Countess Erika's Apprenticeship

by Ossip Schubin

CHAPTER XVII.

The Princess Dorothea was pacing her salon restlessly to and fro. From time to time she gazed out of the window into the dreary Berlin March weather, upon the heaps of dirty snow shovelled up on each side of the street and slowly melting beneath the falling rain.

The Princess was annoyed. She had been left out in the invitation to a court ball. Usually she would have ascribed the omission to an oversight of the authorities, but to-day the matter disturbed her: instead of an oversight she suspected the omission to have been an intentional slight, and her steps as she walked to and fro were short and impatient.

Why were they so frightfully moral in Berlin, so aggressively moral? she asked herself. Everywhere else people might do as they chose, if only appearances were preserved.

What had she done, after all? Long ago in Florence Feistmantel had explained to her that marriage, as arranged in civilized countries, was entirely unnatural. The Princess, still pure, in spite of the degradation about her, had laughed aloud at the philosophic view thus advanced by her companion and guide. Years afterwards she had recalled this theory that it might serve to justify herself to herself; and lately--only yesterday--Feistmantel, who was established in Berlin and gave music-lessons in the most aristocratic circles, had enunciated the same views at a breakfast to which Dorothea had invited her, and the Princess had contradicted her positively, had been rude to her, had nearly turned her out of doors, but at the last moment had apologized almost humbly and had finally dismissed her with a handsome present.

She had suspected behind Feistmantel's assertion of her philosophic view a mean attempt to ingratiate herself with her hostess. "As if Feistmantel could suspect anything! No human being can suspect anything," she repeated several times. "And, after all, there is scarcely a woman, beautiful and admired, who is not worse than I."

In the midst of all her superficiality and moral recklessness, she had always been characterized by a certain frankness, which at times had passed the bounds of decorum; now she writhed under a burden of hypocrisy which weighed most heavily upon her.

And why was this so?

It had all been the gradual result of the tedium of the life she led. A man more coarse and rough than any of her other admirers had paid court to her in a way that flattered her vanity; he amused her, he brought some variety into her life; his lavishness was astounding. Once when he had lost a wager to her he brought her a diamond necklace in an Easter egg.

She knew that this was wrong, but she had been wont as a girl to accept presents from men, and then she had an almost morbid delight in diamonds. And what stones these were!--a chain of dew-drops glittering in the morning sun! And he had so careless a way of throwing the costly gift into her lap, as if it had been the merest trifle.

She could not resist wearing the necklace once at the next court ball,--explaining to her husband, who understood nothing of such things, that she had purchased it for a mere song at a sale of old jewelry.

She intended to return it; but she did not return it. From that moment he had her in his power. He lured her on as a serpent lures a bird, extorting from her one innocent concession after another, until one day---- Good God! if she could but obliterate the memory of that day!

To call the torment which she suffered from that time stings of conscience would be to invest it with ideality. No, she felt no stings of conscience; her moral sense was entirely blunted; but she was enraged with herself for having fallen into the snare; her pride was humbled in the dust, and she was in mortal dread of discovery. She was a coward to the core. What would she not have given to be free? She would have broken with her lover ten times, but that she feared him more than she did her husband.

He was a Russian, fabulously wealthy, and notorious in the Parisian demi-monde which he habitually frequented. Orbanoff was his name, and outside of his own country he was credited with princely rank to which he had no title,--a man with no moral sense, brutal on occasion, with no idea of the laws of honour prevailing in Western Europe, but of an undoubted physical courage, which helped him to maintain his present position.

Princess Dorothea was convinced that should she break with him he would commit some reckless, impossible crime.

Oh, if he would only release her! She began to build castles in the air. Never, never again would she be concerned in such an adventure. All the romances that she had read were lies: there was nothing in the world more hateful than just this. Only once in her life had she been conscious of any real preference for a man, and that had been for her cousin Helmy; now of all men her own clumsy, thoroughly honourable and intensely good-natured husband was the dearest. He was at present on his estate in Silesia, where he was much happier than in the society of the capital. Dorothea had made him so uncomfortable in Berlin that he always stayed as long as possible in Silesia.

