open the carriage door, and lifted out the fainting ladies----"

"Stick to the truth, Hans," the young officer interposed, with some
irritation. "Neither the danger nor the heroism was as great as you
describe. I merely saw that the horses were frightened, and ran up to
avert an accident; but the brutes stopped as soon as I caught hold of
their bridles, and the ladies sat still in the carriage. No need of any
poetical exaggeration."

"Nor of such prosaic treatment of facts," Hans retorted. "I heard the
story from the Countess herself, and she persists quite as obstinately
in saying that you saved her life as you persist in denying having done
so."

Michael shrugged his shoulders and turned to the Professor. "In fact,
the Countess did thus persist, and as the house where I was staying was
near her villa I could not avoid frequent meetings with her. But I was
very much occupied with the service, and had but little time at my
disposal."

"Yes, yes, that eternal 'service'!" exclaimed Hans, indignantly. "At
last he was never to be seen. It was with the greatest difficulty that
I persuaded him to find time to introduce me, and when he had done so
he went off, and left me to explain and apologize for his extraordinary
behaviour. The ladies made him the most amiable advances, but he was a
perfect icicle."

"Michael probably has his own reasons for his conduct," said Wehlau;
"and if he thought best to maintain a degree of reserve, you would have
done well to follow his example."

"Ah, no; that was simply out of the question. The young Countess was
too beautiful,--a perfect princess in a fairy-tale: superb golden hair
and eyes that shine like stars. They can beguile, those eyes of hers."

"And can scorn," Michael added, in a tone the coldness of which
contrasted strongly with his friend's enthusiasm. "Beware of them,
Hans; it is a sad fate to be first beguiled and then scorned."

"You say that because the Countess Hertha is thought very haughty. I
too believe that any man who could not reckon up ten generations of
ancestors at least would have but a poor chance if he were audacious
enough to woo her. Since, however, I do not covet that honour, nothing
hinders my admiration. And if I should really allow myself to be
beguiled by those eyes----"

"Come, come; let all that alone," his father cut short his son's
sentence. "You have no business with fairy princesses or starry eyes; I
bar all such nonsense. All that you have to think about is your coming
thesis."

The two young men exchanged a hasty, significant glance, and Michael
said, lightly, "Do not be troubled, uncle. If Hans is a little
scorched, it will do him no harm; he is used to it."

"Yes, he has been childish and silly enough, but now he will have the
kindness to adopt a graver tone. I have an unoccupied morning to-day,
Hans, and we will have an exhaustive talk about your studies. The
sketch of them that you gave me in the holidays was very slight. I want
now to know all about them."

Again the young men exchanged a glance that seemed to betoken a secret
understanding, as the Professor arose and said, casually, "I only want
to tell Leni that she must be careful to-day about sending my letters
to the post. I shall be back immediately," with which he left the room.

Hans looked after him, folded his arms, and said, in an undertone, "Now
for the bursting of the bomb!"

"Do not take the matter so easily," Michael admonished him. "You
certainly have a hard battle to fight; my uncle will be furious."

"I know it; that's why I am all armed and equipped. You're not going; I
can't spare you. When the fight grows too hot I shall summon you as my
_corps de reserve_. Do stay and help me."

"I am glad, at all events, that there is to be no more secrecy," said
the young officer, discontentedly, as he withdrew into the recess of a
window. "I promised you to be silent, but it was very hard for me;
harder than for you."

"Bah! I did not know what else to do. And you soldiers admit that all's
fair in war. Hush! here he comes! Now for the assault!"

The Professor re-entered the room, and took his seat comfortably in an
arm-chair, beckoning his son to take his place beside him. "You
certainly have been in good hands," he began. "My colleague, Bauer, is
an authority in his specialty, and shares my views entirely. That was
the reason why I yielded to your earnest entreaty and sent you for two
years to B----. I was afraid that the chief attraction for you lay in
the gay student life there, but I nevertheless judged it best that you
should pursue your studies under other guidance than my own, after I
had laid the foundation for them. Now let me hear."

The young man was evidently made very uncomfortable by this prelude; he
twirled his handsome moustache, and stammered somewhat as he replied,
"Yes,--Professor Bauer; I attended his lectures--very regularly."

"Of course; I recommended you to him particularly."

"But I did not learn anything from him."

Wehlau frowned, and said, reprovingly, "Hans, it is very unbecoming so
to criticise a worthy man of science. His delivery, to be sure, leaves
much to be desired, but his treatises are admirable."

"Good heavens, I am not speaking of the Herr Professor's treatises, but
of my own, and they were unfortunately far from admirable. I felt that
myself, and accordingly I made a slight change in my course of study."

"Against my express directions. I laid out your course precisely for
you. To whom did you go, then?"

Hans hesitated to reply, and glanced towards the window where his
'reserves' were stationed, before he said, in a rather constrained
voice, "To--to Professor Walter."

"Walter? Who is he? I do not know the name."

"Oh, papa, you surely must have heard of Friedrich Walter. He has a
world-wide reputation as an artist."

"As a what?" the Professor asked, not crediting his ears.

"As an artist, and that was the reason why I wanted to go to B----.
Master Walter lives there, and did me the honour of receiving me into
his atelier. In fact, I have not applied myself to the study of natural
science; I have become a painter!"

It was out at last. Wehlau sprang to his feet, and stared speechless at
his son.

"Boy, are you mad?" he cried; but Hans, who knew well that his only
hope lay in not allowing his father to speak, rattled on very quickly,
"I have been very diligent all these two years, extremely diligent. My
teacher will tell you so; he thinks I may safely be left to myself now,
and when I came away he said to me, 'It will surely delight your father
to see the progress you have made; refer any one to me.'"

All this was uttered with extreme volubility; the words fell like honey
from his lips, but it did him no good any longer; at last the Professor
understood that there was no jest about the 'slight change' of studies,
and he burst forth, "And you dare to brave me thus! You dare secretly,
behind my back, to play such a farce; to defy my command, to laugh my
wishes to scorn; and now you imagine that I shall yield in the matter,
and say 'yes,' and 'amen'? You will find yourself vastly mistaken."

Hans hung his head and looked crushed. "Do not be so hard upon me,
papa! Art is my ideal, the poesy of my life, and if you knew how my
conscience has pricked me for my disobedience!"

"You look as if your conscience pricked you," the Professor stormed,
still more furious. "Ideal,--Poesy,--the same cursed old trash! The
shibboleth to hide all the folly that men perpetrate. Never imagine
that such nonsense will go down with me. Whatever pranks you may have
played hitherto, now you are coming home, and I shall take you in hand.
You will shortly pass the examination for your degree! Do you hear? I
order you to do so."

"But I have not learned anything," Hans declared, with positive
exultation. "While the lectures were going on I sketched or caricatured
either the professors or the audience, as the case might be, and all
that you taught me I forgot long ago; I could not write an essay a page
long, and you cannot send me to the university again."

"You are actually boasting of your ignorance," said Wehlau, sternly;
"and the inconceivable deception you have practised upon me you perhaps
consider another piece of heroism to be proud of."

"No; only as a necessary weapon, when all other means failed. How I
formerly implored and entreated you to yield to my desires, and all in
vain! You would have had me sacrifice my talent, my entire future, to a
profession for which I was not fitted, and in which I never could have
excelled. You denied me the means for my artistic education and thought
thereby to force my inclination. When I said to you, 'I want to be a
painter,' you met me with an inexorable 'no.' Now I say to you, 'I am a
painter,' and you will have to say 'yes.'"

"That remains to be seen," Wehlau burst forth afresh. "I will see
whether I cannot govern my own son. I am master in my own house, and
I'll have no rebellion there; those who oppose me will have to leave
it."

The young man's cheek paled at this threat; he stepped up close to his
father, and his voice sounded imploring, but gravely in earnest.
"Father, do not let matters go too far between you and me. I am not
made as you are. I have always had a horror of your cold lofty science
that makes life so clear and so--desolate. You do not comprehend that
there is another world, and that there is a temperament to which this
other world is as necessary as the air to the lungs. You wring from
nature her secrets; everything that lives and moves must be adjusted to
your rules and theories; you know the origin and end of every created
being. But you do not know your own son, whom you cannot fit to your
theories. He has clasped close his morsel of poesy and ideality, and
has pursued his own path, in which he will never disgrace you."

With this he turned and walked towards the door; but the Professor, who
was in no wise disposed to end the interview thus, called angrily after
him, "Stay, Hans! Come back this instant!"

But Hans thought fit not to hear the call, he saw that his _corps de
reserve_ was advancing, and he left it to Michael to cover his retreat
as best he might.

"Let him go, uncle," said Michael, who had come forward some minutes
before, and now attempted to soothe the angry man. "You are too
irritated; you must be calmer before you speak to him again."

The admonition was vain. Wehlau had no idea of becoming calmer, and
since his disobedient son was no longer present, he turned upon his
advocate. "And you too have been in the plot; you knew it all; do not
deny it. Hans tells you everything; why did you keep silence?"

"Because I had given my word, and could not break it, however I might
dislike secrecy."

"Then you ought to have taken the boy in hand yourself and brought him
to reason."

"That I could not do, for he is right."

"What! Are you beginning too?" shouted the Professor, shaking a
menacing finger; but Michael held his ground and repeated firmly, "Yes,
uncle, perfectly right. I never would have allowed myself to be forced
to adopt a calling which I disliked and for which I was not fit. I
should, it is true, have waged more open and therefore sterner warfare
than Hans has done; he has simply avoided a struggle. From the day when
you forced him to the course of study you approved, and to which he
ostensibly applied himself, he began to make a preliminary study of
painting, but he finally perceived the impossibility of completing his
artistic education beneath your eyes, and therefore he went to B----.
He must have done extremely well there, for if a man like Professor
Walter testifies to his artistic ability, it is indubitable, you may be
sure."

"Silence!" growled the Professor. "I will not hear another word. I say
no, and no again,--and---- Are you coming to triumph too? I suppose you
also were in the plot."

The last words were spoken to his sister-in-law, who came innocently
into the room to get her basket of keys which she had left behind her,
and who looked amazed at this angry reception.

"What is the matter?" asked she. "What has happened?"

"Happened? Nothing has happened! Only a very slight change in my son's
studies, as he is pleased to express it. But woe to the boy if he
appears before me again! He shall find out who and what I am."

With these words Wehlau strode into the next room, slamming the door
behind him, while his sister-in-law gazed at Michael in dismay. "Tell
me, in heavens' name, what has occurred?"

"A catastrophe. Hans has made a confession, which he could no longer
suppress, to his father. He did not pursue his studies at the
university, but used his time there in studying art with Professor
Walter. But excuse me, aunt, I must go and find him. He had really
better avoid meeting his father for the present."

So saying, Michael hastily left the room, where the Frau Burgomeisterin
stood motionless for a few minutes; but at last her face broke into a
beaming smile, and with an expression of supreme satisfaction she said,
"And so he's played a trick upon the infallible Herr Professor, and
such a trick! Darling boy!"


