CHAPTER VI.
When the brothers entered the drawing-room they found it deserted, but Frida stood outside on the terrace. She could not have heard them approach, for as Sandow passed out at the French window she turned hastily round, and the traces of tears were clearly seen. She rapidly passed her handkerchief over her face, but it was impossible to conceal her emotion. It was not usual with the merchant to display much consideration for the feelings of others, but here he could easily connect the girl's distress with the painful conversation at the dinner-table, and in a sudden accession of sympathy he tried to help her through her trouble.
"You need not be so anxious to hide your tears, Miss Palm," said he. "Here in a strange country you feel home-sick, I am sure."
He seemed to have touched the right chord, for in the trembling tone with which Frida replied lay the plainest proof of its truth.
"Yes, an inexpressible home-sickness!"
"Naturally, you have been such a short time here," said Sandow, carelessly. "All Germans feel that at first, but it soon passes away. If one is lucky in the New World one is glad to forget old times, and in the end rejoices at having turned one's back on them. Do not look so shocked, as if I had said something monstrous. I speak from my own experience."
Frida certainly had looked shocked. Her eyes, yet moist with tears, shot forth a glance of scorn and dislike as she hastily cried--
"You cannot be serious, Mr. Sandow. I shall forget, give up my country, even the recollection of it? Never, never!"
Sandow looked rather surprised at this passionate protest from the quiet girl; round his lips played a half contemptuous, half pitiful smile as he replied--
"I reckon you well disposed to learn that. The misfortune of most Germans here is that they hold so fast to the past, that the present and future are allowed to glide away unnoticed. Home-sickness is one of those sickly, affected sentiments which are sometimes considered as poetic and interesting, while in real life they are only hindrances. Whoever will get on here must keep his head clear and his eyes open, in order to seize and profit by every chance. You are compelled by circumstances to seek for a living here, and this weak longing and dreaming will not help you in that."
Hard and heartless though these words might sound, they were spoken with perfect sincerity. The unfortunate remark about his business friend, which might have been expected to irritate and embitter the merchant, seemed, on the contrary, to have awakened an interest in the girl, whom till then he had scarcely observed.
Frida gave no spoken contradiction to the lesson he condescended to give her, and which chilled her inmost heart. But her questioning, reproachful look said enough, and these serious, dark eyes seemed to produce an extraordinary effect on the usually unimpressionable man. This time he did not avoid the look, but bore it unflinchingly. Suddenly his voice took involuntarily a milder tone, and he said--
"You are still young, Miss Palm, very young, far too young to wander about the world alone. Was there, then, no one in your native land who could offer you a shelter?"
"No, no one!" came almost inaudibly from the lips of the girl.
"Of course--you are an orphan. I heard that from my niece. And the relation who invited you to New York died while you were on your way there?"
The slight inclination of the head which Frida made might be interpreted in the affirmative, but a burning blush overspread her face, and her eyes sought the ground.
"That is really very sad. How was it possible to find a proper refuge in New York, where you were quite a stranger?"
The flush on the girl's cheeks became still deeper.
"My fellow-travellers took charge of me," she answered hesitatingly. "They took me to a countryman, the pastor of a German church, where I was most kindly received."
"And this gentleman recommended you to my niece. I know her mother had numerous connections in New York, with some of whom Jessie keeps up a correspondence. She feels such warm sympathy for you, that you need have no anxiety for the future. With the recommendation of Miss Clifford, it will not be difficult to find a suitable place."
Frida appeared as unpractised in falsehood as Jessie. With the latter she had not been obliged to use the deception which was necessary in speaking to the master of the house. Jessie had from the first been acquainted with circumstances which must be carefully concealed from Sandow, even now when he began to display some interest in her. But the manner of the girl showed how hard her part was. Sandow knew her shy and taciturn, but this obstinate silence appeared to annoy him.
As he received no reply, he turned abruptly away, and went into the garden. Frida drew a long breath, as if released from some burden, and returned to the drawing-room. Here she was met by Gustave, who, though remaining in the background, and apparently quite indifferent to the conversation, had, in reality, not lost a word of it.
"Listen to me, Frida, I am not at all satisfied with you," he began in a tone of reproof. "What was the object of your coming here? What do you mean by avoiding my brother at every opportunity, actually running away from him? You make no attempt at a nearer acquaintance; the rare moments when he is approachable are allowed to pass unused by, and you maintain complete silence when he speaks to you. I have smoothed the way for you, and now you must try to walk in it alone."