To-day she longed for him; she wanted him to take her on his knee and soothe her like a tired child, and then to have him carry her in his strong arms down the broad staircase of his old castle in Kossnitz, as he used to do when they were first married. Yes, she longed for his strong supporting arm.

Ah, if she were only free! She would turn her back on Berlin and go with him to Kossnitz. She positively hungered for Kossnitz,--for the odour of stone and whitewash in the broad corridors, for the airy, bare rooms, for the farm-yard with the brown farm-buildings. How picturesque it must all look now in the snow!--for the snow was still deep in Silesia. They would go sleighing: oh, how delicious it would be to rush along, warmly wrapped up, with only her face exposed to the fresh wintry breeze, the sleigh-bells ringing merrily, the horses mad with their exciting gallop, the snow-clad forest gleaming silvery white around them!

And how delicious would be the supper when they got home!--she would have done with all fashionable division of the day: they would dine at one, and she would have potatoes in their skins at supper-time,--she had not had them since she was a child,--and black bread, and sour milk:--how she liked sour milk!

One hope she had. Was it not Orbanoff whom she had seen last night in the background of the box of a young actress? It was not his habit to conceal himself on such occasions: probably he had been thus discreet on her account. An idea suddenly occurred to her. What an opportunity this might afford her to recover her freedom! All she had to do was to feign furious jealousy, and break with her dangerous lover without wounding his vanity.

On the instant she felt relieved, and even gay, in the light of this hope.

The clock struck five,--the hour of her appointment with Orbanoff. Without ringing for her maid, she dressed herself in the plainest of walking-costumes and left the house. She walked for some distance, then hired a droschky and was driven to a shop in Potsdam Street, where she dismissed the vehicle, bought some trifle, and walked on still farther before hiring another conveyance.

At about eight o'clock of the same day, Goswyn von Sydow, who had lately been transferred to Berlin, where he was acting as adjutant to an exalted personage, issued from the low door of a small house in a side-street where he had attended the baptism of the first-born son of one of his early friends, a young fellow of decided talent, who had married a girl without a fortune, and who did not at all regret his choice. The home was modest enough, but was so unmistakably the abode of the truest happiness that Sydow could not but envy his friend his lot in life. How pleasant it had all been!

He lighted a cigar, but held it idly between his fingers without smoking it, and reflected upon his own requirements in a wife,--requirements which one woman alone could fulfil, and she----

Could he forget his pride, and try his fortune once more? His heart throbbed. No! under the circumstances, he could not. He never could forget that he had been taunted with Erika's wealth. Even if he could win her love, their marriage would begin with a discord.

If she were but poor!

The blood tingled rapturously in his veins at the thought of how, if trial or misfortune should befall her, he might take her to his arms and soothe and cheer her, making her rich with his devotion and tenderness. He suddenly stood still, as if some obstacle lay in his path. Had he really been capable of selfishly invoking trouble and trial upon Erika's head? He looked about him like one awaking from a dream.

Just at his elbow a young woman glided out of a large house with several doors. He scarcely noticed her at first, but all at once he drew a long breath. How strange that he should perceive that peculiar fragrance, the rare perfume used by his sister-in-law, Dorothea! He could have sworn that Dorothea was near. He looked around: there was no one to be seen save the girl who had just slipped by him, a poorly-clad girl carrying a bundle.

He had not fairly looked at her before, but now--it was strange--in the distance she resembled his sister-in-law: it was certainly she.

He was on the point of hurrying after her to make sure, but second thoughts told him that it really mattered nothing to him whether it were she or not: it was not his part to play the spy upon her.

He turned and walked back in the opposite direction, that he might not see her. As he passed the house whence she had come, a man muffled in furs issued from the same door-way. The two men looked each other in the face. Goswyn recognized Orbanoff.

For a moment each maintained what seemed an embarrassed silence. The Russian was the first to recover himself. "Mais bon soir," he exclaimed, with great cordiality. "Je ne vous remettais pas."