                           *   *   *   *   *


Elmsdorf, the estate of Herr von Reval, was situated at no great
distance from the town. It was no old mountain stronghold, with an
historic past, like Steinrueck, but a pleasant modern country-seat which
its situation made a very desirable summer residence. The house, a
spacious villa with balconies and terraces, was surrounded by a park,
not very extensive indeed, but charmingly laid out, and the interior of
the mansion, without being magnificent, gave evidence of the taste and
wealth of its possessors.

Colonel Reval had sent in his resignation from the army three years
previous to our present date in consequence of wounds received in the
last war. Since then he, with his wife, had spent the winters in the
capital and the summers at Elmsdorf, which he had converted from a very
simple abode into a charming country-seat.

Michael Rodenberg, who had served in the colonel's regiment, and
afterwards had been his adjutant, had always enjoyed the special favour
of his chief, who even after he had quitted the service continued to
give proofs of his regard for the young officer.

Elmsdorf to-day was holding high festival, celebrating the birthday of
its mistress, and, as the hospitable mansion was very popular in the
country around, the company assembled was very numerous. Michael was
present, of course, and Professor Wehlau and his son had also received
invitations. Unfortunately, there was no hope of seeing the
distinguished man of science among the guests. He excused his absence
on the plea of indisposition, but in truth he was averse to all society
at present, since his son's obstinate disobedience filled him with
indignation and controlled his mood to a great degree. Both the young
men, however, had driven over to Elmsdorf.

Herr and Frau von Reval received their guests with all the hospitable
grace that made their house a social centre in all the country round
about. Hans Wehlau on this occasion justified his father's assertion
that he was fortune's favourite, to whom without any effort of his own
all hearts and homes were flung wide open. He had scarcely been
presented to the mistress of the house before she showed him special
marks of favour, every one thought him charming, and he moved among all
these strangers as if he had been intimate in the household from
boyhood.

All the more of a stranger did Michael feel himself to be. He possessed
neither the inclination nor the capacity for so swift and easy an
adaptation of himself to his surroundings. With the exception of the
colonel and his wife he knew no one of the company, and the few words
possible upon a casual introduction interested him but little. This
brilliant assemblage, in the midst of which Hans swam like a fish in
its native element, won but a passing regard from his grave, unsocial
friend, who was a looker-on, not a sharer in its gayeties.
Wandering through the rooms, Michael came at last to the conservatory,
a quiet spot shut off from the suite of reception-rooms; with its
palms, laurel-trees, and flowers, it invited to rest. Here all was cool
and secluded, and the young man felt no inclination to return to the
heated rooms where he could not be missed. He passed slowly from one
group of plants to another, until he was interrupted by the entrance of
Colonel Reval.

"Still unsocial, Lieutenant Rodenberg?" he said, in a tone half of
jest, half of reproach. "You are but a poor guest at our _fete_. What
are you doing here in this lonely conservatory?"

"I have just found my way hither," Michael began; "and, moreover, I am
a stranger in society----"

"Only an additional reason for frequenting it. Take pattern by your
young friend, who is already at home there. I missed you some time ago
from the drawing-room, where I wanted to present you to Count
Steinrueck. You do not know him?"

"The general in command? No!"

"He came only awhile ago, and you will shortly have to report yourself
to him officially. The general is extremely influential, but greatly
feared because of his inflexible severity in military matters. He
spares no one, least of all, indeed, himself; although he is over
seventy, his age never seems to enter his mind."

Michael listened in silence; he had known that the Count was at
Steinrueck, and that he must be prepared for a meeting which had
hitherto been spared him, but which would be unavoidable in future,
since he must in time report himself to the general in command.

"We hoped to see the young Count too," Reval continued, "but we have
just heard that he does not arrive until to-morrow evening. It is a
pity; he would have been an interesting acquaintance for you."

"You mean the general's son, colonel?"

"No, the son died some years ago; I mean his grand son, Count Raoul. He
certainly is one of the handsomest fellows I have ever seen; always
foremost in youthful follies, full of talent, and with a disposition so
charming that he takes everybody by storm. Indeed, he is a gifted
creature, but such a madcap that he will give his grandfather no end of
trouble if he does not succeed in controlling him betimes."

"Apparently, Count Steinrueck is the very man to do so," Michael
remarked.

"So it seems to me. Count Raoul, who fears neither man nor devil, has
nevertheless a very wholesome dread of his grandfather, and when His
Excellency issues an ukase, which, between ourselves, is not
infrequently necessary, the young fellow is ready to obey."

A low rustle, as of silken robes, was heard behind the gentlemen, whose
backs were towards the entrance; they turned, and at that instant the
young officer stepped back so suddenly that the colonel looked at him
in surprise.

Two ladies had entered; the elder, in dark velvet, pale, delicate, an
evident invalid, seemed desirous of reaching a long low seat beneath a
group of palms, where she could rest; the younger stood at the head of
the flight of steps leading into the conservatory, her figure full in
the light of the chandelier hanging above her head.

Hans Wehlau had described her well; she was like the princess in a
fairy-tale, tall and slender, with a face of bewitching beauty, and
large eyes that shone like stars, the colour of which it was impossible
to define for at times they looked deeply dark, and then again
brilliantly light. The red curls that had formerly fallen upon the
child's shoulders had vanished; there was now only a slight reddish
tinge upon the thick golden braids, contrasting with the pale lustre of
the pearls twined among them; and yet, as she stood bathed in the light
from above her head, her hair gleamed like the 'red gold' of fairy
treasure-chambers. Over her blue silk gown a cloud of delicate lace was
looped with single flowers, with here and there a diamond dew-drop on
their petals. She looked a creature woven out of sun and air.

"Ah, Countess Steinrueck!" exclaimed the colonel, as he hastened to
offer his arm to the elder lady, so evidently fatigued. "It was too
warm in the ballroom; I am afraid you have given us the pleasure of
seeing you at too great a sacrifice."

"It is only fatigue, nothing more," the Countess assured him, as he
conducted her to a seat. "Why, there is Lieutenant Rodenberg!"

Michael bowed; the blue silk rustled down the steps, and Countess
Hertha stood beside her mother. "Mamma is not very well," she said,
"and so we left the ball-room. She will soon feel better here where it
is so cool and quiet."

"It would be better then----" Michael glanced towards the colonel, and
turned to leave the conservatory, but the Countess interposed with
gracious courtesy,--

"Oh, do not go! It is only that the heat and noise are too much for me.
I am so glad to see you again, Lieutenant Rodenberg."

The colonel seemed surprised that the young officer was acquainted with
the ladies, and the Countess was pleased to tell him how the
acquaintance had been made. She insisted that Michael by his prompt
interference had saved her daughter's life and her own. He protested
against such a statement.

Countess Hertha took no part in the conversation, which soon became
animated, but turned her entire attention to the flowers. She walked
slowly through the conservatory, which was but dimly lighted; there was
infinite grace in her movements, but there was nothing about her of the
half-shyness, half self-consciousness of girlhood. At nineteen she
displayed all the _aplomb_ of a woman of the world, of the wealthy
heiress who doubtless knew perfectly well that she was beautiful. She
paused before a group of exotic plants, and asked in an easy tone,
turning her head towards Michael, "Do you know this flower, Herr
Lieutenant? It is a strange, foreign-looking blossom, and I confess my
botany is at fault."

Michael was forced to cross the conservatory to where she stood; he did
so very deliberately, but he was a shade paler as he gave her the
desired information: "It seems to be a Dionea, one of those murderous
blossoms that close upon an insect alighting upon them, and kill their
prisoner."

A half-compassionate, half-contemptuous smile played about the young
girl's lips. "Poor thing! And yet it must be lovely to die in such
intoxicating fragrance. Do you not think so?"

"No! Death is lovely only in freedom. No intoxication can atone for
imprisonment."

The answer sounded almost rude, and Hertha bit her lip for an instant,
and then changed the subject, saying, with some sarcasm, "I am glad to
see that you are not so entirely monopolized by 'the service' here as
you were in F----; I never met you in society there."

"We were exercising there; here I am on leave."

"Staying with Colonel Reval?"

"No, with relatives."

The tip of the little satin slipper tapped the floor impatiently:
"Their name appears to be a state secret, since you so persistently
suppress it."

"Not at all; there is no reason why I should do so. I am staying in
Tannberg, as the guest of the brother-in-law of Professor Wehlau."

Hertha seemed surprised; she went on playing with a rose that she had
plucked, while her eyes scanned the young man's face. "Oh, the little
mountain town near Steinrueck. We are thinking of passing several weeks
at the castle."

A sudden gleam lit up Michael's face for an instant; the next moment it
had vanished, and he rejoined, coolly, "Autumn is certainly very
beautiful in the mountains."

This time the young Countess was not impatient; perhaps that sudden
gleam had not escaped her, for she smiled, as she continued to toy with
her rose: "We shall hardly meet, in spite of our being such near
neighbours, for I suspect that 'the service' will make demands upon you
even there."

"You are pleased to jest, Countess Steinrueck."

"I am perfectly serious. We first heard of your presence here to-night
from Herr Wehlau. Of course you had instantly rendered yourself
invisible, and were presumably deep in a strategic discussion with the
colonel, when we appeared here. We regret having interrupted it: it was
evident that our intrusion annoyed you."

"You are quite mistaken; I was very glad to see you both again."

"And yet you started when you first observed us."

Michael looked up, and the glance that fell upon the young girl was
stern, almost menacing, but his voice was perfectly calm as he replied,
"I was surprised, as I knew that the Countess intended to return
directly to Berkheim from the baths."

"We changed our plans, by special desire of my uncle Steinrueck, and,
moreover, the physician recommended several weeks of invigorating
mountain air. Shall we not see you at the castle? My mother would be so
glad, and--so should I."

Her voice was low and beguilingly sweet as she uttered the last words,
standing close beside him, half in shadow, and still lovelier than when
in the bright light, while from the cups of the flowers a fragrant
incense arose around her. Her dress made a soft silken rustle,
and the delicate lace almost brushed the arm of the young officer,
who was still a little pale. He paused for a second, as if gaining
self-possession, then bowed low and formally, and said, "I shall be
most happy."

In spite of his words there must have been something in the tone in
which they were spoken that told the young Countess that he did not
mean to come, for there appeared in her eyes the strange gleam that for
the moment robbed them of their beauty. She inclined her head and
turned to join her mother. As she did so the rose dropped, quite by
accident, from her hand, and lay upon the ground without being
perceived by her.

Michael remained standing in the same spot, but a covetous glance
fell upon the flower that had but now been in her hand. The delicate
half-opened bud lay at his feet, rosy and fragrant, and just before him
shimmered the blossoms of the Dionea, that kill their prisoners in
intoxicating perfume.

The young officer's hand involuntarily sought the earth, and a hasty
glance was cast at the group across the conservatory to discover
whether he were observed. He encountered the gaze of a pair of eyes
riveted upon him, expectant, exultant; he must bow. In an instant he
stood erect, and as he stepped aside he trod upon the rose, and the
delicate flower died beneath his heel.