Frida had listened to this lecture in silence; but now she drew herself up and said hastily--
"I cannot!"
"What can you not do?"
"Keep the promise which I made to you. You know you half forced it from me. Against my will am I here, against my will have I undertaken to play the part to which you have condemned me. But I cannot carry it through, it is beyond my strength. Let me go home again, here I can do no good."
"Indeed?" cried Gustave angrily. "That is a brilliant idea. For this have I crossed the sea with you, and made deadly enemies of my publisher and the editor, who were determined not to let me go. For this I sit patiently at the office desk under the weight of Miss Clifford's supreme contempt, and all that Miss Frida may declare, once for all, 'I will stay no longer.' But it won't do. Surely you are not going to cast away your arms after the struggle of one week. On the contrary, I must request that you will stay and carry out what we have begun."
The girl's dark eyes rested sadly and earnestly on the speaker, as if reproving his careless tone.
"Do not call me ungrateful! I know what I owe you, what you have done for me; but the task is harder than I had thought. I can feel no affection for this cold, hard man, and he will never feel any for me, of that I have the strongest conviction. Had I once seen a kindly glance in his eyes, once heard a cordial word from his lips, I might have drawn nearer to him; but this frigid character, that nothing can warm, nothing can break through, drives me ever farther and farther away."
Instead of replying, Gustave took her hand, and drew her beside him on the sofa.
"Have I ever said that the task would be easy?" he asked. "It is hard enough, harder than I could have believed, but not impossible. With this shy avoidance of him, you will certainly attain nothing. You must grapple with the foe; he is so strongly mailed that he can only be taken by storm."
"I cannot!" cried Frida passionately. "I tell you that no voice within me speaks for him, and if I can neither give nor receive love, what shall I do here? Steal my way into a home and fortune. You cannot wish that, and if you did, I would refuse both, were they offered to me with the heartless indifference with which he permitted me a refuge in his house."
With the last words she sprang from her seat. Gustave quietly drew her down again.
"Now you are getting beyond all bounds, and the end will be an obstinate refusal. If I did not know from whom you take that wilful obstinacy, that passionate temper which lies under all your outward reserve, I would give you another sort of lecture. But these faults are hereditary, it is no use fighting against them."
The girl seized his hand and held it in both her own, as she entreated--
"Let me away, let me go home again, I beg, I beg! What does it matter if I am poor. I can work. I am young, and you will not desert me. Thousands are in the same position, and must struggle with life themselves. I will rather a thousand times do that than beg for a recognition which is withheld from me. I only followed your wishes, when you brought me to your brother; I need neither him nor his riches."
"But he needs you," said Gustave impressively. "And he needs your love more than you believe."
The girl's lips trembled with a bitter smile.
"There you are certainly wrong! I know little of the world or of men; but I know very well that Mr. Sandow neither needs nor wishes for love. He loves nothing in the world, not Jessie, who has grown up under his eyes almost like a daughter of his own; not you, his own brother. I have seen only too plainly how far he is from you both. He knows nothing but the desire for wealth, for gain, and yet he is rich enough. Is it true, really true, that he is connected with this Jenkins, that such a man belongs to his friends?"
"Child, you understand nothing about that," said Gustave, evasively. "Whoever, like my brother, has seen all the hopes of his life shattered, whose every blessing has become a curse, every pleasure a disappointment, either sinks utterly under such a catastrophe, or he leaves his former self entirely behind, and goes on his way another man. I know what he was twelve years ago, and what was then living in him cannot be quite dead. You shall awaken it, you shall at all events try, and that is why I have brought you here."
The deep earnestness with which these words were spoken, did not fail of their effect on Frida; but she said, with a shake of the head--
"I am, and must remain a stranger to him. You have yourself forbidden me to let him suspect anything of our circumstances."
"Certainly I have, for if he now discovered the truth he would most likely repulse you with the utmost harshness; your obstinacy is equal to his, and thus all would be lost. But at least you must approach him. As yet you have scarcely spoken together. No voice rises in your heart, you say. But it must rise in you, in him, and it will rise when you have learnt to stand face to face together."
"I will try!" said Frida, with a deep sigh. "But if I fail, if I only meet with harshness and suspicion"--
"You must remember that he is a man much sinned against," interrupted Gustave, "so much, that he has a right to look with mistrust and suspicion on all, and to draw back where another would lovingly open wide his arms. You are innocent, you suffer for the faults of others; but all the weight, poor child, falls on you."