Goswyn touched his cap and passed on. He no longer doubted.

The next morning Dorothea von Sydow awaked, after a sound refreshing sleep, with a very light heart. She was free! All had gone well. She had first regaled Orbanoff with a frightfully jealous scene to spare his vanity, but in the end they had resolved upon a separation à l'aimable, and the Princess Dorothea had then made merry, declaring that their love should have a gay funeral; whereupon she had partaken of the champagne supper that had been prepared for her, had chatted gaily with Orbanoff, had listened to his stories, and they had parted forever with a laugh.

Now she was sitting by the fire in her dressing-room, comfortably ensconced in an arm-chair, dressed in a gray dressing-gown trimmed with fur, looking excessively pretty, and sipping chocolate from an exquisite cup of Berlin porcelain. "Thank God, it is over!" she said to herself again and again.

But, superficial as she was, she could not quite convince herself that her relations with Orbanoff were of no more consequence than a bad dream.

She felt no remorse, but a gnawing discontent: she would have given much to be able to obliterate her worse than folly. She sighed; then she yawned.

She still longed for her husband and Kossnitz: she would leave Berlin this very evening for Silesia and surprise him. How delighted he would be! She clapped her hands like a child. Suddenly--it was intolerable--again she was conscious of that gnawing discontent. Could she never forget? And all for what she had never cared for in the least. She thrust both her hands among her short curls and began to sob violently. Just then the door of the room opened; a tall, broad-shouldered man with a kindly, florid face entered. She looked up, startled as by a thunderclap. The new arrival gazed at her tearful face, and, hastening towards her, exclaimed, "My dear little Thea, what in heaven's name is the matter?"

She clasped her arms about his neck as she had never done before. He pressed his lips to hers.

Goswyn was sitting at his writing-table,--an enormous piece of furniture, somewhat in disarray,--trying to read. But it would not do; and at last he gave it up. He was distressed, disgusted beyond measure, at his discovery with regard to Dorothea. The Sydows had hitherto prided themselves upon the purity of their women as upon the honour of their men. Nothing like that which he had discovered had ever happened in the family. He had suspected the mischief before; since yesterday he had been sure.

Must he look calmly on? What else could he do? To open his brother's eyes, to play the accuser, was impossible. Yes, he must look on calmly. He clinched his fist. At that moment he heard a familiar deep voice outside the room, questioning his servant. "Otto! What is he doing in Berlin?" he asked himself; "and he seems in a merry mood." He sprang up. The door opened, and Otto rushed in, rough, clumsy as usual, but beaming with happiness. He laid his broad hand upon his brother's shoulder, and cried,--

"How are you, old fellow? Why, you look down in the dumps. Anything gone wrong?"

"Nothing," Goswyn declared, doing his best to look delighted.

"Is everything all right?"

"Everything."

"That's as it should be. I suppose you are surprised to see me drop down from the skies in this fashion."

"I am indeed."

"'Tis quite a story. But I say, Gos, how comfortable you are here!" and he began to stride to and fro in the bachelor apartment; "although you don't waste much time or money in decoration, old fellow: not a pretty woman on the walls. H'm! my room looked rather different in my bachelor days. What have you done with your gallery of beauties, Gos?"

"I bequeathed all my youthful follies to my cousin Brock, who got his lieutenancy six weeks ago," said Goswyn, to whom his brother's chatter was especially distasteful to-day.

"H'm! h'm! you're right: you're getting quite too old for such nonsense." And Otto stooped to examine two or three photographs that adorned his brother's writing-table. "That's a capital picture of old Countess Lenzdorff," he exclaimed,--"capital! Here is our father when he was young,--I look like him,--and here is Uncle Goswyn, our famous hero, killed in a duel at thirty years of age. They say old Countess Lenzdorff was in love with him. As if she could ever have been in love! And you look like him: our mother always said so. Oh, here is our mother!" He took the faded picture, in its old-fashioned frame, to the window to examine it. "This is the best picture there is of her," he said. "Think of your ever being that pretty little rogue in a white frock in her arms, and I that boy in breeches by her side! Comical, but very attractive, such a picture of a young mother with her children. How she clasps you in her arms! She always loved you best. Where did you get this picture?"