Countess Hertha fanned herself violently, as if the heat had suddenly
grown stifling, but Colonel Reval, who had just finished his
conversation, said, "We really must leave the Countess to entire repose
for a while. Come, my dear Rodenberg."

They took leave of the ladies and returned to the crowded rooms, went
from the quiet, cool, fragrant conservatory, with its soft, dim light,
into the heat and brilliancy, the hum and stir of society. And yet
Michael breathed more freely, as if issuing from a stifling atmosphere
into the open air.

Hans Wehlau, gliding upon the stream of social life, no sooner espied
his friend than he took his arm and drew him aside to ask, "Have you
seen the Countesses Steinrueck, our watering-place acquaintances? They
are here."

"I know it," Michael replied, laconically. "I spoke to them just now."

"Really? Where have you been hiding yourself? You're bored again, as
usual, in society. I am enjoying myself extremely, and I have been
presented to everybody."

"Also as usual. You must represent your father to-day; every one wishes
to know the son of the distinguished scientist, since he himself----"

"Are you at it too?" Hans interrupted him, petulantly. "At least twenty
times to-day I have been introduced and questioned as celebrity number
two, since celebrity number one is not present. They have goaded me
with my father's distinction until I am desperate."

"Hans, if your father could hear you!" Michael said, reproachfully.

"I can't help it. Every other man has at least an individuality of his
own, something subjective. I am 'the son of our distinguished,' and so
forth, and I am nothing more. As such I am introduced, flattered,
distinguished if you choose; but it's terrible to run about forever as
only something relative."

The young officer smiled. "Well, you are on the way to change it all.
Probably in future it will be 'the distinguished artist, Hans Wehlau,
whose father has rendered such service,' and so forth."

"In that case, I will assuredly forgive my father his fame. And so you
have spoken to the Steinrueck ladies. What a surprise it was to find
them here when we thought them in Berkheim! The Countess mother very
kindly invited me, or rather both of us, to the castle, and I accepted,
of course. We will call at Steinrueck together, eh?"

"No; I shall not go there," Michael replied.

"But why not, in heaven's name?"

"Because I have no inducement, and feel no desire to make one of the
Steinrueck circle. The tone that prevails there is notorious. Every one
without a title must be constantly under arms if he would maintain his
position there."

"Well, since the science of war is your profession, it would afford you
a good opportunity for study. For my part, I find it very tiresome to
be forever under arms like you and my father, who always feels obliged
to vindicate his principles in his intercourse with the aristocracy. I
amuse myself without principles of any kind, and always ground arms
before the ladies. Be reasonable, Michael, and come with me."

"No!"

"Very well; let it alone, then! There is nothing to be done with you
when once you take a notion into that obstinate head of yours, as I
found out long ago; but I shall certainly not throw away my opportunity
for seeing again that golden-haired fairy, the Countess Hertha. I
suppose you never even noticed how captivating, how bewitching she is
to-night in that cloud of silk and lace; the very embodiment of all
loveliness."

"I certainly think the Countess beautiful, but----"

"You only think her so?" Hans interrupted him, indignantly. "Indeed?
And you begin to criticise her with your 'but.' Let me tell you,
Michael, that I have unbounded respect for you; in fact, you have been
so long held up to me by my father as a model in every sense, that your
superiority has become a thorn in my flesh. But when there is any
question of women and women's loveliness, please hold your tongue; you
know nothing about them or it, and are no better than what you once
were,--a blockhead!"

With these words, uttered half in jest, half indignantly, he left his
friend and joined a group of young people at a distance. Michael
wandered in an opposite direction, looking stern and gloomy enough.

Meanwhile, at the other end of the room, Colonel Reval was talking with
Count Steinrueck. They had withdrawn into a small bow-window shut off
from the room by a half-drawn _portiere_, and Reval was saying, "I
should like to call your Excellency's attention to this young officer.
You will soon admit him to be in every way worthy your regard."

"I am sure of it, since you recommend him so warmly," replied
Steinrueck. "You are usually chary of such praise. Did he serve in your
regiment from the beginning?"

"Yes. I noticed him first in the Danish war. Although the youngest
lieutenant in the regiment, he contrived with a handful of men to
capture a position which had until then resisted all attack, and which
was of the greatest importance, and the way in which he performed this
feat showed as much energy as presence of mind. In the last campaign he
was my adjutant, and now he has just been ordered upon the general's
staff in consequence of an admirable treatise; you may have seen it,
your Excellency, since it discusses a point upon which you lately
expressed yourself very emphatically, and it was signed with the
writer's name."

"Lieutenant Rodenberg; I remember," the general said, thoughtfully. The
name always affected him painfully, but did not arrest his attention,
since it was a frequent one in the army. There was a Colonel Rodenberg
who had three sons in the service, and the Count had so fully made up
his mind that the young officer in question was one of these that he
judged it superfluous to make any inquiries about him.

"I know the treatise," he continued. "It betokens an unusual degree of
talent, and would have secured my regard for its author, even without
your warm recommendation; and, since you bear such brilliant testimony
to his capacity in other respects----"

"Rodenberg is every way trustworthy; he maintains, it is true, rather
an isolated position among his comrades; his unsocial disposition and
his reserve make him but few friends, but he is universally respected."

"That suffices," declared Steinrueck, who listened with evident
interest. "He who is ambitious and has a high aim in view rarely finds
time to be popular. I like natures which rely entirely upon themselves.
I understand them; in my youth I resembled them."

"Here he is! His Excellency wishes to make your acquaintance, my dear
Rodenberg," said the colonel, beckoning Michael to approach. He
introduced him in due form, and then mingled with his other guests,
leaving his favourite to complete the impression already made upon the
general by the late conversation.

Michael confronted the man whom he had seen but once, and that ten
years before, but whose image had remained ineffaceably impressed upon
his memory, connected as it was with the bitterest experience of his
life.

Count Michael Steinrueck had already passed his seventieth year, but he
was one of those whom time seems afraid to attack, and the years which
are wont to bring decay found him still erect and strong as in the
prime of life. His hair and beard were silvered, but that was the only
change wrought by the last ten years. There was scarcely an added
wrinkle upon the proud, resolute features, the eyes were still keen and
fiery, and the carriage was as imposing as ever, betraying in every
gesture the habit of command.

His iron constitution, strengthened and hardened as it had been by
every kind of physical and mental exercise, maintained in old age a
youthful vigour which many a young man might have envied.

The general scanned the young officer keenly, and the result of his
examination was evidently a favourable one. He liked this strong, manly
carriage, this grave repose of expression betokening mental discipline,
and he opened the conversation with more geniality than was his wont.
"Colonel Reval has recommended you to me very warmly, Lieutenant
Rodenberg, and I value his judgment highly. You have been his
adjutant?"

"I have, your Excellency."

Steinrueck's attention was aroused, there was something familiar in that
tone of voice, he seemed to have heard it before, and yet the young man
was an utter stranger to him. He began to talk of military matters,
putting frequent questions upon various topics, but Michael underwent
excellently well this rigid examination in a conversational form. His
replies, to be sure, were monosyllabic, not a word was uttered that was
not absolutely necessary, but they were clear and to the point,
perfectly in accordance with the taste of the general, who became more
and more convinced that the colonel had not said too much. Count
Steinrueck was, indeed, feared on account of his severity, but he was
strictly just whenever he met with merit or talent, and he even
condescended to praise this young officer who was evidently most
deserving.

"A great career is open to you," he said, at the close of the
interview. "You stand on the first step of the ladder, and the ascent
lies with yourself. I hear that you distinguished yourself in the field
while still very young, and your latest work proves that you can do
more than merely slash about with a sword. I shall be glad to see you
fulfil the promise you give; we have need of such vigorous young
natures. I shall remember you, Lieutenant Rodenberg. What is your first
name?"

"Michael."

The general started at this rather uncommon name; a strange suspicion
flashed upon his mind, only, however, to be banished instantly; but
again he scanned keenly the features of the man before him. "You are a
son of Colonel Rodenberg, commanding officer in W----?"

"No, your Excellency."

"Related to him, probably?"

"No, your Excellency, I am not acquainted either with the colonel or
with his family."

"What is your father's profession?"

"My father has been dead for many years."

"And your mother?"

"Dead also."

A pause of a few seconds ensued: the Count's eyes were riveted upon the
young officer's face; at last he asked, slowly, "And where,--where did
you pass your early youth?"

"In a forest lodge in the neighbourhood of Saint Michael."

The general recoiled; the revelation, which during the last few moments
he had indeed divined, came upon him like a blow.

"It is you? Impossible!" he fairly gasped.

"What was your Excellency pleased to observe?" Michael asked, in an icy
tone. He stood motionless in a strictly respectful attitude, but his
eyes flashed, and now Steinrueck recognized those eyes. He had seen them
once before flashing just as fiercely when he had heaped unmerited
disgrace upon the boy; they had just the same expression now as then.

But Count Steinrueck did not lose his self-possession even at such a
moment. He had collected himself in an instant, and said in the old
imperious tone, "No matter! Let the past be past. I see Lieutenant
Rodenberg to-day for the first time. I recall neither the praise which
I bestowed upon you, nor the hopes that I expressed with regard to your
future. You may count now, as before, upon my good will."

"I thank your Excellency," Michael rejoined, as coldly as possible. "It
suffices me to hear from your own lips that I am, at least, fit for
something in the world. I have made my way _alone_, and shall pursue it
alone."

The general's brow grew dark. He had been willing to forget
magnanimously, and had thought to achieve great things by this
reluctant acknowledgment, and now his advances were rejected in the
bluntest manner. "Haughty enough!" he said, in a tone that was almost
menacing. "You would do well to bridle this untamed pride. Injustice
was once done you, and that may excuse your reply. I will forget that I
have heard it. You will surely come to a better state of mind."

"Has your Excellency any further commands for me?"

"No!"

An angry glance was cast at the young officer who dared to leave his
general's presence without awaiting his dismissal, but Michael appeared
to consider as such that 'no,' and with a salute he turned and walked
away.

The general, stern and mute, looked after him. He could scarcely
believe his eyes. He had, indeed, been informed that the
'good-for-nothing boy' had run away from his foster-father, and had
never returned, doubtless from fear of punishment. He had not thought
it worth the trouble to institute a search for the fugitive. If the
fellow had vanished, so much the better; they were rid of him, and with
him of the last reminder of the family tragedy that must be buried
forever; he would always have been in the way. Sometimes, indeed, there
was a shadow of dread in his mind lest the fellow should some day
emerge from disgrace and misery and make use of his connection with the
family, which could not be denied, to extort money; but they had got
rid of the father when he had tried that game, and they could likewise
get rid of the son. Count Michael was not the man to be afraid of
shadows.

And now the vanished boy had indeed emerged again, but in the very
sphere to which the Count's family belonged. He was pronounced one of
those who are sure to rise without foreign aid by their own talent and
energy, and he had dared to reject the patronage offered him,
grudgingly enough, but still offered. Why, it almost looked as if _he_
now wished to disown his mother's family.

