"I shall not return to Saxony," she said. She had placed her hand within his arm, and they walked slowly along the avenue. The girl's limbs seemed possessed with a mortal torpor that clutched at her throbbing heart and deadened the voice that came so hard and cold from her lips. "I found when I was last in Dresden that in my present state of mind there is no help for me in incessant study or the performance of my trifling household duties. I must have some occupation requiring sustained absorbing labour day after day. Until a few days ago I hesitated to express this need; I knew my first hint at such a thing would arouse a storm of expostulation from my guardian. The heiress's duty was all marked out for her, and consisted in spending her income as brilliantly as possible. All that is past. The dreaded safe is no longer in existence, or rather its paper contents were worthless before it was destroyed. This I have been quite sure of, since Nanni whispered to me this afternoon that everything was being sealed up. I am right, my hundreds of thousands have vanished, have they not?"
"I hardly think anything can be saved——"
"But I still have my mill, and there I will stay. I shall, perhaps, lay myself open to your serious disapproval when I tell you that from this time I wish to attend to my affairs myself. It savours, perhaps, of 'women's rights' for a young girl to undertake the management of business affairs and represent a firm in her own person."
"I am not so prejudiced; I advocate warmly such independence upon a woman's part, and I know that you, with your force and energy, would do well; but it is not your vocation, Kitty. Your place is at the head of a happy home, not standing day after day reckoning up columns of figures at a desk in a counting-room. Do not begin it! For at some future day you will be carried off without a question as to the debit and credit in your books, and terrible confusion might be the consequence."
If the light of the stars could only have illuminated the dark avenue, the speaker would never have allowed the girl at his side to leave him, so hopeless a despair was painted on her face; he would have taken her in charge then and there, and wrung from her the thoughts that were torturing her. But the darkness covered the terrible struggle that was going on beside him, betrayed by no word or sign, not even a sigh, and he ascribed the depression and discouragement which had made her voice so dull and monotonous to the misery of the parting scene she had gone through with her dead sister.
Now and then a pebble rattled from beneath their feet on the gravelled road, and the rushing of the waters of the stream sounded loud and near in the silence that followed the doctor's last words. The lindens of the avenue retreated; the heavens stretched broadly above, and standing clear against their sparkling depths were the two slim poplars that flanked the wooden bridge.
At sight of them the doctor involuntarily pressed the girl's arm closer to his side. "There, Kitty," he whispered; "there you used to look for the first violets. I promised you you should do so in future, and I can keep my word: I shall always spend my Easter holidays here."
Kitty pressed her clenched hand to her breast; she thought the violent throbbing of her heart would suffocate her; and yet she asked, quietly, "Will your aunt accompany you to L——?"
"Yes; she will undertake the care of my household so long as I am alone. She sacrifices much to do so, and will be thankful to shake the dust of the large city from her feet and return hither to her green country home. I know that the brave, true heart for which I sue will not delay her release too long," he added, in a tone of tender entreaty.
A light appeared twinkling from the mill window. Franz the miller had been buried this afternoon, leaving behind him a widow and three children. The roof that still sheltered them did not belong to them, and the miller's small savings were not sufficient for their support. Susy had been to the villa for a few moments to look after her mistress, and had described to Kitty the despair of the poor wretches, and mourned over "the topsy-turvy state of the business without any master."