"No Ella, our Hugo will not come this time either; we must resign ourselves not to see him. Here, read it yourself!"
He handed her the somewhat bulky letter. The first page contained mere descriptions of voyages, which were sketched quite in the Captain's lively manner, sparkling with fun and humour; only just at the end were personal affairs touched upon.
"I have employed my stay in S----" wrote Hugo, "to pay a visit to Jonas, who has been settled here over a year with his Annunziata. You have fitted out the little one so richly, that they have made quite a pretty hotel out of the modest inn they intended to set up, and are going on very well indeed. The young woman has learned German at last, and is altogether a very charming hostess, but Jonas I have had to take regularly to task; it really is appalling how that tiny creature, Annunziata, governs this bear of a sailor, according to all the rules of art. I have spoken seriously to him; reminded him of his manly dignity, prophesied that he will come hopelessly under petticoat government, if it continue thus--what did the wretch answer me? 'Yes, Herr Captain, but one is so inhumanly happy with it!' So of course nothing remained but to leave him to his inhuman happiness and petticoat régime.
"One more piece of news I have for you, Ella. Yesterday, by chance, I took up an Italian newspaper in which I met with the announcement that a union between the houses of Tortoni and Orvieto was impending. Marchese Cesario will shortly be married to the only daughter of the Princess. You see that even an idealist does not die of an unhappy love now-a-days; instead, he consoles himself after a year or more with a young and probably beautiful woman of princely blood. Only the thoughtless one, the adventurer, cannot recover from having looked too deeply into a pair of blue eyes. I cannot come, Reinhold, not yet! You know the word which I passed to your wife; it still banishes me from your threshold. Heaven knows how long I must wander about on the sea without seeing you again; but if the recollections do not still weigh my heart down as at the beginning, yet they will not leave me. My 'Ellida,' lies in the harbour ready to sail once more, and to-morrow she will fly out afar again with her captain. So farewell, Reinhold! Kiss your boy in my name! To Ella I shall surely dare send a greeting, as you will give it to her? Perhaps we shall see each other again."
Ella folded the letter up and put it down silently--
"I hoped still that he would return to us this time, at least," said she at last--her voice sounded sad.
"I did not expect it," replied Reinhold gravely, "as I know Hugo. Much in his character seems to glide off lightly and without traces, and perhaps really glides off, but once he has grasped anything with his whole soul, then he will not let it go for all his life. He preserves his love more truly and better than--I did."
"Did you love me then, when I was entrusted to you?" asked Ella, with gentle reproach. "Could you love the woman who did not understand you nor herself in those days? We had to be separated first in order to recover one another entirely and completely, and nothing would remind me of our separation if I did not see that shadow on your brow, ever and again, which reawakens the one recollection."
Reinhold passed his hand over his forehead--
"You mean Beatrice's death? I know, indeed, that she prepared her fate with her own hand, and yet I cannot always silence the voice which accuses me of complicity in the sin of forsaking her, of driving her to despair, to madness; she wished to strike us a crushing blow, and struck herself."