The Count's brow was still dark when he rejoined the other guests.
Hertha and her mother had just returned to the drawing-room, and the
young lady instantly became the centre of attraction. All crowded round
her to do her homage. Hans Wehlau actually swept like a comet through
the rooms to get near her, and even Steinrueck's gloomy brow cleared as
his glance rested upon his lovely ward.

Lieutenant Rodenberg alone appeared not to observe the entrance of the
ladies. He stood apart, conversing with an old gentleman who discoursed
freely upon the disagreeable summer that had passed, and the delightful
autumn that had begun, and in whose remarks Michael appeared to take a
deep interest. But now, and then he cast at the circle, which he
forbore to approach, a glance as filled with longing as had been that
with which he had looked at the rose at his feet in the conservatory;
and when the garrulous old gentleman at last left him, he muttered to
himself, "'Blockhead!' I wish I had remained one!"


                           *   *   *   *   *


Count Michael Steinrueck occupied a very influential position in the
capital. Raised to the rank of general at the beginning of the last
campaign, he had proved himself one of the most capable of commanders,
and his voice had great weight in military affairs.

Six years previously he had lost his only son, who was attached to the
German embassy in Paris, and since then his daughter-in-law and his
grandson had lived beneath his roof. The latter had originally, by his
grandfather's desire, or rather command, been destined for the army.
Count Michael had been resolved to carry out his plan in opposition to
the wishes of the boy's parents, but he had been unable to do so.
Raoul, who was in fact a delicate boy, sickened just at the time when a
final decision with regard to his future career was absolutely
necessary, and the physicians declared unanimously that he was unequal
to the duties of the military profession. They referred to the father's
already incipient consumption of the lungs, the germ of which might
develop in the son unless great care were taken, and this son was the
last and sole scion of an ancient line. These considerations at last
prevailed with Count Michael, but he had never yet overcome his regret
at the disappointment of his dearest hopes, especially since Raoul,
when once the critical period was past, had bloomed out in perfect
health and strength. After completing his studies at a German
university he had entered the service of the government, and was at
present in the Foreign Office, where, indeed, on account of his youth,
he occupied a subordinate position.

The general, who had now been in possession of Steinrueck for ten years,
was still faithful to his deceased cousin's traditions, and regularly
spent some weeks there during the hunting season, his military duties
allowing him no more extended leave. His daughter-in-law and his
grandson usually accompanied him upon these visits, when the castle was
thrown open, guests were received, hunts were instituted, and the
desolate old mountain castle resounded with life and gayety for a short
time, after which it relapsed into its usual silence and solitude.

It was the morning after Count Raoul's arrival. He was in his mother's
room, and the pair were engaged in an earnest conversation, the subject
of which, however, appeared to be far from pleasant, for both mother
and son looked annoyed.

Countess Hortense Steinrueck had been a distinguished beauty, and,
mother though she were of a grown son, she was still a very lovely
woman. She perfectly understood how to heighten her beauty by the art
of dress, which did much to conceal her years. There was a charm beyond
that of youth in her intelligent face, with its dark, lively eyes, and
her matronly figure was still extremely graceful.

Raoul was exceedingly like his mother, whose beauty he had inherited;
in his slender youthful figure there was nothing to remind one of his
father or his grandfather, or of the race of Steinruecks. He had a fine
head, crowned with dark curls, a broad brow, and dark, eloquent eyes,
but the fire lying hidden in their depths could leap up in an instant
like a consuming flame, and even in moments of quiet conversation there
was sometimes a hot devouring glow in them. Unquestionable as was the
young Count's beauty, there was something veiled and demonic about it,
which, however, only made it more attractive.

"Then he sent for you yesterday evening?" Hortense said, in a tone of
displeasure. "I knew that a storm was brewing and tried to avert it,
but I did not suppose that it would burst forth on your first evening."

"Yes, my grandfather was extremely ungracious," said Raoul, also in
high displeasure. "He took me to task about my follies as if they had
been state offences. I had confessed all to you, mamma, and hoped for
your advocacy."

"My advocacy?" the Countess repeated, bitterly. "You ought to know how
powerless I am when you are under discussion. What can maternal love
and maternal right avail with a man who is accustomed ruthlessly to
subdue everything to his will, and to break what will not bend? I have
suffered intensely from your father's being so absolutely dependent
that I continue to be so after his death. I have no property of my own,
and this dependence constitutes a fetter that is often galling enough."

"You are wrong, mamma," Raoul interposed. "My grandfather does not
control me through our pecuniary dependence upon him, but by his
personal characteristics. There is something in his eye, in his voice,
that I cannot defy. I can set myself in opposition to all the world,
but not to him."

"Yes, he has schooled you admirably. This is the result of an education
designed to rob me of all influence with you, and to attach you solely
to himself. You are impressed by his tone of command, his imperious
air, while to me they merely represent the tyranny to which I have been
forced to submit ever since my marriage. But it cannot last forever."

She breathed a sigh of relief as she uttered the last words. Raoul made
no reply; he leaned his head on his hand and looked down.

"I wrote you that you would find Hertha and her mother here," the
Countess began again. "I was quite surprised by the change in Hertha;
since we saw her years ago she has developed into a beauty of the first
class. Do you not think so?"

"Yes, she is very beautiful, and thoroughly spoiled,--full of caprices.
I found that out yesterday."

Hortense slightly shrugged her shoulders. "She is conscious of being a
wealthy heiress, and, moreover, she is the only child of a very weak
mother, who has no will of her own. You have a will, however, Raoul,
and will know how to treat your future wife, I do not doubt. Upon this
point I find myself, strangely enough, absolutely in harmony with your
grandfather, who wishes to see you in possession of all the Steinrueck
estates. The income of the elder line is not very large, and little
more was left to your grandfather than a hunting castle, while Hertha,
on the other hand, is heiress to all the other property, and must one
day inherit her mother's very large jointure. Moreover, you and she are
the two last scions of the Steinrueck race, and a union between you two
is everyway desirable."

"Yes, if family considerations alone were in question. You took good
care to impress this upon us when we were but children," Raoul said,
with a tinge of bitterness in his tone that did not escape his mother,
who looked at him in surprise.

"I should suppose that you would have every reason to be satisfied with
this family arrangement. It contents even me, and my aspirations for
you are lofty. You were always seemingly in favor of it. What is it
that clouds your brow to-day? Have you been so displeased by a mere
caprice of Hertha's? I grant that she did not give you a very amiable
reception yesterday, but that should not cause you to hesitate about
entering upon the possession of a lovely wife and, with her, of a large
fortune, which would make you the envy of thousands."

"It is not that, but I dislike resigning my freedom so soon."

"Freedom!" Hortense laughed bitterly. "Do you really dare to utter
that word beneath this roof? Are you not weary of being treated at
twenty-five like a boy for whom every step is prescribed? Of being
scolded if your conduct does not please? Of having to entreat for the
fulfilment of every reasonable desire, and of being obliged to submit
humbly to an autocrat's refusal? Can you hesitate a moment to grasp the
independence offered to you? Next year, according to the will, your
grandfather's guardianship of Hertha is at an end, and she, and her
husband with her, will enter into full possession of what is hers by
right. Liberate yourself, Raoul, and me!"

"Mamma!" said the young Count, with a warning glance towards the door,
but the excited woman went on, more passionately,--

"Yes, and me. For what is my life in this house but a perpetual
struggle, and a perpetual defeat? Hitherto you have had no power to
protect me from the thousand mortifications to which I have been
subjected day after day; now you will have it,--it rests with yourself.
I shall take refuge with you as soon as you are master of your own
house."

Raoul arose with an angry gesture. His mother's passionate eloquence
was not without its effect; it was plain that the picture which she
drew of freedom and independence was very alluring to the young man,
who had just suffered so keenly from his grandfather's severity.
Nevertheless he hesitated to reply, and a struggle was evidently going
on within him.

"You are right, mamma," he said at last, "perfectly right. I do not
object at all, but if the affair is to be precipitated, as would seem
at present----"

"You have every reason to rejoice. I do not understand you, Raoul. I
cannot imagine---- You are not entangled elsewhere?"

"No, no!" exclaimed the young Count, hastily, "nothing of the kind, I
assure you, mamma."

His mother seemed but little relieved by this assertion, and was about
to question him further, when the door was noiselessly opened, and the
Countess's maid said, in an undertone,--

"His Excellency the general."

She had scarcely time to retire when the general appeared. He paused on
the threshold for an instant, and looked inquiringly from mother to
son. "Since when have the laws of etiquette been so strictly observed
in our house?" he asked. "I am to be announced, I see, Hortense."

"I do not know why Marion announced you; she knows that such formality
is quite superfluous."

"Certainly, if it were not ordered; her voice sounded as if raised in
warning."

With these words Steinrueck sat down beside his daughter-in-law,
acknowledging by only a slight nod his grandson's 'good-morning.'
Mother and son had hitherto spoken in French, but now they instantly
had recourse to German; and the general continued: "I came to ask for
an explanation, Hortense. I have just heard that two rooms in the
castle have been prepared for guests by your orders. I thought our
relatives were to be our only guests this year. Whom have you invited?"

"It is only for a brief visit, papa," the Countess explained. "Some
acquaintances of ours have been staying at Wildbad, and on their way
home wish to spend two or three days with us. I heard of their coming
only this morning, or I should have told you."

"Indeed! I should like to know whom you expect."

"Henri de Clermont and his sister."

"I am sorry that I was not consulted about this invitation,--I should
not have allowed it."

"It was given for Raoul's sake, at his particular request."

"No matter for that. I do not wish the Clermonts admitted to our
circle."

Raoul started at this decided expression of disapproval, and his face
flushed darkly. "Excuse me, sir, but Henri and his sister were at our
house several times last winter."

"To see your mother. I have nothing to say with regard to those whom
she personally receives, but this visit to Steinrueck, when we are here
a family party, would betoken a degree of intimacy which I do not
desire, and therefore it must not take place."

"Impossible!" Hortense rejoined, with nervous irritability. "I have
sent the invitation now, and it cannot be recalled."

"Why not? You can write simply that you are not well, and feel quite
unequal to the duties of a hostess."

"That would make us perfectly ridiculous!" exclaimed Raoul. "The
pretext would be seen through immediately; it would be an insult to
Henri and his sister."

"I think so too," Hortense added.

"There I must differ from both of you," the general said, with
emphasis; "and in this case I am the only one to be consulted. It is
for you to recall the invitation as seems to you best. Recalled it must
be, for I will not receive the Clermonts in my castle."

This was said in the commanding tone that always provoked the
passionate woman. She arose angrily. "Am I to be compelled to insult my
son's friends? To be sure they belong to my country, to my people, and
that excludes them from this house. My Love for my home has always been
cast up to me as a reproach, and Raoul's preference for it is regarded
as a crime. Since his father's death he has never been allowed to visit
France; his associates are selected for him as if he were a school-boy;
he hardly dares to correspond with my relatives. But I am weary of this
slavery; at last I will----"

"Raoul, leave the room," Steinrueck interrupted her. He had not risen
from his seat, and he had preserved an unmoved countenance, but a frown
was gathering on his brow.

