"And this is actually the room," said Adelaide, walking about it, "in which that poor lady spent so many unhappy years! Her prison! Her grave! Dionetta, my pretty one, when the chance of happiness is offered to you, do not throw it away. Life is short. Enjoy it. A great many people moralise and preach, but if you were to see what they do, and put it in by the side of what they say, you would understand what fools those people must be who believe in their moralising and preaching. The persecuted lady whose story your grandmother has told us--what happiness did she enjoy in her life? None. Do you know why, Dionetta? Because it was life without love. Love is life's sunshine. Better to be dead than to live without it! Hark! Is not that a carriage driving up at the gates?"
She ran swiftly from the room, down the stairs, into the grounds. The gates were thrown open. A young man, just alighted, came towards her. She ran forward to meet him, with outstretched hands, with face beaming with joy. He took her hands in his.
"Welcome, Mr. Almer," she said aloud, so that those around her could hear her. "You have had a pleasant journey, I hope." And then, in a whisper, "Christian!"
"Adelaide!" he said, in a tone as low as hers.
"Now I am the happiest woman!" she murmured. "It is an eternity since I saw you. How could you have kept away from me so long?"
[BOOK IV.--THE BATTLE WITH CONSCIENCE]
CHAPTER I
[LAWYER AND PRIEST]
It happened that certain persons had selected this evening as a suitable occasion for a friendly visit to the House of White Shadows; Jacob Hartrich, the banker, was one of these. The banker was accompanied by his wife, a handsome and dignified woman, and by his two daughters, whose personal attractions, enhanced by their father's wealth and their consequent expectations, would have created a sensation in fashionable circles. Although in his religious observances Jacob Hartrich was by no means orthodox, he did not consider himself less a true Jew on that account. It is recognised by the most intelligent and liberal-minded of his race in the civilised countries of the world that the carrying-out of the Mosaic law in its integrity would not only debar them from social relations, but would check their social advancement. It is a consequence of the recognition of this undoubted fact that the severe ordinances of the Jewish religion should become relaxed in their fulfilment. Jacob Hartrich was a member of this band of reformers, and though his conscience occasionally gave him a twinge, he was none the less devoted, in a curiously jealous and illogical spirit, to the faith of his forefathers, to which he clung with the greater tenacity because his daily habits compelled him to act, to some extent, in antagonism with the decrees they had laid down.
Master Pierre Lamont was also at the villa. His bodily ailments were more severe than usual, and the jolting over the rough roads, as he was drawn from his house in his hand-carriage, had caused him excruciating suffering. He bore it with grins and grimaces, scorning to give pain an open triumph over him. Fritz was not by his side to amuse him with his humour; the Fool was at the court, on this last day of Gautran's trial, as he had been on every previous day, hastening thence every evening to Pierre Lamont, to give him an account of the day's proceedings.