"My mother gave it to me when I was quite young. She brought it to me when she came to see me in my first garrison, shortly before her death," said Goswyn.

"I remember; you had been wounded in your first duel."

"Yes; she came to nurse me."

"Ah, you've a deal on your conscience. No one would believe you were worse than I; but"--with a look at the picture--"I'd give a great deal for such a little fellow as that." And he put the picture back in its place with a care that was unlike him, and that touched Goswyn.

With his usual want of tact, Otto proceeded to efface the pleasant impression he had produced. "Have you no picture of the Lenzdorff girl?" he asked, looking round the room.

"I may have one somewhere," Goswyn replied, evasively. Indeed, he had a charming picture of her in the first bloom of her maiden loveliness; but he kept it behind lock and key, that no profane eye might rest upon his treasure.

"What a tone you take!" Otto rejoined. "Why, she was a flame of yours. A capital girl, only rather too full of crotchets: she was always a little too high up in the sky for me, but she would have suited you. I cannot understand why you did not seize your chance----"

"Now you are going too far," Goswyn said, with some irritation. "Do not pretend that you do not know that Erika Lenzdorff rejected me."

"What!" exclaimed Otto, in some dismay. "True, I remember hearing something of the kind; but that was a hundred years ago. Forgive me, Gos: the 'no' of a girl of eighteen who looks at one as the young Countess looked at you ought not to be taken seriously. Why don't you try your luck a second time? You cannot attach any importance to that intermezzo with the Englishman! Why, you are made for each other; and she is quite wealthy, too----"

"Otto, for God's sake stop marching up and down the room like a lion in a cage," cried Goswyn, unable to bear it any longer; "do sit down like a reasonable creature and tell me how you come to appear so unexpectedly in Berlin."

Otto lit a cigar and obediently seated himself in an arm-chair opposite his brother. "'Tis quite a story," he began, just as he had a quarter of an hour before.

"You've told me that already."

"Now, don't be so impatient. I know I am rather slow at explanations. You see, Gos, of late matters have not gone quite right between Thea and myself. There is sure to be fault on both sides in such cases: I could not be satisfied with the stupid life here in town, and she did not care for Silesia, so we agreed that I should stay at home, while she diverted herself for a while in town, and perhaps she would come back to me and be more contented in the end. I know that certain people disapproved of my course; but I had my reasons. There's no good in fretting a nervous horse: better give it the rein. But the time seemed long to me, she wrote so seldom and her letters were so incoherent. In short,"--he suddenly began to be embarrassed,--"I got some foolish notions into my head, and so, without letting her know, I appeared in Berlin this morning. And how do you think I found poor Thea? Sitting crying by the fire. Just think of it, Gos! Of course I was frightened, and did all that I could to comfort her, and when she was calm I asked her what was the matter. Homesickness, Gos! Yes, a longing for the old home and for the clumsy bear who is, after all, nearer to her than any other human being. She reproached me for neglecting her,--said I had not even expressed a wish in my letters to see her, and she was just on the point of starting for Kossnitz; and she was jealous too,--poor little goose! In short, there were all sorts of a misunderstanding, and the end of it all was that she begged me--begged me like a child--to carry her back to Kossnitz. I wish you could have heard her describe our life together there! She would not hear of my going a few days before to make ready for her, but clung to me as if we had been but just married. What is the matter with you, Gos?" for his brother had walked to a window, where he stood with his back turned to Otto, looking out.

"What could be the matter?" Goswyn forced himself to reply.

"Then why do you stand looking out of the window as if you took not the least interest in what I am telling you?"

"Forgive me: there is a crowd in the street about a horse that has fallen down."

"Very well: if every broken-down hack in the street can interest you more than what is next my heart, there is no use in my talking. But I know what it is; you were always unjust to Thea; you never understood her. Adieu!" And Otto took his hat and walked towards the door.