"Stay, Raoul!" Hortense cried, passionately, "stay with your mother!"

The young Count certainly seemed inclined to espouse his mother's
cause. He walked to her side as if to protect her and to defy his
grandfather, but at this instant the general also arose, and his eyes
flashed. "You heard what I said! Go!"

There was such command in his tone that it put an end to Raoul's
resistance. He found it absolutely impossible to disobey those eyes and
that voice; he hesitated for an instant, but at an imperious gesture
from his grandfather he complied and left the room.

"I do not desire that Raoul should be a witness to these scenes, which
are unfortunately so frequent between us," Steinrueck said, coldly,
turning to his daughter-in-law. "Now we are alone, what have you to
say?"

If anything could irritate the angry woman still more, it was this
cold, grave manner which impressed her as contempt. She was beside
herself with indignation. "I will maintain my rights!" she exclaimed.
"I will rebel against the tyranny that oppresses both my son and
myself. It is an insult to me to compel me to recall my invitation to
the Clermonts, and it shall not be done, let the worst come to the
worst!"

"I advise you, Hortense, not to go so far; you might repent it," the
Count rejoined, and he was no longer self-possessed; his voice sounded
stern and menacing. "If you want the plain truth you shall have it.
Yes, it is of the first importance that Raoul should be withdrawn from
influences and associations which I disapprove for my grandson. I
relied upon Albrecht's repeated solemn assurance that the boy should
have a German education. Upon your brief infrequent visits I could not
satisfy myself upon this point, and unfortunately the lad was schooled
for those visits. Not until after my son's death did I discover that he
had blindly acceded to your will in this matter, and had intentionally
deceived me."

"Would you reproach my husband in his grave?"

"Even there I cannot spare him the reproach with which I should have
heaped him living. He yielded when he never should have yielded. Raoul
was a stranger in his native land, ignorant of its history, of its
customs, of everything that ought to have been dear and sacred to him.
He was rooted deep in foreign soil. The revelation made to me when you
returned with him to my house forced me to interfere, and with energy.
It was high time, if it were not too late."

"I assuredly did not return to your house voluntarily." The Countess's
voice was sharp and bitter. "I would have gone to my brother, but you
laid claim to Raoul, you took him from me by virtue of your
guardianship, and I could not be separated from my child. If I could
have taken him with me----"

"And have made a thorough Montigny of him," Steinrueck completed her
sentence. "It would not have been difficult; there is in him only too
much of you and of yours. I look in vain to find traces of my blood in
the boy, but disown this blood he never shall. You know me in this
regard, and Raoul will learn to know me. Woe be to him if he ever
forgets the name he bears or that he belongs to a German race!"

He spoke in an undertone, but there was so terrible a menace in his
voice that Hortense shuddered. She knew he was in terrible earnest,
and, conscious that she was again defeated in the old conflict, she
took refuge in tears, and burst into a passionate fit of sobbing.

The general was too accustomed to such a termination to a stormy
interview to be surprised; he merely shrugged his shoulders and left
the room. In the next apartment he found Raoul pacing restlessly to and
fro. He paused and stood still upon his grandfather's entrance.

"Go to your mother!" his Excellency said, bitterly. "Let her repeat to
you that I am a tyrant,--a despot who delights in tormenting her and
you. You hear it daily; you are regularly taught to suspect and dislike
me; such teaching bore fruit long since."

Harsh as the words sounded, there was suppressed pain in them,--a pain
reflected in the Count's features. Raoul probably perceived it, for he
cast down his eyes and rejoined in a low tone, "You do me injustice,
grandfather."

"Prove it to me. For once repose in me frank and entire confidence; you
will not repent it. I scolded and threatened yesterday; you have lately
often forced me to do so, but nevertheless you are dear to me, Raoul,
very dear."

The voice, usually so stern and commanding, sounded kindly, nay, even
tender, and was not without its effect upon the young man. Affection
for the grandfather from whom he had been estranged from boyhood
stirred within him. He had always feared him, but at this moment he
felt no fear. "And you too are dear to me, grandfather," he exclaimed.

"Come," said Steinrueck, with a warmth rarely manifested by him, "let us
have a pleasant hour together for once, with no adverse influence to
interfere. Come, Raoul."

He put his arm around his grandson's shoulder, and was drawing him away
with him, when the door was hastily flung open and Marion appeared.
"For heaven's sake, Herr Count, come to the Frau Countess! She is very
unwell, and is asking for you."

Raoul turned in dismay to hasten to his mother, but paused suddenly
upon encountering his grandfather's grave look of entreaty. "Your
mother has one of her nervous attacks," he said, quietly. "You know
them as well as I do, and that there is no cause for anxiety. Come with
me, Raoul."

He still had his arm about the young man, and Raoul seemed to hesitate
for a few moments, then he tried to extricate himself. "Pardon me,
grandfather; my mother is suffering, and asking for me. I cannot leave
her alone now."

"Then go!" Steinrueck exclaimed, harshly, almost thrusting the young man
from him. "I will not keep you from your filial duty. Go to your
mother!"

And, without even another look towards Raoul, he turned and left the
room.


                           *   *   *   *   *


Saint Michael was one of the highest inhabited spots of the
mountain-range. The quiet little Alpine village would have been utterly
secluded had it not possessed a certain significance as a place of
pilgrimage. The single dwellings lay scattered upon the pasture-lands
and mountain-meadows, with the village church and the parsonage in
their midst. Everything was contracted, plain, even shabby; the special
church alone, which was the resort of pilgrims, and which stood upon a
solitary height at a little distance from the village, had an imposing
aspect. It had been founded by the Counts von Steinrueck who had built
this church, now old and gray, on the site of the ancient Saint
Michael's chapel that had once stood here, and they had since often
bestowed gifts upon it and had endowed it. Saint Michael was still the
patron saint of the family to which he had so often given a first name.
Its founder had been called Michael, and the name had been handed down
from generation to generation ever since. Even the Protestant branch of
the family, who had years previously left their ancestral home and
settled in Northern Germany, preserved this ancient tradition, which,
if it had no religious significance for them, still possessed an
historic importance. Thus, the present head of the house was a Count
Michael, and his son and grandson had been christened after him,
although each bore another name by which he was commonly called. The
interior of the church was not very remarkable; it showed the usual
adornment of pictures and gayly-painted statues of the saint, often
very imperfectly executed. But the high altar was an exception; it was
very richly and artistically carved, and the two figures of angels on
the sides of the steps with outspread wings and hands held aloft in
prayer, as if guarding the sacred place, were exquisite examples of
sculpture in wood. They with the altar were a gift from the Steinruecks,
as were the three gothic windows in the altar recess, the costly
stained glass of which glowed in gorgeous colour. The picture above the
altar, however, a large painting, dated from a period of great
simplicity in art. It had grown very dark with age, and was worn in
spots, but its details were still distinctly to be discerned. Saint
Michael, in a long blue robe and flowing mantle, the nimbus around his
head, was distinguished as the warlike angel by a short coat of mail,
but was otherwise of peaceful aspect. His sword of flame in his right
hand and the scales in his left, he was enthroned upon a cloud, and at
his feet crouched Satan, a horned monster with distorted features, and
a body ending in a serpent's tail. Blood-red flames flashed upwards
from the abyss, and a circle of cherubs looked down from above. The
picture was entirely without artistic merit.

"And that is meant to betoken conflict and victory," said Hans Wehlau,
as he stood gazing at the picture. "Saint Michael looks so solemnly
comfortable on his cloud, and quite as if the Evil One below him were
of no consequence; if Satan were wise he would snatch that sword just
above the tip of his nose; that's no way to hold a sword! The saint
ought to swoop from above like an angel, and seize and destroy Satan
like a mighty blast, but he'd better not try flying in that long gown;
and as for his wings, they are quite too small to support him."

"You show a godless want of respect in criticising pictures of saints,"
said Michael, who stood beside him. "You are your father's own son
there."

"Very likely. Do you know I should like to paint a picture of
that?--Saint Michael and the devil, the conflict of light with
darkness. Something might be made of it if a fellow really set himself
to work, and I have a model close at hand."

He turned suddenly, and looked his friend full in the face, in a way
that provoked Michael to say, "What are you thinking of? I surely
have----"

"Nothing angelic about you! No, most certainly not; and among the
heavenly host, hovering in ether in white robes and palm branches, you
would cut a comical figure. But to swoop down upon your enemy with a
flaming sword and put him to rout like your holy namesake would suit
you exactly. Of course you would have to be idealized, for you're far
from handsome, Michael, but you have just what is needed for such a
figure, especially when you are in a rage. At all events, you would
make a much better archangel than that one up there."

"Nonsense!" said Michael, turning to go. "Moreover, you must come now,
Hans, if you mean to walk back to Tannberg. It is four good leagues
away."

"By that tiresome road, which I shall not take. I am going through the
forest; it is nearer."

"Then you will lose your way! You do not know this country as I do."

"Then I will find it again," said Hans, as they walked out of the
church into the open air. "At least I shall not be received in Tannberg
by an angry face. I am glad my father has gone, and I think the whole
household breathes more easily. At the last he hung over us all like a
thunder-cloud; we always had to be prepared for thunder and lightning."

"It was certainly better for him to shorten his stay and go home,"
Michael rejoined, gravely. "Irritable and angry as he was, there was
always danger of a decided breach, which should be avoided at all
hazards. I advised him to return home."

"Yes, you protected me to the best of your ability. You and my aunt
stood beside me like two angels of peace and shielded me with your
wings, but it did not do much good after all, my father was too angry.
You were the only one who could get along with him."

"And so you regularly sent me into action when there was anything to be
done."

"Of course; you risked nothing in the engagement. My father always
treats you with respect, even when you disagree with him. It's odd,--he
never had any respect for me."

"Hans, be sensible; do stop jesting for a while. I should suppose you
had reason enough to be grave."

"Good heavens! what am I to do? I never had the slightest talent for
the part of a grovelling sinner. At least you have contrived to extort
a gracious permission that I should remain in Tannberg while your leave
lasts, and when we go home the storm will have somewhat blown over. But
here is the path; my love to my uncle Valentin. I have, as my father's
son, 'compromised' him again by my visit, but he would have it. _Au
revoir_, Michael."

He waved his hand to his friend and struck into a side-path leading
down the mountain. Michael looked after him until he vanished among the
hemlocks, and then took his way back to the village.

He had been at Saint Michael for several days, and on the previous day
Hans had paid a short visit. It had been a rare and much-desired
gratification for the pastor, who regretted keenly that his nearest
relatives should hold themselves aloof from him. Any intercourse with
his brother, who was a declared opponent of Romanism, was made a
reproach to the priest. The two met only at intervals of years, when
the Professor visited his relatives in Tannberg; and in the fact of
their correspondence might perhaps be found the reason why Valentin
Wehlau was left in a lonely secluded Alpine village, and--forgotten.

