CHAPTER X.
[FOUND AND LOST.]
There was a misty green, betokening the coming spring, upon the bare boughs of the trees in the park at Rollin, and the little lake in its midst reflected the clear blue of the skies above it. Adela, seated on the white bench, near the water, was hardly aware either of the budding branches around her or of the gleaming mirror before her. Her thoughts were occupied with her expected visitor, and her hands and eyes with a beautiful brown greyhound that never seemed to tire of leaping to and fro over the riding-whip she held out for him.
"What will Walter tell me?" she thought. "Jump, Fidèle!" she called out to the dog, who had paused for a moment and looked dubiously at his mistress. "You are a good creature," she went on, stroking his handsome head, and again her thoughts flew to Walter. "Poor dear fellow, his eyes have so sad a look in them now; and indeed it is too uncomfortable in Eichhof. Thea really looks quite ill; she must be fairly bored to death. Come, Fidèle, you shall jump once more, and then I'll give you some sugar."
And the dog jumped again, and was fed with sugar, while his mistress began to think that Walter allowed himself to be waited for too long. Suddenly she sprang up. The sound of a horse's hoofs was audible, and in an instant Walter turned into the avenue of oaks that led to where she was sitting. Fidèle ran towards him, and leaped beside the horse barking his welcome, while Adela, in sudden and unexpected confusion, which she strove to hide behind an affectation of indifference, fixed her eyes upon the surface of the lake beyond the rider.
"Well," she said, when Walter, having tied his horse to a tree, stood beside her, "I have only just arrived. I nearly forgot our appointment."
"I should have been so sorry not to find you," he said, "for after our offensive and defensive alliance it would have pained me to leave Eichhof without telling you myself of what you will be sure to hear from others, coloured, probably, by their prejudices."
"Leave? You are going away? Where? You have only just come!" the girl exclaimed, evidently alarmed, and quite forgetting her part of indifference, as she drew Fidèle towards her and put her arms around his neck, as if craving some sympathy from him, while she looked up at Walter anxiously.
"You perhaps remember a ride we took together, about a year ago, when I told you how hard I had found it to resign the idea of studying medicine," Walter began.
"Good heavens, Walter," she interrupted him, "you are not going to begin about that again?"
He gazed at her seriously and sadly for a moment in silence, and noted the eager and yet terrified expression in her eyes.
"But I am," he then said, softly. "I am firmly, unalterably resolved----"
"Walter!" she exclaimed loudly, thrusting Fidèle from her. "You cannot! you dare not! Think of your father!"
"I have thought of him and tried to do as he wished. But do you not think that my father loved me and earnestly desired my happiness?"
"Yes; and for that very reason you ought to do nothing that he would have disapproved."
"And suppose I am perfectly convinced that I never could be contented, but, on the contrary, should be positively miserable, in the career he chose for me?"
"You still ought to pursue that career."
"And live but half a life, tormented by the consciousness that I was entirely unfitted for my position? No, Adela, my father never could have wished me to do this. When I told him of my wishes I had not yet made an attempt to conform to his. This was my duty, and I have done it. Now what I only suspected has come to be a certainty. I have no interest whatever in the study of the law. I cannot make it the business of my life. Do you not believe that the knowledge of this would alter my father's views?"
"Your father never would have allowed you to be a doctor."
"Then he would have sacrificed his better self to a prejudice. The very essence of his being was a kindly enjoyment of life, and it would have caused him the greatest sorrow to have been the occasion of unhappiness to one of his sons. I believe that if he had lived he would have seen this and would have yielded to my wishes. Happiness and unhappiness are dealt out to us by heaven, but human will is not without influence in their distribution. As far as I can I choose to be happy, and in so being to fulfil what I know to have been my father's chief hope for me."
"But your mother,--think of your mother; she never will consent to what you desire."
"No, my mother never will consent until some brilliant result justifies my choice. But she is just as averse to a commonplace legal career, which is what I should now be obliged to pursue, since I cannot be under obligations to my brother. I must be independent. My mother has no decided views for me at present. I hope to win her over in time. Bernhard is angry with me; Lothar only laughs at me. I am very much alone in my family, Adela. But I never shall forget that I am an Eichhof, and I shall try, so far as I can, to do honour to my name. I hope that my mother may one day be proud of me; at all events she shall never be ashamed of me."
He had spoken with some emotion latterly, almost more to himself than to Adela. He suddenly paused and looked at her. Her eyes were opened wide, and tears were rolling down her cheeks.
"Now you know all. Are you still my friend, Adela?" he asked, bending over her.