Goswyn conquered himself. What affair was it of his if his brother was happy in an illusion? he ought to do all that he could to prevent his eyes from being opened.

He laid his hand upon Otto's arm and said, kindly, "Forgive me, Otto; you must not take it ill if such a confirmed old bachelor as I does not share as he should in your happiness; it all seems so foreign to such a life as mine."

Otto's brow cleared. "I was silly," he confessed. "I ought not to have been so irritable. Poor Gos! But indeed I should rejoice from my heart if you could marry. There is nothing like it in the world. You need not frown: I never will mention the subject to any one else."

"Yes, yes, Otto. And when are you going home?"

"To-morrow. We are going to spend a few weeks at Kossnitz, and then we are to take a trip together. I came to ask you if you would not lunch with us to-day, that we might see something of you in comfort. This room of yours is decidedly cold. Do you never have it any warmer? Dorothea especially begs you to come,--at one o'clock."

"Indeed! does Dorothea want me?"

"Gos!"

"I will come. I have one or two things to attend to, but I will be with you in half an hour." And the brothers parted.

A few hours have passed. Goswyn had appeared punctually at lunch, and had done his best not to be a spoil-sport. They were now sitting by the fire in the little salon in which they had taken coffee, Goswyn and his brother. The early twilight began to make itself felt, but no object was as yet indistinct.

Dorothea had gone out to inform her aunt Brock of her projected departure and to ask her to make a few farewell calls for her. She had met Goswyn with such gay indifference that he had been puzzled indeed, and had finally begun to believe that he had been mistaken,--that the person whom he had supposed to be Dorothea Sydow was not she at all.

Something had happened in her life, however; of that he was convinced. Never had Dorothea been so simply charming. She gave him her hand in token of reconciliation, alluded, not without regret, to her defective education, told an anecdote or two with much grace and in a softened tone of voice, and clung to Otto like an ailing child.

"We are going to begin all over again,--all over again," she repeated, adding, "And when Gos has forgotten what a bad creature I used to be, and that he could not bear me, he will come and see us at Kossnitz: won't you, Gos? You shall see how pleasant I will make it for you there. You have absolutely hated me; or perhaps you thought me not worth hating,--you only detested me as one detests a caterpillar or a spider. I confess, I hated you. I always felt as if I ought to be ashamed in your presence; and that is not a pleasant sensation." She laughed, the old giggling silvery laugh, but there was a pathetic tone in it as she brushed away the tears from her eyes, and left the room, to return in a few moments, fresh and smiling, equipped for her walk. She kissed her husband by way of farewell, and held out her hand to Goswyn. "Shall I find you here when I return, Gos?" she asked, just before the door closed behind her.

"There is no one like her!" murmured Otto. "And to think that I could ever fancy a bachelor existence a pleasant one! But all is different now." The good fellow's eyes were moist as he passed his hand over them.

Shortly afterwards they heard a ring at the outside door. "Some visitor,--the deuce!" growled Otto. Goswyn looked about for his sabre, which he had stood in a corner.

But it was no visitor. Dorothea's maid entered. "A package has come for her Excellency," she announced. "Perhaps the Herr Baron will sign the receipt."

"Give it to me, Jenny."

Sydow signed it, and then said, "And give me the package. I will hand it to your mistress."

The maid gave it to him: it was a thick sealed envelope.

A dreadful suspicion flashed upon Goswyn's mind: in an instant he guessed the truth. What if it should occur to his brother to open the envelope? Apparently he had no thought of doing so: he simply laid it upon Dorothea's writing-table, a pretty, useless piece of furniture, much carved and decorated. Goswyn felt relieved. He suddenly became garrulous, talked of the latest political complication, told the last story of the intense piety of the Countess Waldersee, as narrated by the Prince at a recent supper-party, and described the four magnificent horses sent by the Sultan to the Emperor.

Otto sat with his back to the ominous packet. It did not escape Goswyn that he became very monosyllabic and did not show much interest in his brother's conversation.