Michael, however, had of late years frequently visited his old friend
and teacher, but Lieutenant Rodenberg was an entire new-comer for the
inhabitants of Saint Michael, who scarcely remembered the shy, awkward
boy from the forest lodge,--indeed, they had seldom seen him. He had
been looked upon as a relative of Wolfram's, bearing the forester's
name, and the lodge had long since passed into other hands. Count
Steinrueck had found a better and more profitable situation for his
former huntsman upon one of his ward's estates, perhaps as a reward for
rendered service, perhaps because, upon his visits to his castle, he
did not wish to be reminded by Wolfram's presence of the past. At all
events, the forester had left this part of the country nearly ten years
previously.

When Michael re-entered the parsonage, which he had left half an hour
before in its usual solitude and quiet, he found it in a state of
unusual turmoil. The old servant was bustling about in her kitchen,
among her pots and pans, as if some festival were in preparation. Two
young peasant girls from a neighbouring farm were running to and fro;
the upper rooms were being aired and arranged; the peaceful household
seemed to be turned topsy-turvy, and as Michael entered the study the
sacristan was taking a hurried leave of the priest, with much
importance of mien.

Nothing was changed in the little room; the same monastic simplicity
reigned within it; the whitewashed walls, the huge tiled stove, the
carved crucifix in the corner, even the old pine furniture, were all
the same; time had left them unchanged. Not so their owner.

The pastor had grown much older. Whilst his brother, who was in fact
several years his junior, still preserved his youthful freshness and
vigour, the priest produced the impression of old age. His form was
bent, his face furrowed with wrinkles, his hair white, but the same
mild lustre shone in the eyes which at times made one forget the
weariness and age evident in the man.

"What is the matter, your reverence?" asked Michael, surprised. "The
whole house is astir, and old Katrin is so agitated that she ran away
without answering me."

"We are to have an unexpected visit," replied Valentin,--"a
distinguished guest for whom some preparation is necessary. Scarcely
had you and Hans departed when a messenger arrived with a note from
Countess Steinrueck,--she will be here in a couple of hours."

The young man, who was just about to take a seat, paused in amazement.
"Countess Steinrueck? What can she want here in Saint Michael?"

"To visit the church. The Countess is very pious, and never fails to do
so when she is at the castle. Moreover, our church was endowed by her
family, and owes much to her personally. She visits her husband's grave
almost every year, and always comes here when she does so."

"Is she coming alone?" The question was asked in an agitated tone, in
strong contrast to the priest's quiet reply.

"No; her daughter is coming too, and the necessary attendants. You must
resign the guest-chamber for to-day, Michael. The double drive over the
mountains would be too fatiguing for the ladies; they will stay
overnight, and accept the simple hospitality of the parsonage. I spoke
with the sacristan about a room for you; he will have one ready for you
to occupy until to-morrow."

Michael at first made no reply; he walked to the window and stood with
folded arms looking out. At last, after a long pause, he said, in an
undertone, "I wish I had gone home."

"Why? Because these ladies bear the name of Steinrueck, and you have
chosen to outlaw, to put beyond the pale of your sympathy, all of that
name? How often have I entreated you to rid yourself of this
unchristian hatred!"

"Hatred, do you call it?" the young man asked, in a voice that trembled
slightly.

"What else is it? When you told me the other day of your meeting with
your grandfather, I saw how stubborn and implacable you still were, and
now you extend your ill feeling to the Count's innocent relatives, who
have shown you nothing but kindness. You, to be sure, told me nothing
of your acquaintance with them, but Hans was more communicative. He is
most enthusiastic about the young Countess."

"For as long as he can see her. As soon as we return to town he will
forget all about her. It is his fashion."

The words sounded contemptuous, and so bitter, that Valentin shook his
head disapprovingly. "It is fortunate in this case that it is so," he
rejoined. "It would be sad for Hans to be in earnest, for, apart from
the difference of rank, the hand of the Countess Hertha was disposed of
long ago."

"Disposed of? To whom?" Michael asked, hastily, turning from the
window.

"To Count Raoul Steinrueck, her relative. In their sphere marriages are
usually contracted for family reasons, and this one was thus arranged
years ago. There has been no betrothal as yet, because the Countess
could not bring herself to part with her daughter, but it is to take
place shortly."

The priest had formerly been the Countess's confessor, and was still
perfectly aware of all the family affairs; he mentioned them now as
matters of course, and went on speaking of them in detail, not
observing that his listener seemed thunderstruck. Michael had turned to
the window again, and stood with his face pressed against the pane,
never stirring until Valentin had finished speaking.

"There will be a great deal of disturbance in your house to-day, your
reverence," he said at last, "and I should be sorry to inconvenience
the sacristan. It would be better for me to go to the lodge, and stay
there until to-morrow."

"What are you thinking of?" Valentin exclaimed, in displeasure. "I can
understand the reserve of which Hans accuses you, but this is going too
far."

"The Countess knows nothing of my being here, and if you say nothing
about it----"

"She will learn it through Katrin or the sacristan. A guest is so rare
in my lonely home that it is always discussed by my people; and how am
I to excuse your flight to the Countess?"

"Flight?" the young officer said, angrily.

"She cannot regard it as anything else, since she knows nothing of your
relations with the family."

"You are right," said Michael, drawing a deep breath. "It would be
flight and cowardice. I will stay."

"Yes, you are quite inaccessible to good sense," said Valentin, with a
fleeting smile, "but as soon as flight is mentioned the soldier in you
is astir, forcing you to stand your ground. But I must see after
Katrin; she is quite upset, and will need my aid and counsel."

Michael was left alone. He had tried to go, he had been forced to stay,
and his eyes were bright as they sought the road winding up from the
valley. Flight! The young warrior had indignantly repudiated the word,
and yet for weeks he had been fleeing from a power to which he would
not bow, and which nevertheless threatened to master him. As if it were
in league with the fiend, it made constant assaults, now amid brilliant
social scenes, now here in a lonely Alpine village; just when he
thought it farthest away it suddenly appeared. Again he was to stand
face to face with it, and Michael well knew what that meant; but as he
stood erect, stern, and resolute, prepared for conflict, he did not
look like defeat.


                           *   *   *   *   *


The expected guests arrived in due time, the Countess in a little
mountain wagon intended for such excursions, her daughter having
preferred to travel the road on horseback. A lady's-maid also came in
the wagon, and a mounted servant accompanied the party, which was
originally to have comprised the Countess Hortense, but she was
suffering from one of her nervous attacks, and the mountain drive would
have been too exhausting for her.

Immediately upon their arrival the ladies performed their devotions in
the church, and a solemn mass was appointed for the next morning.

In the afternoon the pastor, with his two younger guests, sauntered
through the village. The Countess, who felt fatigued, remained in the
parsonage, and Michael had been compelled to walk with the priest and
the Countess Hertha, since the young lady, accustomed to rule those
about her with sovereign sway, had required him to do so in a tone that
was not to be gainsaid. It was in the middle of September, but the day
had been unusually warm. The heat made itself felt even at this
altitude: the temperature was sultry and oppressive. The pasture-lands
around Saint Michael were bathed in the sunlight, and the skies were
still clear, but mists hovered restlessly about the mountain-ranges,
and dark clouds began to gather above their summits, now darkly veiled,
and anon gleaming clear and distinct.

"I fear we are going to have a storm this evening," said Valentin.
"This has been like a day in midsummer."

"Yes, we felt it so as we were coming up the mountain," said Hertha.
"Do you think that we ought to be arranging for our return?"

"No," replied Michael, scanning the mountains, "when the clouds gather,
as now, over there above the Eagle ridge, they will hang for hours
about the rocks before the storm comes, and then it is apt to take its
course down the valley and leave us untouched. But there will be a
storm. Saint Michael's flaming sword is flashing there."

He pointed to the Eagle ridge, where in fact it was lightening, faintly
and in the distance, but still unmistakably.

"Saint Michael's flaming sword?" Hertha repeated, inquiringly.

"Certainly; do you not know the popular superstition so wide-spread in
these mountains?"

"No; I have never been here except for a few weeks at a time, and know
nothing of the people."

"Their belief is that the lightning is the sword of the avenging
archangel flashing from the skies, and that the storms, which often
enough do mischief in the valleys, are punishments wrought by him."

"Saint Michael loves storm and flame," said Hertha, smiling. "I have
always felt very proud that the leader of the heavenly host, the mighty
angel of war and battle, is the patron saint of our family. You bear
his name, too; it is my uncle Steinrueck's."

Valentin cast an anxious glance at his former pupil, but Michael looked
quite unmoved, and replied, composedly, "Yes--by chance."

"The saint's day is close at hand," the young Countess observed to the
priest. "The church will be thronged then, will it not, your
reverence?"

"The inhabitants of all the surrounding villages visit the church on
that day; but our chief church festival comes in May, upon the day when
the saint's appearance took place. Then the entire population of these
mountains flocks hither from the most distant heights and the most
secluded valleys, so that church and village can scarcely contain the
crowds. The legend is that on that day Saint Michael, although
invisible, descends from the Eagle ridge and ploughs the earth with his
flaming sword as he did visibly centuries ago, when his shrine was
founded here."

As he uttered the last words they paused before a wayside crucifix
rising solitary from the green meadow and facing towards the Eagle
ridge. A wild rosebush wreathed about the base of the cross, almost
concealing the wood-work, and its thick, luxuriant shoots were woven
about the sacred image like a living frame; its time for blooming had
long since passed, but the warm, sunny autumn days had lured forth a
few late buds, not fragrant and rich in colour like their sisters of
the plain, but pale, wild mountain-roses, which, blooming to-day, are
torn by the wind to-morrow, and yet they gleamed pink amid the dark
green like a last greeting from departing summer.

A peasant lad approached, hat in hand and rather timidly; he had a
message for his reverence, whom he had been seeking in the village. His
mother was very sick, and was fain to see his reverence; the house was
very near, hardly two hundred paces distant, and if his reverence could
spare a few minutes the sick woman would be very grateful and much
comforted.

"I must go with Hies," said Valentin. "I leave the Countess in your
charge, Michael; if she wishes to return to the parsonage----"

"No, your reverence, we will await you here," Hertha interrupted him.
"This view of the Eagle ridge is so magnificent!"

"I shall be back again shortly," the priest rejoined, inclining his
head courteously, as he turned away with Hies, and walked to a small
house near by, within the door of which he vanished.

The unexpected _tete-a--tete_--the first they had ever had since they
had known each other--seemed to embarrass the pair thus left alone, for
their animated conversation was suddenly arrested.

Saint Michael, as it lay before Hertha and her companion, looked
like the most secluded of highland valleys, so embedded was it in the
green Alps that surrounded it. There was but one distant view, and it
might well vie with all others,--that of the Eagle ridge. The mighty
range of rocks rising there in gloomy majesty commanded the landscape,
and towered above all the surrounding summits; dark pine forests
clothed its sides, and its depths hid savage abysses, down which
mountain-torrents tumbled with a roar faintly audible in the clear air.
The summit of the ridge indeed, with its naked, jagged peaks and its
sheer precipices, seemed inaccessible for mortal man; those peaks
soared to dizzy heights, and the highest of them all, the Eagle's head,
wore a crown of glaciers that glittered in icy splendour, its giant
wings, on each side, seeming to shelter the little hamlet of Saint
Michael lying at its feet. The ridge was rightly named; it did, indeed,
bear a resemblance to an eagle with outstretched wings.

