The Undying Past

by Hermann Sudermann

XIX

On the outskirts of Halewitz Park, half hidden in the shrubs, there stood a lonely, grey, one-storied house, the five windows of which were surrounded by stucco spirals and flourishes, which gave it an air of incongruous frivolity. The front looked out on a field path, while the gable and back walls were buried in the greenery of the park.

No sound of what was going on in the courtyard of the great house penetrated here, only from time to time a plough or a harvest waggon passed on its way home, and the melodious shout of a half-childish woman's voice, the joyous barking of a playful dog echoing it, came through the thicket. Every morning, at an early hour, a troop of poorly, though neatly clad children, bare-headed and barefooted, aged from three to seven, assembled at the gate, the little ones holding the hands of their elders, or in some cases led by their mothers--wretched, prematurely faded creatures, bowed to the earth with the double burden of work in the fields and child-bearing.

At seven o'clock the iron gate opened, and the children streamed into the pleasance, climbed the steps, and disappeared into the house. Almost directly afterwards the shrill chorus of children's voices was to be heard by passers-by on the road, led by a deep, slightly cracked woman's alto.

When the dinner-bell sounded from the other side of the park, the door opened again, and the little troop came out and trotted towards the village.

Then all was quiet again around the lonely house, only an anæmic servant girl moved now and then backwards and forwards between the cellar stairs and the front door. Not till after the vesper hour did footsteps, light yet energetic, sound from the direction of the park, breaking through the undergrowth to cut off the curves of the pathway.

It was Hertha, come to pay her daily visit to her stepmother. The relations between mother and daughter had never been very intimate. The gloom that had overshadowed Johanna's temperament, her sybilline air, the atmosphere of incense and carbolic with which she was surrounded, all combined to repel the child with her craving for light and joy, and to make a close affection between her and her stepmother impossible. Yet, in her innermost heart, she cherished a sentiment of gratitude towards her as the benefactress who had opened a new world of love to her, the homeless one, by introducing her into her parental house.

Hertha would have considered it her duty to accompany the Countess Prachwitz when, after the explanation with her brother, she had retired to the dower-house; but her stepmother had herself opposed the plan, saying she would rather be alone with her God. Since which it had been the rule for Hertha to spend an hour with her every day, an hour in which, according to her lights, Johanna made a point of ministering to the madcap child's soul.

Hertha had to read bulky devotional books, into whose dreary waste of prayers a fervid hymn flamed up here and there like a bonfire on a rainy day.

In the middle of such an improving hour was it that mother and daughter were sitting together at the open window, the outside blinds of which were let down, so that a dim green dusk was all that was reflected within, of the brilliant sunlight without. Hertha read in a monotonous voice (which was a little husky from a too prolonged swim the day before) the good old formulas by which for centuries men in their direst need have found their spiritual daily bread. In the happy irresponsibility of her sixteen years, she did not let them disturb her. Indeed, the God to whom she prayed for the man she loved earnestly every night. Who spoke to her comfortingly out of the rustling leaves and wrathfully in the rush of the storm, was on the whole a stranger to her.

While the reading was going on, there was a knock. It was some one who knocked softly and timidly once, and then after a pause, as if gathering the necessary strength, a second time.

The countess was greatly put out at the interruption, so strictly forbidden at this hour of the afternoon.

"Go and see who it is, and send them away," she said.

Hertha went and opened the door, and found herself standing opposite the daintily clad figure of a young and beautiful woman, deadly pale, who looked at her with great imploring eyes; with difficulty she collected herself sufficiently to ask what she wanted.

But scarcely had the unknown's trembling lips mentioned her mother's name, than there was a cry behind her. The countess had torn the handle of the door out of her grasp, and said in a hoarse voice--

"Felicitas, you?"

The strange woman covered her pale sweet face dumbly with both hands.

And at the same moment Hertha felt herself pushed violently out into the passage. The key turned twice in the lock. The lady had gone in with her mother, and she was alone in the dusk.