"If she would only return!" Goswyn thought to himself. He was convinced that the packet contained Dorothea's letters to Orbanoff. He had not been mistaken the previous evening: it had been Dorothea who had passed him, evidently returning to her home from a last interview. The affair, odious as it was, was at an end: Dorothea was relieved that it was so. She was not fitted to engage in a dangerous intrigue.

Suddenly Otto began to sniff, as if perceiving some odour in the air. "'Tis odd," he said. "Don't you perceive a peculiar fragrance? If it were not too silly, I should say that it smells like Dorothea."

"That would not be odd," his brother rejoined, "since she left the room only half an hour ago."

"But I did not perceive it before," Otto said; and then, with sudden irritability, turning towards the writing-table, he added, "It is that confounded packet!"

"It probably contains something of Dorothea's which she has accidentally left at a friend's."

But Otto had taken the packet from the table. He turned it over. "I know the seal,--a die with the motto va banque: it is Orbanoff's seal!" His breath came quick. "What can Orbanoff have sent her?"

"Probably some political treatise. I do not see how it can interest you," said Goswyn.

Once more Otto turned the packet over in his hands. He seemed about to lay it down on the writing-table again; then, at the last moment, before Goswyn could bethink himself, he opened it hastily. About a dozen short notes, in Dorothea's childish handwriting, fell out, then a note of Orbanoff's. Otto's eyes were riveted upon it with a glassy stare; he could not yet comprehend. Then with a sudden cry he crushed the note together, tossed it to Goswyn, and buried his face in his hands.

A dull, brooding silence followed. Goswyn held the note in his hand, without reading it: it was not for him to pry curiously into his brother's anguish and disgrace.

After a while Otto raised his head. "What have you to say?" he exclaimed, bitterly. "That such another idiot as I does not live upon the earth? Say it! Ah, you have not read the note, Goswyn. Why do you look at me so? Could you have known---- Oh, my God! my God!" The strong man buried his face in his hands again, and sobbed hoarsely.

Goswyn was terribly distressed. He had never known his brother to weep since his childhood. He would far rather have had him fall into a fury. But no; he was weeping: the sense of disgrace was drowned in agony.

Before long he collected himself, ashamed of his weakness, and there was the quiet of despair in the face he lifted to Goswyn.

"You knew it--since when?"

"I know nothing," Goswyn replied.

"No, you know nothing,--good God! who ever knows anything in such affairs?--but you suspected, did you not?"

Goswyn was silent.

"Perhaps you can tell me how many people in Berlin--suspect it?"

Goswyn bit his lip. What reply could he make? after a while he began: "Otto, I would have given anything in the world to prevent you from learning it."

"Indeed!" Otto interrupted him. "You would have let me go through life grinning amiably, ridiculously, with a stain on my name at which people would point contemptuously, and you never would have told me of that stain? Goswyn!" He started up; Goswyn also arose, and the brothers confronted each other beside the hearth, upon which the fire had fallen into glowing embers and ashes.

"I ought certainly to have given Dorothea opportunity to expiate her fault. She was in the right path," said Goswyn. "The result of her frivolity had caused her a panic of terror: the entire affair had been a burden to her from the beginning, as you can see by her relief that it is at an end. One must take her as she is. All this has less significance for Dorothea than for any other woman whom I know. It has not entered into her soul. It has left nothing behind it but a horror of it all from beginning to end."

Otto looked suspiciously at his brother. Was this Goswyn who talked thus?--Goswyn the strict,--Goswyn, so uncompromising where honour was concerned?

Yes, it was Goswyn; there was no denying it.

"And you think that I should--I should--forgive?" murmured Otto, hoarsely, as if ashamed to utter the words.

"If you can so far conquer yourself."

Otto stooped and picked up the letters that had fallen upon the floor. He glanced through one of them. "There is not much tenderness in these lines, I must say." And he dropped at his side the hand holding the packet.

"One piece of advice I must give you," said Goswyn, with a coldness in his tone which he could not quite disguise. "If you forgive, you must have the strength of soul to forgive absolutely. If you forgive, throw those letters into the fire: Dorothea must never learn that you know anything."