The girl made no reply, but two hot tears rolled down her cheeks, while she rested her head on the speaker's shoulder. He stroked her forehead softly and soothingly.
"Poor child! Yes, it is hard, at your age, when all should be joy and sunshine, to be already so deeply plunged in hatred and disunion, in the whole misery of human life. It has been hard enough to me to reveal all this to you; but it entered with such force into your life that it was imperative for you to know it. And my Frida does not belong to the weak and vacillating, she has something of the energy, and, alas, something of the hardness of a certain other nature. So bravely forwards, we must conquer in the end!"
Frida dried her tears and forced a smile.
"You are right! I am so ungrateful and stubborn towards you, who have done so much for me! You are"--
"The best and noblest of men"--interrupted Gustave, "naturally I am, and it is very extraordinary that Miss Clifford will not recognise my perfections, though you have so touchingly assured her of them. But now go out in the air for a few minutes. You look flushed and tearful, and you must do away with these signs of excitement. Meanwhile, I will wait here for Jessie. We have not had one dispute to-day, and a wrangle has become one of the necessities of life to me, which I cannot do without."
Frida obeyed. She left the drawing-room, crossed the terrace, and descended into the garden. Slowly she walked through the beautiful park-like grounds, which stretched down to the shore, and on which the whole skill of the landscape gardener had been spent; but the spot she sought, lay in the most distant part of the garden. It was a simple bench, shaded by two mighty trees; it afforded an unlimited view over the sea, and from the first day, had become the favourite retreat of the young stranger. The fresh sea wind cooled Frida's heated cheeks, and swept the traces of tears from her face, but the shade on her brow defied all its efforts. This shade grew only darker and deeper, while she, lost in distant dreams, watched the play of the waves which broke upon the beach.
The garden was not so deserted as it seemed, for at no great distance voices might be heard. Just by the iron railing which enclosed the domain of the villa, stood Sandow with the gardener, and inspected the addition, which in the last few days, had been made to the grounds.
The gardener directed, with ill-concealed pride, his attention to the work, which was really planned and carried out with great taste and skill, but the master of the house did not display much interest in it. He cast a careless glance over it, with a few cool words expressed his satisfaction, and went again on his way towards the house. Thus he passed the bench where Frida sat.
"Is that you, Miss Palm? You have chosen the most retired spot in the whole garden for your retreat."
"But also the most beautiful! The view of the sea is so magnificent?"
"That is a matter of taste," said Sandow. "For me that eternal rolling up and down has a deadly monotony. I could not long endure it."
He said this in passing, and was on the point of leaving her. She would probably have left his remark unanswered, and the conversation would have ended there, but Gustave's warning bore fruit. She did not preserve that shy silence as usual, but replied in a tone of which the deep emotion forced a recognition.
"I love the sea so dearly--and--even if you ridicule me, Mr. Sandow,--I cannot forget that my home lies there, beyond those waves."
Sandow did not appear disposed for ridicule. He stood still, his eyes followed involuntarily the direction she pointed out, and then rested earnestly and musingly on Frida's face, as if he sought something there.
It was a misty and rather gloomy afternoon. The clouds hung heavy with rain over the scene, and the usually unbounded view over the sunny blue waves, was to-day, confined and veiled. One could scarcely see a hundred steps away; farther out lay thick fog on the sea, and the restlessly moving flood enlightened by no ray of sunshine, showed a dark grey tint, which gave it an almost oppressive air of gloom.
Restlessly rolled on the waves, and burst with a hiss into white foam on the sand of the shore. Far out in the fog sounded the roaring of the distant ocean, and two gulls took their slow flight over the waves and vanished in the mist. Frida's eyes followed them dreamily, and she started violently when Sandow, who till now had preserved silence, suddenly asked--
"What was the name of the clergyman with whom you lived in New York?"
"Pastor Hagen."
"And there you heard those remarks about Jenkins and Co.?"
"Yes, Mr. Sandow."
Frida seemed about to add something, but the abruptness with which the last question was uttered closed her lips.
"I might have supposed so. These clerical gentlemen with their extravagant views of morality, are always ready with a sentence of damnation, when a thing does not exactly fit their measure. From the pulpit it is much easier to look down on a sinful world, than it is to us who must live and struggle in the midst of it. These gentlemen should for a moment try what it is, they would soon lose some of their virtuous calm and Christian spotlessness, but they would learn to judge better of other things of which now they understand absolutely nothing."
