With these words she turned to go. "Good-bye, Doctor Bruck!" she said, with a slight inclination, and walked towards the bridge. As she reached the poplars that grew on the other side of the river, she turned once more to take a last look at the dear old house. Around the corner the children were peeping curiously, but the doctor still stood by the garden-table, both hands resting upon the top, and leaning heavily forward, while his face, which was ashy pale, was turned to her with a wild expression of despair.
Oh, mystery of a girl's heart! Without thinking what she did, she flew back across the bridge, over the path she had thought never to tread again,—she would have traversed the world to come to his aid.
"Ah, you are ill!" she stammered, laying her warm supple hands anxiously upon his own.
"No, not ill, Kitty, only what you declared me to be a while ago, although in a different sense,—a pitiable weakling!" he replied, impatiently, shaking back a lock of hair that had fallen over his brow. "Go, go! can you not see that in my present condition every word of sympathy, every kind look, is like a dagger-thrust?" he cried, harshly, while quick as thought he stooped and pressed his lips for one instant passionately upon the white hand that lay upon his own.
Startled though she was, for a moment Kitty's heart throbbed fast and loud with an indescribable sensation of happy tenderness, and the words hovered upon her lips, "No, I will not go,—you need me." But at the same moment he stood erect before her, mute and pale, and pointed commandingly towards the bridge. She turned once more, and fled as though the angel with the flaming sword stood by his side.
A few hours later she noiselessly descended a back staircase in the villa, her travelling-bag in her hand. She went as she had come, suddenly, unexpectedly. Henriette, although shocked and distressed at her departure, had acquiesced in her remaining away for a time, since Flora's thoughtlessness had made such mischief. She consented that Kitty should leave thus privately, and write what she thought best to say from Dresden, she herself engaging to inform the household of her departure. One condition she strictly exacted, however, and that was, that Kitty should instantly return whenever her invalid sister needed her support and care.
Henriette stood at the top of the staircase with arms extended in farewell, while Kitty drew her veil down over her swollen eyelids. Every hall and passage of the house was bathed in light, and carriage after carriage rolled up to the door. For a moment Kitty was obliged to take refuge in a side-corridor, whence she saw ladies in full dress rustle by to the drawing-room. Footmen threw open the folding-doors, and, within, Flora appeared in light-blue silk and white lace, beautiful and gracious as a princess, to receive the guests assembled in her honour. The councillor was celebrating her birthday by a large ball.
As she looked, Kitty's heart ached to breaking. There stood her haughty sister, the favorite of fortune that dogged her footsteps although she had thrust it from her, and here cowered hopelessness like crime. Why should every gift of heaven, all the wealth of love, be heaped upon this one head,—that did not prize them,—while a weary life of self-sacrifice lay before the other sister in the midst of her hoarded gold?
The doors were closed, and Kitty hurried out into the park, filled with such despair as alone can assail a young and ardent nature; and while the maid awaited her in her room to dress her for the soirée, she was knocking at the door of the mill to request Franz to accompany her to the railroad depot.