And then she ran, driven by a secret dismay, down the shaky steps, through shrubs and bushes, by woodland path and lawn, past the garden-house and pond, to where joyous laughter rang down from the terrace with a reassuring sound.

The two whilom girl-friends confronted each other. The one, humble and supplicating, leaned against the door as if she hardly dared set one foot before the other, a cowering, crushed penitent, yet triumphant in personal charm, radiantly beautiful in her slender youthfulness of figure and the grace of her movements. The other stood erect, triumphantly sure of victory, filled with a sense of her high principle and stainless morality, supreme in the realm of self-torturing virtue, invulnerable in suffering, and proof against temptation, but at the same time faded and withered, with the hard lines of perpetual renunciation round her mouth, with lean throat and hollow cheek, and the smouldering fire of unattained wishes in her sunken eyes, a conqueror, but also a defeated woman. Johanna was the first to break silence.

"Have you considered what will be the consequences of taking this step?" she asked.

Felicitas bowed her head still lower.

Johanna did not accept this gesture as an answer. "You seem to have a short memory," she burst forth contemptuously.

"I have thought it all over, and remember everything," Felicitas breathed.

"Then you are prepared for your husband's eyes being opened to what you are, to-morrow?"

For the first time Felicitas gave her a direct look, touching, hopeless, yet withal collected.

"Why wait till to-morrow?" she said, in the same low tone. "He is here."

A faint colour spread over Johanna's face. "Here! do you mean in this house?"

"No; over at the castle."

"What for? It is a long time since he was there."

"I asked him to come, Johanna."

The two women looked at each other for a while in silence, one full of suspicion, the other of seraphic resignation. Then Johanna drew a step nearer.

"Felicitas, you are playing a dangerous game," she said.

"I want to end it, Johanna."

"And that is why you have brought him?"

"I thought I would make it simple for you, Johanna."

Again silence reigned. Then Johanna said, with averted eyes--

"Why do you stand at the door? You may come nearer if you like."

"Thank you," whispered Felicitas. She approached an armchair with quaking knees, and clung to the back for support.

"Speak out," said Johanna. "What has brought you here?"

"Necessity," murmured Felicitas--"the necessity of my soul."

Johanna laughed out loud. "Really, your phrases are as good as ever. And what can I do for your soul's necessity?"

"Despise and scout me," said Felicitas. "You have the right; but believe me when I say that I am no longer what I was.... I am not the same as I was when you cast me off. Then I was cowardly and bad. To-day I come back to you purified and courageous, and the reason that I stand before you thus, Johanna, is"--her face lighted with enthusiasm--"is because he, in the two years of our married life, has made me what I am. I owe it to him."

Johanna shrugged her shoulders. She thought of the gossip in everybody's mouth about the flirtations of the fair chatelaine of Uhlenfelde.

"Your reputation is not above reproach, Felicitas," said she. "Is that also his doing?"

"What? Johanna?"

"I mean what people say about you?"

"I must ask you, then, first what it is people say about me? No; but I am too proud to defend myself. That I can make such a boast is his doing likewise."

And she spread out her arms, while in her mind she replaced Ulrich's name with Leo's.

Johanna passed her hand over her brow, as if she would clear away some confusing impression. There was something in the bearing of this creature indeed which formerly she had not been acquainted with, and it wrung from her an unwilling sympathy.

"Again I ask, what is it you want with me?"

Felicitas smiled faintly. "Won't you let me sit down? It has cost me something to come here."

And it was true enough that she was ready to drop. But she waited for Johanna's gesture of consent before she sank into the chair against which she had been leaning for so long. Her eyes closed, and she drew a deep breath. Then she began to talk in a subdued tone.

"It is like being in a dream, Johanna. I can hardly believe that to-day I shall attain that peace of mind after which I have been groping for years. Believe me when I say that I haven't once had any real joy in what is mine. Your image has stood between us.... It has seemed to me as if I had got everything by stealth...."

"And so you have," Johanna broke in harshly.

