But Flora came and went without a word. She took no note of the two faithful guardians at the bedside. She kissed her dead sister upon the brow, and then walked with head erect to the door by which she had entered. She paused, it is true, upon the threshold, but she never turned either her eyes or her head towards where the doctor stood and gravely delivered to her her sister's last message. She bent her head almost imperceptibly in token that she heard what was said, and then rustled down the stairs, to put on her bonnet and go to the nearest hotel, where she had engaged lodgings for herself and her grandmother. No one, not even the dead, was permitted to pass another night beneath the criminal's roof.
And when, after nightfall, Henriette's form had been borne away to the hall, where all, clad for the grave and heaped with flowers, await the opening of their latest earthly portal, the last room on the third floor was closed and locked, and the doctor and Kitty descended the stairs together. Their steps echoed drearily through the silent, deserted house. The lantern carried before them by the gardener shed abroad a ghostly light over the lonely walls and passages, where so lately the stream of life had flowed in luxurious evidence of what was after all but a false, fleeting show of wealth.
The soft night air, as they walked along, was as balm to Kitty's burning eyes. A clear, starry sky canopied the silent park, the single groups of trees could be distinguished, and the mirror of the pond gleamed like dull silver through a misty veil. The gravel crunched beneath their tread, and from afar was heard the water of the weir, but not a leaf or a twig stirred,—it was as quiet as it had been for hours in Henriette's room. And therefore Kitty started in terror when the doctor's full deep voice broke the silence. They had reached the leafy entrance of the avenue, and he paused.
"I leave the capital in a few days, and I fear that, until then, you will neither visit my aunt nor allow me to come to the mill," he said, with both sorrow and eagerness in his tone. "I tell myself also that we are walking together for the last time,—that is, for the present——"
"Forever!" she interrupted him, sadly but firmly.
"No, Kitty!" he said, as firmly. "It would be a separation forever if your words spoken a few hours since could not be gainsaid. I do not want a sister. Do you think a man can content himself with sisterly letters when he is thirsting for loving words from beloved lips? But no,—I did not mean to speak thus to-day. Only selfishness could betray me into such entreaties while you are suffering as at present. One thing I must say to you, however. This afternoon you had an interview which, when I met you, had agitated you profoundly. You had been told what has happened, and of course the whole odium that always attaches to the sudden rupture of an engagement had been thrown upon me,—I saw that in your face; and afterwards, when for love of Henriette you promised to be a sister to me, I heard the power that evil whispers had gained over you,—thank God, not for always! I know—I know that your clear, just insight may be dimmed for a while; but this cannot last. Kitty, on that terrible afternoon I was in my garden, and saw how, on the opposite river-bank, a girl leaned her brow against a tree and wept bitterly."
Kitty turned as if to flee down the avenue, but Bruck had taken her hand and held it in a firm grasp. "I saw before me the girl whom I was longing to clasp in my arms. I had just been victorious in the last of those self-conflicts from which I had suffered for months; victorious, because I had liberated myself from false views of life and had admitted that I should be a perjured traitor if I contracted a hated marriage while my whole being was filled with an invincible passion. There stood the one who was dearer to me than all else beside, and my heart leaped, for her streaming eyes did not look towards my aunt's windows, but——" He paused, and pressed the hand which he held to his lips, while she leaned against the trunk of a linden, incapable of uttering a word.
"I cannot blame her who was to have been my wife; that matters have been allowed to go so far is my fault,—mine only. I was weak enough, for dread of what the world might say, to continue our engagement after I had discovered, with shame and anguish, that I had been attracted by a beautiful exterior animated by no qualities of mind or heart that did not crumble to insignificance if subjected to the slightest test. This discovery I made in the first weeks of our betrothal."
He was wrong; the qualities enshrined within that lovely form were not insignificant. Flora's was a nature incredibly malicious. She had known then of Bruck's love for her sister, of course from his own confession. What a contemptible plot! Her victim had the ring in her possession; she had bought it with a price; her word was pledged even though Bruck should woo herself. The young girl's eyes wandered in despair to the starry heavens. She knew that Flora would never release her from her promise although she should implore her on her knees. There would be no need even of Flora's eloquence to convince the world that she was betrayed and deceived, the dupe of her younger sister, who had lured her lover from her. That this was the colour she would give to what had taken place was clear as the stars above. How they sparkled, those shining worlds! To which of those golden orbs had the spirit of her sister been borne upon the rosy evening air? Could she look back to see how the happiness of the man whom she had loved would be wrecked?
"You do not speak, Kitty. Your silence rebukes me; I ought not to have spoken to-day," he began again. "I will not press you further. I do not ignore the fact that my desires will arouse a conflict within you: you were not else the strictly just and honourable girl that you are; but I know also that I shall attain the goal I so long for without stormy arguments and entreaties. I will leave you time for consideration and recovery from the grief that now fills your soul and colours every thought and feeling. I go without the assurance that alone can give me peace, but—I shall come again. And now we will go on to the mill. Take my arm in full confidence that no brother could care for you with less thought of self than fills my soul at this moment. You might with equal tranquillity put yourself in charge of my aunt and myself when we set out on our way to L——."