"Yes," Otto said, dully. Suddenly he went close to Goswyn, and, looking him full in the eye, said, between his teeth, "Would you forgive?"

Goswyn started. He had no answer ready. "I--I never should have married Dorothea," he said, evasively.

"I understand," Otto said, in the same hoarse whisper. "You never would have forgiven; but it is all right for stupid Otto."

Again there was a distressing pause. Otto had turned away from his brother, with an inarticulate exclamation of pain. Goswyn gave him some moments in which to recover himself; then, laying his hand on his brother's arm, he said, "Do not take it so ill of me, Otto; I have no doubt I talk foolishly. I cannot decide; I am confused."

"No wonder," groaned Otto. "The position is a novel one for you: there has never been anything like it in our family. Oh, God!" he struck his forehead with his clinched fist; "I cannot believe it! I used to be jealous at times, but of no special person. Never, never could I have believed,--never!"

"Otto."

"What?"

"Since you cannot bring yourself to forgive----"

"Since I cannot bring myself to forgive----" Otto repeated, with bowed head.

"You must at least look the matter boldly in the face and decide what to do."

"Decide--what--to do----"

"Are you going to procure a divorce?"

Otto stood motionless. Goswyn laid his hand upon his shoulder; Otto shrank from his touch. "Leave me, Gos!" he gasped. "I beg you, go!"

The clock on Dorothea's writing-table struck: the tone was almost like that of Dorothea's voice. Goswyn looked round. Six o'clock. At seven he was invited to dine with a great personage,--an invitation tantamount to a command: he could not be absent. It was high time for him to go home to dress, but he could not bear to leave Otto alone.

"I must go," he said, "but I entreat you to come with me; you must not see Dorothea just now, and the fresh air will do you good and clear your thoughts."

"Why should they be clearer than they are?" Otto said, wearily and with intense bitterness. "I see more than you think. But go,--go: in a few minutes she will be here, and it would be more terrible to me than I can tell you to see her before you. No need to say more: I know that you will stand by me through thick and thin! There, give me your hand. I will do nothing unworthy of us, I promise you. Now go!"

Goswyn had gone, but Dorothea had not yet returned. Otto sat alone beside the dying fire. He could not comprehend what had befallen him. He must rid himself of this terrible oppression, but how? Some way must be found,--some solution of the problem: he sought for it in vain.

"Forgive!" The word rang in his ears, and his cheeks burned. How had Goswyn dared to suggest such a thing? No, it was impossible. Be divorced,--have her name dragged in the mire, and his shame published in all the newspapers? He stamped his foot. "No! no!"

What then?

He could challenge Orbanoff, and send Dorothea adrift in the world, a wife, not divorced, but separated from her husband. This was what the world would expect of him. He shivered as with fever. Send her adrift into the world without protection, without support, without moral strength, beautiful as she was,--expose her to insult from women, to sneering homage from men: she would sink to the lowest depths, not from depravity, but from despair. He wiped the moisture from his forehead. That would be the correct thing to do,--only---- Suddenly a sound that was half laughter, half sob, burst from his lips: he knew perfectly well that, while she lived, sooner or later the moment would come when he could no longer endure life without her; and then--then he should follow her, Heaven only knew whither, and take her in his arms, even were she far, far more lost than now.

And again there rang through his soul, "Forgive!" and again his whole being revolted. The packet of letters which he had thrust into his breast weighed him down. It was all very well for Goswyn to say that Dorothea must never know that the packet had fallen into his hands. Why, she would ask for it. Ah,--he bit his lip,--he could not think of it! He could not forgive!

His burden grew heavier every moment. On a sudden he felt very tired,--overcome with drowsiness. What was that? The rustle of a gown. The door opened. Framed by the folds of the portière, indistinct in the gathering twilight, appeared Dorothea's tall, lithe figure.

She had come, and he had determined upon nothing,--nothing.

He did not stir.