"Yes; as if I had robbed some one worthier of the position. You see that, so long as I live at his side, I carry about with me the thought that my fate is in your hands. And now I feel that what you resolved to do would be my salvation. But what have I not had to endure before I reached this point?" And, as if shuddering at the thought of the past, she cowered back in the chair.

Johanna had regained her self-possession. How well she knew these languishing glances, these veiled flute-like tones. Her eyes, sharpened by hate, saw through all the pretty wiles and artifices as through a glass case. Her gaze rested unmercifully on the cowering one, and only waited for her to reveal her hand, then woe to her.

Felicitas suspected all this. The lean sister of charity with the lofty bosom--Felicitas thought it must be padded with virtue--was more difficult to deal with than her brother, the dear, overgrown schoolboy.

But even she had her weak spot; even she! And with folded hands and softly breathed words, Felicitas went on with the history of her suffering and struggles. It was very much the same as what she had confided to Leo on the Isle of Friendship, only a little altered to suit the special case. A blend of self-accusation and self-justification, of declarations of ardent attachment to her husband and outbreaks of torturing fear of him; a tossing between consciousness of unworthiness and the impulse to lose this consciousness in new unworthy acts--all this poured out in a stream of humility and penitence, radiated by the magic reflection of a soul hungry for beauty and love.

How much she believed of it herself she scarcely knew. In her easily impressionable mind, which she could play with as one plays with a spoilt child, truth changed into lies and lies into truth as the emergency required. Now she had reached in her story the first meeting with Leo. She halted, for she had not had time to consider, in the excitement of the moment, which of the three motives she should make use of--that suggested by the world, that which made out it had been done for Ulrich's sake, or that which was really the true one.

"Be large-minded; be noble, and not petty," a voice said within her. And she told the truth. Of course it was not the truth by a long way, but only what she took for the truth.

At the mention of the first letter to Leo, Johanna gave a sigh of satisfaction. Then she froze again into her stony aspect, but watched her enemy with ravenous eyes. Felicitas had nearly finished.

"It seems as if it would all be in vain," she concluded, "what I have tried to do for Ulrich's happiness, if I don't succeed in bringing about a reconciliation between our families; that is to say, between you and me."

Johanna laughed shrilly.

"Ulrich must come in and out here," Felicitas said eagerly, "as he used to in old times, without any fears about injuring the honour of his wife. Now, Johanna, you know why I came. This is the 'dangerous game' I am playing. I feel and see that I have lost it, for you only answer me with scoffing laughter. If you laugh again, I shall know there is no further hope."

And then suddenly she fell on her knees, and, seizing Johanna's skirts, cried, sobbing--

"No, don't laugh; don't laugh! Forgive me! Don't let me be ruined. Be my refuge and rock of strength. I am devoured by a longing for absolution.... You are pure.... A saint. Will you show me the right way--guide and help me to repent? Pray for me, and teach me to pray. Let me come to you when my guilt is driving me to distraction and despair. Let me kneel and weep ... like this ... at your feet."

She made an attempt to embrace Johanna's knees, but she who had been looking down on her with hard compressed lips, quickly drew herself away, and, picking up the train of her dress, stepped by her.

"Listen to my answer," she said. "You have laid your scheme very skilfully, that must be admitted; but you are in error if you imagine I don't see through you. You and I understand each other, Felicitas; there can be no fencing between us. I take very little interest in you now. I say of you what the Apostle Paul said of the heathen--'What are they to me that I should judge them?' What are you to me that I should condemn or forgive you? You must make your own reckoning with what you call life. But if you think that I shall quietly stand by and look on while you draw my brother into your toils for a second time, and ruin him body and soul----"

"Oh, Jesus!" cried Felicitas. However much she might have planned and rehearsed this interview, that bitter cry from the depths of her tormented soul had not been in the programme.

Even Johanna seemed for a moment impressed by it; then she quickly took up again the thread she had dropped.

