Alma sank on her knees and buried her face in her hands. Thea slowly passed her hand across her forehead. "Dead,--shot," she repeated softly, as if hardly able to apprehend the meaning of the words. The erect figure tottered, and before Werner could spring forward to support her she fell fainting on the floor.
Alma raised her head at Werner's exclamation of terror, and saw her sister's unconscious form. She called the servants and did all that was necessary to restore Thea, while she herself felt hardly aware of what had happened.
She, the younger and weaker of the two sisters, had not fainted, while to Thea the thought that she might have had some share in Lothar's death had been like a destroying flash of lightning. Alma did not succumb, but deep darkness seemed to envelop her, in which she was aware only of the present moment and its duties; all else was a blank. She felt a dull pain in her head and heart, and would fain have cast herself on the earth and have wept passionately. But shame lest she should betray feelings that only the closest and dearest ties with Lothar could justify, restrained her, and Thea's helpless condition gave her a power of self-control of which she never could have believed herself capable.
"I instantly telegraphed to your brother-in-law," Werner said to Alma, "and then hurried hither, because I knew that, with the garrison so near, you must hear the fatal news before to-morrow."
Alma bent her head in silent assent, and in her eyes alone could be read the entreaty that he would tell her all he knew of this terrible calamity. He went on, in a low tone: "I only reached home at dusk, and I saw a light in Eichhof's room. It therefore surprised me to find it locked, and to receive no answer to my call when I had knocked at the door in vain. I was about to descend the staircase, when I met Eichhof's servant, who, in reply to my questions with regard to his master, told me that the Herr Lieutenant had returned from Eichhof half an hour previously, and had seemed very unwell; that he had sent him ten minutes before to the apothecary's for some soothing draught, which he was just taking to him. Why the door should be locked he could not possibly comprehend. We tried again to open it, and finally broke it open. He sat upon the sofa, his head lying on the table before him. As I raised him up, the revolver fell on the floor. Death must have been instantaneous."
Alma covered her face with her hands and burst at last into a flood of tears, weeping so passionately, so uncontrollably, that Werner could not but comprehend what this death was to this girl. In his agitation he had said more than he meant to, and he reproached himself for so doing. Almost in a whisper he began again: "He probably intended to clean the revolver. I feel convinced the pistol was discharged through carelessness, for--for--there were materials for cleaning it lying upon the table." Werner was so unaccustomed to say what was not true that he succeeded but ill in this attempt.
Suddenly Thea entered the room; her eyes glowed with an unnatural feverish brilliancy. She hastily approached Werner and held out her hand as if to clasp his, then instantly withdrew it, and asked, standing close to him, as if to prevent him from evading her question, "Do you know why he shot himself?"
"It is not impossible that it was an accident, madame."
Thea shook her head. "That you do not believe," she said. "You know of no reason for this deed?"
"He was ill, and perhaps a momentary insanity----"