The bitter sarcasm of these last words would perhaps have terrified another, but Frida's spirit rose energetically against it.
"Pastor Hagen is mildness and consideration itself," with a blaze of indignation. "Certainly he will never condemn anyone unjustly. It was the first and only time that I heard a harsh judgment from his lips, and I know that only care for the dangerous position of his countrymen drew it from him."
"Does that perhaps mean that he is right?" asked Sandow sharply, while almost threateningly he advanced a step nearer.
"I do not know. I am quite strange and unknown to all. But you, Mr. Sandow, are acquainted with this man, you must know"--
She dared not complete the sentence, for she felt that every additional word might be an insult, and so indeed Sandow seemed to take it. The milder tone in which he had begun the conversation, disappeared in the wonted cold severity as he returned--
"At all events, I am much surprised to hear how the name and reputation of a great firm can be slandered in certain circles. You are still almost a child, Miss Palm, and it is easy to imagine, but understand nothing of, such things. You cannot know how influential the name of Jenkins and Co. is in the commercial world. But those who allow themselves such freedom in their slander should consider that and beware."
This refutation sounded dry enough, but not convincing. Of the power and influence of the man no one had doubted, only that his influence was injurious. Frida of course had no idea of the nature of the connection between the two houses, but even the mention of the two names together had deeply shocked her.
"You are angry with me for my imprudent expressions about your friend," she said. "I repeated unsuspectingly what I had heard, and Pastor Hagen's remarks only referred to the danger with which such undertakings threaten our emigrants. He has daily in New York before his eyes the proof of how deeply such things affect the weal or woe of thousands. You cannot know that the interests of your banking-house lie certainly far removed from such speculations."
"Now how is it that you are so sure of it?" asked Sandow jestingly, but the jest seemed somewhat forced. The dialogue began to disturb him, yet he made no effort to break it off; there was something in it which charmed and enchained him against his will.
Frida emerged more and more from her reserve. The subject interested her in the highest degree, and her voice trembled with deep emotion as she replied--
"I have once, only once, seen such a picture of misery, but it has made an indelible impression on me. While I was in New York, a number of emigrants came to us, Germans, who some years ago had gone to the Far West, and were now returning. They had, doubtless, listened too readily to the representations of the unscrupulous agents, and had lost everything in those pathless woods. There they had left, sacrificed to the climate, many of their nearest and dearest; there they had left their means, their hopes, their courage--all! The German pastor who had warned them before and whom they had not credited, must now advise them and procure them the means of returning to their native land. It was terrible to see these, once so courageous and strong, now so utterly broken down and despairing, and to hear their lamentations. I shall never forget it!"
As if overpowered by the recollection, she laid her hand upon her eyes. Sandow replied not one word. He had turned away and looked grave and motionless out into the mist. Immovable, as if chained to the spot, he listened to every word which came with ever-increasing passion and excitement from the youthful lips.
"I saw myself, on board the steamer which brought also hundreds of emigrants here, how much anxiety and care such a ship carries, how many hopes and fears. Happiness is seldom the cause which forces them to leave their home. With so many it is the last hope, the last attempt to create a new home for themselves out here. And then to think that all their hopes fail, all their toil and labour is lost, that they must be ruined because one man will enrich himself, because there are men who, on purpose, with the fullest knowledge send their brothers into misery, to make a gain out of their destruction. I should never have believed it possible had I not myself seen it and heard it from those who returned!"
She stopped, started at the deadly pallor which overspread the face of the man who still stood motionless before her. His features remained firm and inflexible as ever, no feeling betrayed itself there, but every drop of blood seemed to have forsaken those features, whose fixed expression had something unearthly in it. He did not see the anxious questioning look of the girl, her sudden silence seemed first to restore him to consciousness. With an abrupt movement he drew himself up, and passed his hand over his brow.
"One must acknowledge that you stand bravely by your countrymen," said he. His voice sounded dull and heavy, as if every word were produced by a strong effort.