"Naturally, you deny it. You are an adept at playing the innocent. To be quite open with you, I myself have been instrumental in my brother's approaching you, as a means of putting an end to your insane conduct; for your husband's house must be cleansed at any price. But it was not your place to make the first advance. For you to do it was shameless, if not something worse. The foundation of your soul is overgrown by rubbish and weeds. But they shall be dug up."

A gleam of secret terror flitted over the unhappy penitent's tear-stained countenance. She rose slowly and threw herself into the armchair.

"This is the reward one gets for speaking the truth," she thought. "I might just as well have used the Ulrich pretext, and the rest would have been simple." Was she now to throw up the game as lost? No, not yet. She felt that the highest trump of all was up her sleeve. But she wasn't quite sure how to play it. So, like one who was at the last gasp and resigned, she said--

"Very well, send for him. I am ready."

Johanna fixed her eyes on her piercingly, as if she expected a new trick. Then she caught hold of the bell-rope, but let it fall again.

"You still think that I am in joke?" she asked; while Felicitas, apparently calm, followed every movement of her hands with a pained smile.

"I think that you are bent on ruining me," she replied; "and that is enough."

"Why should I wish to do that?"

"Because you hate me, Johanna."

Johanna came nearer to her, and in a voice which seemed nearly to choke her, she hissed in her ear--

"I will be honest. Yes, I hate you, I never hated my husband as much as I hate you. But that is not here or there. It has nothing to do with the matter in hand. As far as I am concerned, you might lead as pleasure-loving and sinful a life as you pleased. I shouldn't care. But you have laid hands on those who are dear to me. I could tear my own eyes out over it. Why should I spare you?"

"This is the right moment," thought Felicitas. And pressing her hand to her beating heart, she said, with the same martyr-like air--

"If that is the reason, Johanna, you and I are quits after all."

"What do you mean?"

"Don't you see that to-day you yourself are laying hands on some one dear to you?"

Johanna shrank back a little, her eyes opened wide with a fixed expression, as if she beheld in front of her this approaching evil. And Felicitas continued--

"Don't you see that it will hurt him? Aren't you afraid that it may kill him? But you are strong, and you are so great, Johanna, that you would rather he died than remained the possession of one unworthy of him. All I say is, that you ought to have done sooner what you intend to do to-day. It should have been done before habit had made him used to the new conditions. I speak of 'habit' because I daren't mention love in your presence."

Johanna spread her trembling hands on the table, and Felicitas continued in a still humbler and more resigned tone.

"Perhaps my imagination paints things too black. Perhaps he may recover from the blow which is to be dealt him ... for it lies with you, Johanna, to repair this day's work and to help him to forget it."

Johanna started up. Her eyes pierced the face of her opponent anxiously.

"What are you trying to convey to me?" she stammered.

Felicitas went on, with her plaintive smile. "I only know this, Johanna, that I--I shall not recover from it. Whether he shoots me, whether I throw myself into the river, I don't care. Perhaps neither will happen. He is so kind and noble ... and I--I am so afraid of death. Maybe I shall perish in shame and misery somewhere, for I am rudderless, Johanna. I count for nothing. In any case, I shall be cleared out of the way; from henceforth I shall be as good as dead; as you said, Johanna, there can be no fencing between us, least of all to-day. Why, then, conceal anything?" She opened her arms, "We love him, both of us, I as much as you ... this is the ground of our hate."

Johanna cried aloud. She made a motion with her fingers as if she would spring on the defenceless woman, then collapsed on to the sofa and buried her face in the cushions.

Felicitas licked her lips with the point of her little red tongue, which was a habit she had. She was quite sure now that the bell-rope would be left untouched. She came closer to the prostrate form, and was going to lay her hand on her shoulder, when she recollected herself and cautiously withdrew a few steps.

"The only thing we have to consider," she began anew, "is his happiness. If you are certain, Johanna, that you can secure it better than I can, I will yield to you willingly. And even if I did not wish, I am bound to do so because I am in your power. But I am weary of all this anxiety and unrest, and I do it of my own free will. And now, you see, there is really no reason why we should hate each other any more. It might be possible that together we may hit on a way which will spare him the worst pain, for don't forget that when he loses me he loses his friend at the same time, whom he values more highly than anything on earth."