The silence lasted some time, and was at last broken by Hertha.
"According to the legend, then, the archangel descends from that peak."

"With the first ray of the morning sun," replied Michael. "The sun
rises there above the ridge. The people cling with unswerving fidelity
to their time-hallowed beliefs, and will not relinquish their spring
festivals and their worship of the sun. He is the ancient god of light,
who either blesses or curses mankind; who mutters in the thunder, and
then again ploughs the earth with his flaming sword that the spring may
bring forth fresh life and beauty; the Church has clothed him in the
shining mail of the archangel."

"That sounds very heretical," the young Countess said, reproachfully.
"Do not let his reverence or my mother hear you. It is easy to see that
you were brought up beneath Professor Wehlau's roof. Was he an early
friend of your father's?"

Michael bowed his head as if in assent. The Professor had insisted upon
this concession from him from the first, as it put a stop to all
annoying conjecture, and had quite satisfied even Hans himself.

"You lost your father very early?"

"Yes, very early."

"And your mother too?"

"And my mother too."

There was evident distress in his tone, and Hertha, perceiving that she
had unconsciously touched some sore spot, hastened to remove the
impression by saying, "I, too, was a mere child when my father died. I
have but a dim remembrance of him, and of the love and tenderness which
he lavished upon me. Where did you live with your parents?"

The young man's lip quivered, and there was bitterness in his heart as
he remembered his childhood, with its lack of love and tenderness. The
disgrace and misery which he had but half understood had nevertheless
stamped themselves upon the boy's memory, and were still vividly
present with the man after the lapse of twenty years. "My childhood was
far from happy," he said, evasively. "There was so little in it that
could possibly interest you that I should be sorry to annoy you with an
account of it."

"But it does interest me," Hertha said, eagerly. "I do not mean,
however, to be importunate; and if my sympathy annoys you----"

"Your sympathy! with me?" Michael suddenly broke forth, and then paused
as suddenly; but what his lips did not utter his eyes said clearly, as
he gazed as if spell-bound at the young Countess, whose beauty was
certainly not dependent upon dress. She had been bewitchingly lovely in
silk and lace, in the brilliant light of the chandeliers, and to-day,
in her simple, close-fitting, dark-blue riding-habit, she was even
lovelier. Beneath the little hat, with its blue veil, the golden braids
gleamed through the thin tissue, and the eyes beamed brightly. There
was something unusual in her air to-day; she seemed released from the
petty conventional code of the brilliant circle in which she was wont
to move, and as if breathed upon by the mighty mountain world around
her, and this lent her a new and dangerous charm.

"Well?" she said, smiling, without noticing Michael's sudden pause. "I
am waiting."

"For what?"

"For the account of your childhood, which you have not yet given me."

"Nor can I give it you, for I can relate nothing of home or of parental
affection. I have grown up among strangers, I owe everything to
strangers, and, kindly and generously as it was bestowed, I still feel
it as a debt which would crush me to the earth had I not vowed to
myself to pay it by my entire future. At last I have taken the helm
into my own hands, and can steer out into the open sea."

"And can you trust that sea, with its winds and waves?"

"Yes. Trust the sea and it will carry you safely. Of one thing I am
sure, however: I shall never drift ashore on a half-shattered wreck,
thankful to escape with mere life. No, I will either steer my vessel
into port or go to the bottom with it."

He stood erect as he uttered the last words with resolute emphasis.
Hertha looked at him in surprise, and suddenly said, "Strange,--how
like you are at this moment to my uncle Steinrueck."

"I? to the general?"

"Extremely like him."

"That must be an illusion," Michael rejoined, coldly. "I regret having
to disclaim the honour of a resemblance to his Excellency, but none can
possibly exist."

"Certainly not; you have not a feature in common; the likeness lies in
the expression, and now it has vanished again. But at that moment you
had the general's eyes, his air, even his voice. It really startled
me."

Her eyes still rested upon his countenance, as if she were expecting a
reply; but Michael turned somewhat aside, and said, changing the
conversation, "The prospect is growing more and more veiled; we shall
soon be surrounded by clouds."

The weather did, in fact, look more threatening; the sun had begun to
set, but his rays were struggling with the mists floating up
everywhere, as if some leader of a mighty host had sounded his
trumpet-call, heard of the whole vast mountain world, and the
cloud-phantoms were rising on all sides to obey the summons, some with
slow majesty, some in desperate haste. Up from the deeps and abysses
soared the mist unceasingly, like a white veil, noiseless and
ghost-like, sweeping up over the forests, leaving a fluttering pennon
here and there amidst the tops of the pines, and then soaring aloft
again. From each side across the gray Alps single clouds came trooping,
followed by huge masses, all rolling towards the Eagle ridge, where
they gathered ever darker and more threatening.

The meadows upon which lay Saint Michael soon looked like an island in
the midst of a billowy, swelling sea, the waves of which rose higher
each minute. There it gleamed white, like the foam of dashing, leaping
breakers, and there it lay gray and formless as in shade, while high
above on the peaks of the ridge, still lit by the sunlight, golden,
shimmering mists were sailing, shot by strange, quivering rays. A
gleaming magic veil was woven about the rocky head and the glacier
crown; they stood half veiled, half revealed in the golden atmosphere.

But at their feet the storm was gathering thick, and now the first dull
thunder rolled, seeming to come from the very depths of the mountains,
and dying rumbling in the distance.

The air had hitherto been quiet; now the wind began to rise. The young
Countess's veil fluttered aloft and caught in a hanging branch of the
wild-rose bush, from which she vainly tried to extricate it. The thorns
held their prey fast, and Rodenberg, who came to her aid, must have
been rather awkward, for the band of her hat slipped and the hat fell
off. Michael, who was stooping to disentangle the delicate tissue,
shrank suddenly and dropped his hand, for close before his eyes gleamed
uncovered the thick braids, the 'red fairy gold.'

"Have you scratched your hand?" asked Hertha, noticing his start.

"No!" He plunged his hand into the thorny tangle and pulled away both
hat and veil; but the thorns revenged themselves: the veil was torn,
and a few drops of blood trickled from the young man's hand.

"Thank you," said Hertha, taking her hat from him; "but you are a rash
assistant. How wrong to plunge your hand in among the thorns! It is
bleeding."

There was real commiseration in her tone, but the reply was all the
colder. "It is not worth mentioning; it is the merest scratch."

He took out his handkerchief and pressed it upon the tiny wounds as he
glanced impatiently towards the little house, where the priest yet
lingered. His visit there seemed to be endless, and the rack here must
be tasted to the last.

The young girl perhaps suspected his agony, but she did not feel called
upon to abbreviate it. The spoiled, petted beauty felt it as an offence
that this man should dare to defy a power which she had so often
exerted over others. He had recognized its might, as she had long since
perceived; he had not approached her with impunity, and yet here he
stood with that impregnable reserve, that haughty brow, which would not
bow. He must be punished!

"I should like to ask you a question, Lieutenant Rodenberg," she began
again. "My mother reproached you awhile ago--I heard her--with never
having accepted her invitation."

"I have already apologized to Madame the Countess. We have been quite
absorbed lately by a family matter, which was indeed the cause of the
Professor's departure. When I return from Saint Michael----"

"You will find some other excuse," Hertha interposed. "You do not
_wish_ to come."

Michael's face flushed, but he avoided meeting the eyes that sought
his; he looked across to the Eagle ridge. "You take that for granted
with a strange degree of certainty, Countess Steinrueck, and,
nevertheless, you wish me to come."

"I only wish for an explanation of what keeps you away from us. You
have saved my own and my mother's life, and you reject our gratitude in
a way that is inexplicable to us if we refuse to consider it insulting.
With a stranger we should never waste a word upon the subject. To one
to whom we owe so much we may well put the question, 'What is there
between us? What have we done to you?'"

The words had a gentle, half-veiled sound, but several seconds passed
before the reply came. Michael's gaze was still riveted upon the rocky
summits; he knew that storm-clouds were gathering around them, but he
saw only the golden mist, the gleaming magic veil; he heard the roll of
the thunder that sounded nearer and nearer, but he heeded only that
low, reproachful 'What have we done to you?'

"You shame me," he said at last, with a final attempt to preserve a
tone of cool courtesy. "The slight service that I did you required no
gratitude; you have always overrated it."

"Again you evade me; you are a master of the art," the young girl
exclaimed, with an expression of extreme impatience. "But I will not
release you from replying; I must know the truth at last."

"And what if I should not comply with your command, for such it
certainly seems to be?"

"It rests with you, of course, to refuse to do so; but it was no
command, only a request, which I now repeat: 'What have we done to you?
Why do you avoid us?'"

A smile played about her lips, the enchanting smile usually so
irresistible, but now without effect. Rodenberg looked her full in the
face, and said, harshly, "You know why, Countess Steinrueck,--you have
long known."

"I?"

"Yes, you, Hertha; you know your power only too well; and now you drive
me to extremes, and leave me no means of escape. So be it,--I am at
your disposal!"

Amazed, almost dismayed, Hertha looked up at him; she was quite
unprepared for this turn of affairs; she had pictured her moment of
triumph very differently. "I do not understand you, Lieutenant
Rodenberg," said she. "What does this strange language mean,--something
it would seem allied to hatred?"

"Hatred?" he broke forth. "Would you add sarcasm to your trifling? You
have never for an instant been ignorant that I love you."

It sounded strange enough, this confession of love, uttered in a voice
in which indignation and passion strove for the mastery, and with eyes
in which there was no tenderness, but a menacing gleam: the emotion
did, indeed, seem allied to hatred.

"And is this the way in which to woo?--to seek a woman's love?" asked
Hertha, indignantly, while a secret dread, hitherto unknown to her,
stirred in her heart.

"Woo?" he repeated, with extreme bitterness. "No, it is not; such
wooing would hardly be allowed me,--a young, insignificant officer with
a bourgeois name, owning nothing save himself and perhaps some hope for
the future. It would soon be made clear to me, and that after a
ruthless fashion, that I must not dare to lift my eyes to the Countess
Steinrueck; that her hand has long been promised to another who, like
herself, wears a coronet."

Hertha bit her lip; the reproof went home,--such assuredly would have
been the conclusion of the affair. It had never occurred to the young
Countess Steinrueck to do more than trifle with the bourgeois officer,
but yet she felt disgraced by the discovery that she had been seen
through from the beginning.