"So would you if you had an opportunity for doing so," returned Frida, with perfect assurance. "You would cast the whole weight of your name and position into the scale against such undertakings, and certainly you could do far more than an unknown clergyman, whose own duties leave him so little time, and who has already so much distress and misery to alleviate in his own parish. Mr. Sandow," with suddenly awakening confidence, she drew a step nearer to him, "really I did not mean to affront you by those heedless words. It is quite possible that report has wronged the man, or that Pastor Hagen has been deceived. You do not believe it, I can see from your emotion, and you must know him best?"
He was certainly agitated, this man whose hand so convulsively grasped the back of the bench, as if he would crush the carved wood with his fingers, so agitated that some moments passed before he regained full control over his voice.
"We have fallen upon a very disagreeable topic," said he at last turning away. "I should never have believed that the timid, quiet child, who during the week spent in my house, scarcely dared to raise her eyes or open her lips, would blaze out so passionately when strangers' interests were concerned. Why have you never shown this side before?"
"I dared not. I feared so much"--
Frida said no more, but her eyes which were raised half confidently, half timidly to his, expressed what the lips could not, and she was understood.
"Whom did you fear? Was it me?"
"Yes," she replied with a deep breath. "I feared you dreadfully till this moment."
"But you should not fear me, child!" In Sandow's voice was a tone silent for many years and grown quite strange, but which spoke of rising warmth and softness. "No doubt I seem cold and stern to you, and so I am in the business world, but towards the young guest who has sought shelter in my house I would not be so. Do not for the future avoid me as you have done. You must not be afraid of me?"
He stretched his hand out to her, but Frida hesitated to take it. She became alternately red and pale, some stormy, hardly repressed feeling seemed bursting from her control. Suddenly Jessie's voice was heard from the terrace. Growing anxious at the long absence of the young visitor she called her name. Frida sprang up.
"Miss Clifford calls me, I must go to her. Thank you, Mr. Sandow, I will not be afraid of you again?"
And hastily, before he could prevent her, she pressed her lips to the offered hand, and fled away through the shrubbery.
With great astonishment Sandow looked after her. A singular girl! What did it mean, this strange mixture of shyness and confidence, of blazing passion and such power of self-repression? It was a riddle to him, but just with this unexpected, contradictory character, Frida succeeded in what the cleverest calculations could not have done--in awaking a deep and abiding interest in the heart of a man generally so cold and indifferent.
He had indeed every reason to be irritated and annoyed "with the fanciful girl, with her exaggerated ideas," but through his irritation another feeling forced its way, the same which he experienced when he first looked into these dark childish eyes, and of which he could scarcely say whether it caused him pain or pleasure.
He forgot, perhaps, for the first time in his life, that his study, and his writing table laden with important letters awaited him. Slowly he sank on to the bench and gazed at the restless rolling sea.
"A deadly monotony" he had said, of this eternal motion. The taste for the beauties of nature had long ago died out in him, like so many other tastes, but the words of the just concluded conversation still rang in his ears. Truly; on the other side of this heaving ocean lay his native land, his home. Sandow had not thought of it for years. What was home to him? He had been long estranged from it, he clung with all the roots of his present life to the land he could thank for what he was. The past lay as far distant from him as the unseen coast of home, yonder in the mist.
The proud rich merchant, whose name was known in every quarter of the globe, who was accustomed to reckon with hundreds of thousands, certainly looked back with contemptuous pity on the past, on the narrow life of a subordinate official in a provincial German town. How close and confined was then the horizon of his life, how wearily must he then struggle to make both ends of his paltry salary meet, till at last, after long hoping and waiting, he reached a position which allowed him to establish his modest household. And yet how that poor narrow life had been beautified and ennobled by the sunshine of love and happiness which was shed around it.
A young and beautiful wife, a blooming child, the present full of sunshine, the future full of joyful hopes and dreams, he needed nothing more, his whole life was overflowing with happiness, but what a fearful end to all that joy!
An old friend of Sandow's, who had grown up with him, who had shared his boyish amusements, and later had accompanied him to the university, returned, after a long absence, to his native town. He was well-off and independent, and his life was dimmed by no cares for the morrow, unlike his friend; who, however, received him with open arms and led him to his home. And then began one of those domestic tragedies which are often concealed for years, till at last some catastrophe brings them to light.
The blinded man suspected not that his wife's heart was estranged from him, that treachery spun its webs around him under his own roof. His love, his confidence, firm as if founded on a rock, helped to blind him, and when his eyes were at last opened, it was too late, he saw his happiness and honour lying in ruin before him. Almost driven mad by despair, he lost self-control and struck the destroyer of his happiness to the ground.