Johanna raised herself and cast her wildly rolling eyes up at the crucifix which, with its white arms, shone out of the twilight.

"Oh, my Saviour," she moaned, "how could I want to do it? How couldst Thou permit that I should want to do it?"

"Don't distress yourself," Felicitas went on, and now she really did lay her hand on the heaving shoulder. "Nothing has actually happened yet, and therefore I will make another proposal to you. To-morrow I will leave his house and write to him from Münsterberg. 'Forgive me. I see that I can't make you happy. You have made a mistake. I set you free. Choose the woman who is worthy of you."

At this Johanna turned round abruptly, clung to her, and seemed as if she would have drawn her head down to hers and kissed her. But the moment she felt the cool, soft arms of the woman she had so long hated touch her throat, she tore herself away shuddering and rushed to the window, to put as much distance as possible between her and the fair, smiling sinner; from this coign of vantage she began speaking.

"I have allowed myself to be cajoled by you, Felicitas. I am now as defenceless as yourself. You say that I love--aye, I love him. Triumph over me, then, for you have him, and I can do nothing but pray for him. But what do you know of how I love him? I might as well say to you I don't love him, and in your sense it wouldn't be a lie. My love is spiritual, and partakes of worship. I want nothing further from him. To worship him is the same to me as belonging to him. I love him as I love the risen Lord, the saint who will one day kneel with me before God's throne. But what do you understand of love like this? You all jeer at me. No, but you don't despise me. You have a slight inkling into what I feel, and you envy me. But, nevertheless, you have no idea of what it is--of what it is at night to see the Gates of Heaven open, and the glory of God flame down, and the white wounds of the Saviour begin to bleed. Such a miracle has happened here more than once."

And she contemplated the crucifix hanging over the praying-stool with great hungry eyes.

Felicitas cringed. She had begun to be afraid. It seemed to be true what people said, that Johanna's fanaticism had driven her out of her mind. When the latter saw her shiver, she broke into a laugh.

"You are frightened," she said. "I can well believe it.... No lies, no mask have any avail with the naked, bleeding One.... Come, give me your hand."

The imperious command met with no resistance. Felicitas, half-fearful, half-curious, drew nearer and felt her hand seized by one as if in fever.

"Why do you tremble?" asked Johanna. "You ought to be glad, for now I am in your power, as much as you are in mine. You are afraid to meet the eyes of the Crucified, but look well. Do you know who has eyes like those?"

"No," said Felicitas.

"And you pretend to love him! Oh, you dissembler! Now, listen, either your mind is pure and clear as gold, like the blood that flows from those wounds, and I have been deceived in you; or it is an abysmal sink of iniquity beyond my capacity to measure in this life."

"The truth is about halfway between the two," thought Felicitas.

"But we will leave that. If you desire that our enmity shall be over from this hour, you will not refuse to take the oath I require of you."

"It won't be so awful," thought Felicitas, and with downcast eyes she replied--

"I am not afraid of any oath."

"Then kneel down."

"Why, where?" asked Felicitas, nervously.

"Here, on my stool."

"Very well, even that I will do," said Felicitas, and knelt as she was bidden, carefully drawing aside her festive skirts as she did so.

"Place your hands on the Saviour's feet."

Felicitas dared not refuse. When the tips of her fingers came in contact with the cold marble, she cowered and shivered. She felt as if an icy stream ran over her from those white feet, which threatened to freeze the blood in her veins, but she held out bravely. And then in a low, slightly tremulous voice, she repeated the words Johanna dictated to her, like a confirmation candidate kneeling in white muslin at the altar, stammering forth her confession of faith.

"I swear to Thee, merciful Lord, I confess and protest in Thy name, that I am filled with penitence for my sin, and shall be penitent till my life's end."

"If nothing further occurs," she thought meanwhile.

"I will cherish no other thought, no other wish than to repent what has happened. Ulrich's happiness and honour shall be my expiation, and my only object in life till he dies."