"Gos not here?" she asked, in her high, twittering voice. He tried to summon up his anger against her; he told himself that he ought to strike her,--kill her. But he was as if paralyzed; he could not stir; he trembled in every limb. She did not perceive it, and she could not distinguish his features in the darkness.

"So much the better!" she exclaimed. "I am so glad of a quiet cosy evening with you. Do you want to please me, Otto? Come with me now to Uhl's and dine, and then let us go to the theatre. Will you?"

She came up to him. He had arisen, and the fresh sweetness of her feminine nature seemed to envelop him. She put both her hands on his shoulders and nestled close to him. "Will you?" she murmured again.

He put his arms around her and kissed her twice as he never had kissed her before, with a tenderness in which there was a mixture of rage and glowing, frantic passion. Twice he kissed her, and then he suddenly became aware of what he was doing. He thrust her away.

"What is the matter?" she asked, startled.

"Nothing."

"But something is the matter."

"I tell you no!" He hurled the words in her face as it were, and stamped his foot. "Go--get ready!"

She lingered for a moment, and then left the room. He looked after her.

Goswyn's state of mind was indescribable. He hastily changed his uniform and made ready for the dinner. His nerves were quivering with a dread that he could not explain. "He never can bring himself to get a divorce," he said to himself; "and if he forgives----"

Disgust seemed fairly to choke him; he took shame to himself for having suggested such a course to Otto for a moment. He had no right to despise Otto. The old family affection for his brother revived in him in full force.

As soon as he was dressed he belied his usual Spartan habits by sending for a droschky. It would give him time to stop for a moment at Dorothea's lodgings to see what was going on there. The monotonous jogging of the vehicle soothed his nerves: his thoughts began to stray. As it turned into Moltke Street the droschky moderated its speed, and at the same instant a dull sound as of the excited voices of a crowd struck upon his ear. He looked out of the carriage window, upon a close throng of human beings. The vehicle stopped; he sprang out.

There was a crowd before the house occupied by his sister-in-law. Shoulder to shoulder men were pushing eagerly forward. A smothered murmur made itself heard; now and then a cynical speech fell distinctly on the ear, or a burst of laughter that died away without an echo, mingled with the curses of coachmen who could not make their way through the mass of humanity crowding there in the pale March twilight, through which the glare of the lanterns shone yellow and dreary. At first he could not get to the house; but the crowd soon made way for his officer's uniform.

He rang the bell loudly. Some time passed before the door was opened for him. Measures had evidently been taken to baffle the curiosity of the crowd.

The door of Dorothea's apartments, however, was open. He hurried onward, finding at first no one to detain him or to give him any information.

In the cosy little room, now brilliantly lighted, where he had left his brother, stood Dorothea, evidently dressed to go out, in a gray gown, and a bonnet trimmed with pale pink roses, her cheeks ashy pale, her face hard and set in a frightful, unnatural smile.

"What has happened?" cried Goswyn.

She tried to reply, but the words would not come. The smile grew broader, and her eyes glowed. Her face recalled to him the evening at the Countess Brock's, when she looked around after her song and found herself the only woman in the room.

One or two persons had made their way into the room. Goswyn ordered them out, with an imperious air of command. "Where is he?" he asked, hoarsely. She pointed mutely to a door. He entered. It was her sleeping-room, airy, bright, luxurious; and there, at the foot of the bed, lay a dark figure, face downward, with outstretched arms.

Two officials, one of whom was writing something in a note-book, were in the room.

The servant told him it had been entirely unexpected. When her Excellency came home, she had exchanged a few words with the Herr Baron, and had then gone to dress for the theatre. The Herr Baron had gone into the other room to write a note, and then--while her Excellency was in the salon putting on her gloves they had heard--a shot. Her Excellency had been the first to find him.

On the table lay two notes, one to Goswyn, the other to Dorothea.

The contents of Dorothea's Goswyn never knew: in his own note there was nothing save

"Dear Gos,--

"I have forgiven.

"Otto."

Yes, he had forgiven, but his life had paid the forfeit.