"You do not seem to perceive how insulting your words are," she said,
haughtily, "nor how offensive is this confession----"

"Which, nevertheless, you insisted upon hearing," he interrupted her.
"Listen, then! I will not deny to you what cannot, indeed, be denied. I
will confront my fate, for it has come upon me like a fate. Yes, I have
loved you, Hertha, from the first moment of seeing you, and if I could
have hoped for your love in return the coronet of the Steinruecks would
not have deterred me for an instant. If my bliss were as far above me
and as unattainable as the Eagle ridge there, I would scale the heights
though every step threatened ruin. I would snatch it to my arms in
spite of all the world! But I was warned, warned by a child, who once
cozened from me my Alpine roses, to play with them for a while and then
to pluck them wantonly to pieces. Those are the same golden curls,
the same beautiful, evil eyes,--I knew them the first moment that we
met,--but never again shall those lips say to me with contempt, 'Go
away, I do not like you any more! I am tired of playing.' Those words
have rung in my ears through all the bewitching music of your voice.
The boy chose to have his flowers perish in the flames rather than
leave them in your grasp, and the man will crush and annihilate his
love, even though a part of his life dies with it,--it never shall be a
plaything in your hands!"

Hertha had grown deadly pale; no one had ever before dared thus to
insult her, to hurl the truth so recklessly and unsparingly in her
face; but what did this man whom she had driven to extremity care
whether she were offended or not? The tempest which she herself had
evoked raged about her; she could no longer restrain its fury. She saw
this clearly as Michael stood before her all aflame and overwhelmed her
with this strange mixture of love and hatred. His every fibre vibrated
with intense passion, and yet he struggled against it with a force that
would not succumb. He was conquered, not subdued.

"You will please release me, Lieutenant Rodenberg, from listening
further to such words as these," the young Countess said at last,
summoning up all her self-possession. "I will go and meet his
reverence."

"No need to do so. I am going," said Michael; his voice was low but
firm. "I am aware that hereafter we can have nothing to say to each
other. Farewell, Countess Steinrueck."

He bowed and went. Hertha did not see which way he turned, nor did she
perceive that the priest was approaching. She stood motionless.

The wind was rising; the sprays of the wild rosebush waved and
fluttered above her head, the sea of clouds swelled and rolled nearer
and nearer, while the misty breakers seemed ready to descend in floods
upon the pastures. The transfiguring glow above the Eagle ridge had
faded, the golden phantoms had vanished: heavy gray masses of mist were
swimming there now; they sank lower and lower, and joined the dark
clouds below that were suddenly torn asunder, and with a quivering,
jagged flash it leaped forth,--the flaming sword of Saint Michael!


                           *   *   *   *   *


The storm passed down into the valleys in full force, and there, after
the lightning had flashed and the thunder had rolled for an hour, it
ended in a pouring rain.

Through the dripping forest strode a young man whom the tempest had
overtaken. If Hans Wehlau had followed his friend's advice and pursued
the tiresome mountain-road, he would long since have reached Tannberg,
but he lost his way in the romantic forest, and struck into a path that
led him far away from his goal. A projecting rock afforded him some
shelter, but now, when it was growing dark and the rain was still
pouring, he had no choice save either to pass the night in the wet
forest, or to march on in hopes of finding a charcoal-burner's hut or
some other shelter for the night, and he decided upon the latter
course.

At last the thick, close forest came to an end, and the young man, as
he emerged upon a clearing, saw at some distance a feeble ray of light.
The darkness and mist did not allow of his discovering what kind of
structure it was that lay before him upon a wooded height and
projecting only here and there from among the trees, but there
certainly were human beings living there, and thither, accordingly, the
young man directed his steps.

The path leading up the height seemed to be in a very neglected
condition. Hans stuck fast several times in the swampy soil, and had to
cross first a brook that ran directly across the path, and then a
ruinous wooden bridge, and at last to pass through a gateway, where
only the stone pillars on either side were standing, the gate itself
being lacking. An apparently extensive building with walls and towers,
but in a ruinous condition, lay before the young man, but it had now
become very dark, so that it was with difficulty that, guided by the
ray of light he had first seen, he found a little closed door directly
beneath the lighted window.

He knocked, at first gently, then louder and more persistently; after
the lapse of a few minutes the window above was opened, and a hoarse
voice asked who was there.

"A stranger who has lost his way and begs for shelter for the night."

"I have no shelter for vagabonds and tramps. Be off immediately!"

"This is an amiable reception," exclaimed Hans, indignantly. "I am
neither a vagabond nor a tramp, but a respectable man, and quite ready
to pay for my night's lodging."

"Pay? In the Ebersburg!" came from above just as indignantly. "This is
no tavern; go to where you came from."

"That I shall certainly not do, for I came out of a rain-spout, and
have utterly lost my way in the forest. How can you leave a man
standing outside in such a storm and refuse to let him in? Open the
door!"

"No!" said the hoarse voice, evidently provoked. "Stay outside!"

"Deuce take it, my patience is exhausted!" cried the young man,
angrily, as a fresh fall of rain wetted him to the skin. "Open the
door, or I will break it down and take the old barracks by storm."

And he began to beat at the door with his fists. What he had been
unable to procure by courteous means this change of manner effected;
his violence evidently impressed the invisible guardian of the place,
for after a few seconds his voice spoke in a much gentler tone, "Who
are you, and what do you want?"

"I am at present a thoroughly drenched individual, and I want only to
be dried. Moreover, I am qualified to give the most satisfactory
explanations, if desired, with regard to my station, name, age, origin,
home, family, and so forth."

"You are a man of family, then?"

"Of course I am. Every man must have a family."

"I mean noble family."

"Of course. Now open the door."

"Wait; I'll come," sounded encouragingly from above, and instantly the
window was closed and the ray of light vanished.

"One has to be examined as to his pedigree before he is admitted here,
it seems," said Hans to himself, crowding up against the door to escape
the rain. "No matter. I should not mind in the least appropriating a
coronet if it would procure me a dry lodging for the night. Thank God,
they are opening the door at last!"

In fact, a key was turned and a bolt drawn on the inside; the door then
opened, and an old man appeared, leaning upon a cane with his right
hand, and holding a lamp high in his left.

His figure was lean and bent, but it must once have been tall and well
formed. The parchment-coloured skin, with its thousand lines and
wrinkles, made the face almost that of a mummy; the eyes were dim, and
from beneath a black cap a few straggling white locks stole forth. His
short walk seemed to have fatigued the old Herr, for he leaned more
heavily upon his cane, and coughed, while he lighted his guest into the
house.

"I beg pardon for my rude persistence, but I was really almost
drowned," said Hans, with a bow, that sent the drops flying in all
directions. "Have I the honour of seeing the master of the house?"

"Udo, Freiherr of Eberstein-Ortenau upon the Ebersburg," was the reply,
delivered with great solemnity. "And you, sir?"

"Hans Wehlau Wehlenberg upon the Forschungstein," was the equally
solemn rejoinder.

The name seemed to please the old gentleman; he inclined his head and
said, with dignity, "You are welcome, Herr Hans Wehlau Wehlenberg.
Follow me."

He carefully closed and locked the door again, and then preceded his
guest to show him the way. They first passed through a hall, the roof
of which seemed to be defective, for the rain had left traces
everywhere on the floor. Then they ascended a narrow, steep staircase,
the stone steps of which were much worn, then traversed a seemingly
endless passage, where their footsteps on the tiles echoed loudly, and
in which the lamp carried by the lord of the castle was the only light.
At last he opened a door and entered with Hans. "Make use of this
apartment," he said, putting the lamp upon a table. "The storm has
disarranged your dress, I see. I will leave you while you change it,
and shall expect you at supper; until then, farewell, Herr von Wehlau
Wehlenberg."

He waved his hand with an air of knightly courtesy and was gone. Hans
looked about him: the room was small, dark, and very scantily
furnished. The large canopied bed in one corner seemed the sole relic
of former grandeur, but its fine carving was shabby and worn, the
silken hangings were frayed, and the sheets were of the coarsest linen.

"The best thing to do would be to go to bed as quickly as possible,"
said Hans to himself, as he made arrangements for drying his clothes
near the stove; "but since this Freiherr von Eberstein-Ortenau has
invited me to supper, I must put in an appearance. Where shall I get
dry clothes? Perhaps I may find here somewhere an old suit of armour or
a mediaeval mantle that I can don. I think it would produce an
impression if I should walk into the ancestral hall clad in mail. Let
me see."

He began to search, and soon found a cupboard in the wall, unlocked,
which seemed to contain the entire modest wardrobe of the lord of the
castle. Hans took possession, without compunction, of the best articles
in it, and had scarcely finished dressing when an old woman with a
kerchief tied round her head appeared, and in the broadest mountain
patois summoned 'the Herr Baron' to supper.

"Only baron! I ought to have made myself a count at least," said Hans
to himself, as he obeyed the summons, following the old servant, who
conducted him to a room which seemed to be drawing-room and dining-room
combined.

At the first glance it presented a stately aspect, but it was a strange
mixture of former splendour and present decay. The walls were covered
with fine wainscoting, but the ceiling was rudely whitewashed, and the
tiled stove was of a very common description. The same contrast
appeared in the furniture: high-backed oaken chairs stood around a
coarse pine table, articles of the meanest earthenware were ranged upon
a richly-carved corner cupboard, and the fine old pointed arched
window, the same whence had issued the ray of light seen by the
wanderer, was curtained with flowered chintz.

"I must ask forgiveness for my presumption," said Hans, addressing the
master of the castle, who was seated in an arm-chair. "My dress was in
so disordered a state that, relying upon your kindness, I appropriated
this coat."

He certainly did look oddly enough in the old-fashioned garb, but
withal so handsome, with his cheeks reddened by the keen mountain air,
and his curls still wet with the rain, that a smile hovered upon the
old Freiherr's thin lips, and he replied, kindly, "I am glad you found
what you wanted in my wardrobe. Sit down; I wish to ask you a
question."

"Now comes the examination as to pedigree," thought Hans, and he was
not mistaken; his host went straight to the point.

"Hans Wehlau Wehlenberg; that sounds well," he continued. "But the name
of your estate is rather uncommon. Where is the Forschungstein
situated?"

"In Northern Germany, Herr Baron," replied Hans, without the quiver of
an eyelash.

"I thought so, since I do not know it. I am thoroughly acquainted with
all the Southern German families of rank and their estates. My own
family is one of the most ancient. It dates from the tenth century,
according to historic proof, and is probably much older. I suppose
there are no families so old as that in Northern Germany?"

He was evidently about to question his guest as to his genealogical
tree; but Hans, with great skill, frustrated his intent by asking a
question himself. "Pray, whom does this picture represent? It struck me
as soon as I entered." And he pointed to a painting upon the opposite
wall. It was the half-length portrait of a man of about forty, with
dark hair, brilliant dark eyes, and nobly-formed regular features,
which did not, however, express any high degree of intelligence. The
dress, apparently a uniform, was partly concealed by a cloak, and the
portrait was certainly modern. As the lord of the castle turned to look
at it he seemed utterly to forget pedigrees and centuries, and asked,
eagerly, "Do you like the picture?"

"Extremely! What a handsome head! and admirably painted too. An
Eberstein of course?"

The old gentleman looked half flattered, half displeased, as he
replied, slowly, "Yes, an Eberstein. You do not recognize him, then?"

Hans started; he glanced first at the portrait, and then at the
shrunken figure befo

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