"Amen," added Felicitas, with a sigh of relief, and was going to get up hastily, but Johanna held her down on the stool.

"We haven't done yet," she said, and laughed between her clenched teeth.

Felicitas thought, "I don't care," and prepared herself to repeat further what was poured into her ear in broken whispers mingled with hot gasping waves of breath.

"If my heart is not pure, if I take this oath, as a blind. ..."

Felicitas hesitated a little to test herself.... No it was no blind. She really meant what she was promising.

"If in future I set my desires on vain pleasure, or nourish sinful wishes, so shalt Thou punish me through the dearest I possess. Thou shalt shame me in the sight of all men."

"Thou shalt shame me in the sight of all men," repeated Felicitas, and looked timidly round her.

"The child Thou hast given me shall die," was whispered in her ear.

A cold shiver ran along her spine, and then she repeated even this.

"And I shall be his murderess."

Felicitas was silent and trembled.

"Well ... why do you hesitate?"

"Johanna, it is so awful, what you want me to say."

"It is, but only thus can I be sure of you. Say it or not. You have your choice."

"And ... I ... shall ... be ... his ... murderess."

"Right, now say Amen."

"Amen."

Then she sank with her forehead on the edge of the desk. She glanced at her fingers, which had relaxed their grasp on the feet of the Crucified, as if she expected there must be traces on them of the blood which Johanna saw streaming from the wounds. It seemed to her as if she had sworn away her life, as if with those last words the sun had gone down, never to rise again.

Then she slowly raised herself. The next moment, she felt Johanna's arms round her, and the feverish lips, struggling against repulsion pressed to her own.

She returned the pressure mechanically, thinking with a shudder--

"And this too is a kiss."

Johanna seized her hand. "Now you can return to your place which you have occupied as undisputed mistress till to-day," said she. "You also shall have your way, and may count me your friend from henceforth; and now, let us go over to them. Ulrich must know that we are reconciled."

"And Leo too," thought Felicitas, smoothing out the folds of her dress which were crumpled from kneeling.

As she walked into the open air by Johanna's side and saw the sun shining, in spite of all that had happened, greenish-gold through the leaves, she took comfort for the first time. The new position of affairs seemed already more familiar.

"The oath may do good," she said to herself. "It will, at least keep me from doing silly things."

Frau von Sellenthin and Ulrich Kletzingk sat together on the terrace, keeping up a somewhat constrained conversation, because both were awaiting, full of impatience, Lizzie's return. A mounted messenger had been sent out to the fields to summon Leo home. Elly, irradiating placid rosy innocence, stitched at her embroidery, which was spread out on her knees; while Hertha, with idle fingers, was on the qui vive for coming events. Even the presence of Ulrich, to whom she had felt drawn long ago in the bonds of a glowing friendship, could not dissipate the panic which the mysterious meeting between the two women had awakened in her. She was the first to become aware of their approach. Walking close to each other, they loomed against the background of the park--the one in her black, flapping weeds resembling a gliding shadow, and the other like a white summer cloudlet.

Now grandmamma saw them coming.

"Thank God!" she murmured, rolling up her crochet, and giving Ulrich a sign to look round.

"Thank God," he repeated, as he kissed the old lady's hand. "Now at last we are at peace."

Every one had got up and looked towards the two women as they ascended the steps of the terrace.

"Well, I don't think it seems altogether like peace," thought Hertha, observing the expression of bitter chagrin which made her mother's features appear more severe and sour than ever before. Her eyes were searching Ulrich's face. "She looks at him as if she would like to swallow him," thought Hertha.

And then she came under the spell of Felicitas's charms, which held her close captive.

"Oh, how very beautiful she is!" she said to herself with a sigh. "How I should love to be like her."

Greetings were exchanged, and half-murmured, significant words spoken; but Hertha heard nothing, being completely fascinated by the fair stranger whose smile was so melancholy, and who knew how to bow her head with such gentle grace.

She had a dim sensation as if hearing music--low, dreamy, strange music, which grew stronger directly the beautiful woman made a movement, and died softly when she sat motionless and silent.