Fate had at least preserved him from that last misery, blood-guiltiness. Although severely injured, the traitor recovered slowly, but Sandow had to pay the penalty of his deed by an imprisonment of many a weary year. Though Right was unquestionably on his side, the letter of the law sentenced him, and that sentence destroyed his whole existence.
His situation was naturally lost, his official career closed. She, who had once been his wife, had after the necessary separation had taken place, given her hand to the man for whose sake she had betrayed her husband, and whose name she now bore. And the one thing left to him, the one thing the law allowed to the desolate man, that he himself put from him. He had learnt to doubt all, all that he had once considered pure and true, he now looked on as lying deception; thus he believed no more in his paternal rights, and refused to recognise the little being which had once been the joy of his heart.
He left it to the mother without even seeing it again. Under these circumstances it was impossible to contemplate returning to his native town.
Only America was open to him, that refuge of so many shattered existences. Despairing of himself and of the world, poor and with the prison stain upon his brow, he went there, but it was the turning point in his life. There he rose from deepest misery to riches and splendour.
From that time success had remained true to Frank Sandow. Whatever he ventured brought the richest returns, and soon he found only too much pleasure in these ventures. He dragged the quiet and timorous Clifford with him into the boldest and fool-hardiest speculations, and, as since his death, the reins had been entirely in his own hands, he could now brook no control.
There was something almost terrible in this restless, unceasing, hunt for gain in a man, who heaped up riches, but had no one for whom to gather them. But man must have something to cling to, something to give an aim and object to his life, and when the nobler good is lost, it is often the demon of gold which makes itself lord of the empty shrine.
Thus Sandow had fallen a victim. This demon spurred him ever forwards to new gains, drove him from one wild speculation to another, and led him to place his all on a single card. But it made him also insensible of every joy of life, to peace or happiness.
The chief of the great American banking house had indeed won for himself an imposing position, but his countenance showed only furrows of care, only the traces of feverish excitement; of peace and happiness there was no sign there.
The mist over the sea had grown thicker and spread farther and farther. Like dusky visions it floated to the land, and out of it rolled and burst the gloomy billows. The wind which now arose in its full might, drove them more strongly and violently on the strand. They came no more with a light splash, but roared and foamed on the beach. Threateningly they rushed to the feet of the lonely man, who darkly, and as if lost in thought, looked down on them. It was as if every wave repeated the words he had just heard, and that out of the fog arose the pictures they had called up before him.
Singular! What Gustave's energetic representations could not produce, this childish chatter had succeeded in doing. The earnest warnings of his brother had brought no effect on the merchant, he cast them off contemptuously as "sentimental notions," as the "ideas of a novice," and finally silenced him with a threat.
He had long been unaccustomed to take the weal and woe of others into consideration in his calculations. "One must reckon with men as with figures!" That was the principle of his life, and the foundation of his riches. Even in this speculation which had been proposed to him by his correspondent, he had reckoned with them, and it had not once occurred to him that men's lives should be thought of too. And now an inexperienced child, who had no idea of the effect her words could produce, had dared to speak thus to him. The words worked and fermented in him, he could not tear the thoughts from him.
"How much care and anxiety such a ship bears, how many hopes and fears!" Sandow had experienced that too, he too had landed here with his shattered hopes, with the last despairing attempt to begin a new life here. Success had come to him, friends and relations had held out a helping hand to him. Without that, he also might have succumbed.
But still came hundreds of ships, and the thousands that they carried had made also their last venture, gazed also fearfully around for any helping hand which might be stretched out to them. There was still room for many here, and the New World might look more benevolently on them than the Old.
But, whoever seized the hand which Jenkins and Co. stretched out to them, went to their ruin. And there was room for so many in that district, where famine and fever awaited them. They had bought that enormous territory for a song, and must at any price people it, to pocket the hoped-for enormous gain. There were really men who sent their brothers to destruction to enrich themselves.
Sandow sprang suddenly up. He would tear himself from these thoughts, which seemed burnt into his memory, from these words, which haunted him like spectres. He could endure the monotonous roar of the sea no longer, and the mist lay like a heavy weight upon his breast. It literally hunted him from the place and into the house. But it was in vain that he locked himself into his room, that he buried himself in letters and despatches. Outside the sea roared and rolled, and something within him arose and struggled upwards--upwards--something which had lain asleep for years, and at last awoke--his conscience!