"No, I will not shrink like a coward now. We are under one roof; the same walls surround us; now it shall be ventured. He is my father and I am his son."
CHAPTER XLIII.
The castle clock struck twelve in slow, hollow strokes. Deathlike stillness lay over the forest outside, and it was as still in the house where a corpse lay. The steward and servants had retired, as had Frau von Eschenhagen. Exhausted nature demanded its due. She had made the long, tedious journey from Burgsdorf without stop, and had lived through the hard, trying day.
Only a few windows were dimly lighted; they belonged to the rooms which had been appointed to Frau von Wallmoden and Colonel Falkenried, which lay near together, separated only by an ante-room.
Falkenried intended to accompany the widow back to the Residenz on the morrow. He had spoken with her and Regine, and had stood for a long time beside the body of his friend, who only yesterday had called to him so confidently, "auf wiedersehen"--who had been so full of his projects and plans for his future and his newly acquired possessions. Now all this had come to an end. Cold and stiff he lay upon his bier, and cold and gloomy Falkenried now stood at the window of his room. Even this awful accident was not able to shake his stony composure, for he had long ago forgotten to consider death a misfortune. Life was hard--but not death.
He looked silently out into the winter night and he, too, saw the ghostly glimmer which lighted the darkness out there. Dark-red it now glowed upon the distant horizon, and the whole of the northern sky seemed penetrated by invisible flames.
Redlike, as through a purple veil, twinkled the stars. Now a few distant rays shot up, growing more numerous, and rising always higher to the zenith.
Beneath this flaming sky the snow-covered world lay cold and white. The aurora was shining in the fulness of its splendor!
Falkenried was so lost in the glory of the sight that he did not hear the opening and closing of the door of the ante-room. Carefully the partly closed door of his own room was now opened, but the one entering did not bring himself into view, but remained motionless upon the threshold.
Colonel Falkenried still stood at the window half-averted, but the flickering light of the candles which burned upon the table lighted his face distinctly; the strong, deep lines of the features, and the gloomy, careworn brow beneath the white hair.