When she kissed her husband, Hertha envied him; and when she greeted Elly in a friendly manner, Hertha felt herself alone and deserted. But then the fair creature turned to her and gave her an astonished yet exquisite smile. Hertha glowed to the roots of her hair.

"This is, then, Countess Hertha, of whom I have often heard?" asked Frau Felicitas.

"Whom has she heard of me from?" wondered Hertha, without daring to lift her eyes.

And now she beheld a rounded, snow-white hand stretched invitingly out to her. She would like to have rushed at it, to have kissed it; but in her awkwardness she could only lay three fingers in it uncertainly, and then quickly withdraw them.

"You are like a fairy princess, Countess Hertha," she heard the stranger's sweet, soft voice breathe close to her--"so tall and so proud. We must be friends."

"Oh!" exclaimed Hertha, glowing with gratitude for so much kindness, and what was more, the beautiful woman threw her arms round her and kissed her on the lips. Then something happened which she could not have explained. At the moment the stranger's lips touched hers, she was seized anew with the same uncanny feeling which her stepmother's exclamation had awakened in her a few hours earlier. As if turned to stone, she allowed herself to be kissed, and gasped, for the deadening perfume which this embrace exhaled streamed over her and almost took her breath away.

Then she heard grandmamma say, "She is still shy ... she hasn't seen much society yet." Dear, dear grandmamma, and she nearly crushed the old, protecting hand, that so kindly guided her stumbling destiny. Now every one sat down on the terrace, and tea was served. It was long past the vesper hour. Hertha sat in a dream, and eat and drank absently as if she hadn't broken her fast for days.

Her attention was first caught again by overhearing bits of the conversation which passed between her stepmother and the Baron Kletzingk.

There was nothing remarkable about the conversation itself, for it turned on the pedagogic principles which governed Ulrich's education of the village children. Only the tone in which it was conducted was extraordinary.

There was something like suppressed scorn in her stepmother's indifferent words, one moment she seemed as if she would like to cry, the next she would collapse into brooding reflection, and her eyes would be fixed on his face, full of stony pain. He, on his side, talked to her as if she were an invalid who was to be humoured. He did not contradict her, but modified at once anything that seemed to displease her ... and when she threw in a derogatory or incredulous remark with her nervously trembling lips, he pretended that he heartily shared her opinion, saying that her reasons were important enough to make him change his mind. But after such a concession he got hardly more than a shrug of her shoulders for answer.

"What can he have done to her that she hates him so," thought Hertha; and then her attention wandered again to Felicitas, at whom she stared admiringly.

In the middle of the flagging conversation a firm footstep was heard in the breakfast-room, accompanied by the pattering of the St. Bernard's feet. Whoever was speaking broke off before finishing his or her sentence.

Every one sat upright and glanced expectantly at the door. Hertha felt her heart beating quickly. For an instant her eyes met those of the beautiful woman, and it seemed to her that the pale face had grown a shade paler.

The door was flung back, and Leo burst on to the terrace. Suddenly he paused and drew back. His hand fidgeted with the ends of his beard, his eyes fastened on Felicitas with a searching, threatening gaze.

"He doesn't like her," was Hertha's inward comment.

Ulrich went up to him quickly, and seized his hand. "What you see here, old man, means reconciliation. Now we are all going to enjoy ourselves together at last."

"You two?" asked Leo, indicating with his finger the two women.

"Yes, certainly, we are reconciled," responded Johanna, with her bitterest smile. He was going to say more, when Ulrich admonished him. "Think of the children," he said.

"It is to be hoped now that you will not disdain to shake hands with me, sister," Leo said.

"I have come here expressly with that purpose," answered Johanna, rising.

Their hands touched, and they looked into each other's eyes. To him her hand said, "I hold you in its hollow," and her glance, "Be careful."

Then he turned to greet Felicitas with a fleeting smile.

"I wonder why he doesn't like her?" Hertha asked herself, rather puzzled at everything.