She seized his hand, and cried, between laughter and tears, "Dear, dear Walter, I know I ought to be angry with you, but I cannot, I cannot."
He pressed her hand to his lips. "Then you think I am right, Adela?" he asked, gazing earnestly into her eyes.
"Good heavens! I do not know, Walter," she sobbed; "but you are so good, and we have known each other so long, and I know you will go away now and never come back again for years."
"And you are sorry?" he whispered.
She did not reply, but her tears continued to flow silently, and, as if to conceal them, she leaned her head upon Walter's shoulder. He put his arm around her, and she made no resistance.
His lips almost touched her curls, and she wept so uncontrollably that his heart was inexpressibly touched. Her tears, and the gentle pressure of her head upon his shoulder, annihilated all the fixed resolves he had made with regard to her; all the prudent reasonings with which he had silenced the promptings of his heart were melted by those 'kindly drops,' like the last snow beneath a warm spring shower. "Dear, dearest Adela!" he whispered, and kissed her brow. She threw her arms about his neck and nestled close to him.
The larks trilled above them, and the sunbeams kissed open the buds of the elder-bush that grew beside the lake, while Fidèle looked at the youthful pair clasped in each other's arms with a certain expression of comprehension in his honest eyes, as if it were all a matter of course.
"And so the very words which I feared would separate us have united us forever, my darling," said Walter, after a long and ecstatic pause. "Ah, how proudly I shall now pursue my path, since I know that I shall not be struggling and working only for myself, but for you! And you will believe in me, and will be patient until the goal is reached, and I have a home for you where you shall be shielded from every blast that blows?"
She suddenly freed herself from his clasp, and, stroking her curls from before her eyes, looked at him in a kind of terror. "Walter," she said, hastily, "for heaven's sake, don't talk so!"
He smiled, and drew her towards him again. "Never fear, dear love," he said. "Be sure that my strength and courage will be all-sufficient to provide for our future. I know now that you love me, and will one day consent to be my wife, although I still persist in being a doctor."
Again she broke away from him. "I never said that, Walter," she cried; "no, no; and I never will say it. You ought to know that if I love you,--and I am not so very sure that I do love you,--all this happened so quickly,--but even if I did love you, I never, never would consent to be a doctor's wife."
Walter looked at her like some sleeper awakening from a dream. He found it hard to understand her, but her words could bear no other meaning except that she meant to break with him if he adhered to his resolve. "It was all a mistake, then,--the saddest mistake of my life," he said, slowly and monotonously. "I do not understand how it could be, Adela, but I understand that you now send me from you." He stood still for a moment, as though awaiting a reply. Adela was silent, and pressed her handkerchief to her lips to restrain her sobs. Walter still looked inquiringly at her. "Farewell!" he suddenly said, and turned to go, but she seized his arm and clung to him as in desperation.
"Walter!" she cried. "Oh, heavens! I--I think--I love you, Walter. You must not go!"
"Adela, do not torture me so!" he entreated. "After what has passed between us, I do not, I cannot know what you mean. You say you love me, and----"
"Yes, yes, Walter; but you must not be a doctor. If you are poor, no matter; we will wait until you are a Landrath, and I will learn all about housekeeping and whatever you wish me to, for--even if I do not know exactly whether I love you--yet----"
"You do not know whether you love me, Adela?" he said, with a bitter laugh. "You do not know exactly? Well, I know, and I will tell you. No, you do not love me, or you never, after what I have told you, could demand such a sacrifice of me! You do not love me, Adela; it was all a dream, and"--he drew out the ribbon upon which he wore her ring--"and it is past and gone!"
He held out the ring to her. "There, take it back," he said, his voice trembling with agitation. "I cannot any longer be your friend. There is only one relation possible between us. I must have all or nothing. Take it, take it back!" And he still held the ring out to her.
"I will not have it," she said, turning stubbornly away.
"Take it, or I will throw it into the lake. I will not keep it."
"Do as you please."
Walter tossed the ring from him. For an instant it glittered in the sunlight above the waters of the little lake, into which it sank with a faint splash.
Adela never looked towards it. She stooped and stroked the head of her dog, who pressed close to her side as if in dread of some coming misfortune. The girl thought that Walter would speak again. Suddenly she heard the sound of a horse's hoofs behind her. She started up, to see both steed and rider just disappearing at the turning of the oak avenue.
"Walter!" she almost screamed.
But he had gone. She sank on her knees, and laid her head upon Fidèle's neck.
"Walter," she sobbed, "I love you! Oh, now I know I love you!" But Walter could not hear her.