"Suddenly I found myself on the shore. It was a lonely spot, and I heard the roar of the ocean and saw the moon rise out of it like a fiery red ball. I went on until the waves broke almost at my feet, and I thought how it would be best for me to go on and on thus until the waters rolled over my head. Then all would be over; the sea would look unchanged, and on shore no one would miss me. In my thoughts death seemed far easier and better than life. Suddenly two points of light gleamed on the water,--a dark shadow glided over the waves across the wake of the moon, and the tones of a woman's glorious voice singing fell upon my ear. It sang a song that I knew and loved; the voice seemed to allure my thoughts and take them captive. I listened first, and finally I sang too. I cannot understand now how such a thing was possible at such a moment, but I did it. Some inward impulse urged me to unite my voice with those lovely tones. Perhaps the people in the boat would remember my voice after it was silent forever. I would have liked to leave some kindly memory behind me. And as I sang I thought of my lonely childhood, my ruined and desolate youth, and unutterable compassion for myself overcame me, and as the song died away I burst into a flood of burning tears.
"I went back from the shore. Life can be thrown away when it is hated or despised, but not when it is pitied.
"The singer had ceased; but the sound of voices came to me across the water. I could distinguish no words, but it was the sound of kindly human speech, and I began to wonder if some voice might not speak tenderly to me at some future day; the world was so large, surely there was some quiet corner in it for me.
"I remembered to have heard that a famous songstress, who had retired from a public career on account of her health, and who devoted her powers to the training of other voices, was among the visitors at Trouville, and that I had also heard that she was to leave on the following morning.
"The thought occurred to me that it was her voice that had so attracted me, and with it came the determination to go to her, to tell her of my utter misery, and to beg her to grant me her protection. Her voice had called me back to life. I would ask her to decide my future fate. Perhaps she would employ me as her maid, perhaps she would think my voice worth training. I hurried on. There was still, then, a 'perhaps,' still a hope for me----"
Here the manuscript ended, and when Bernhard Eichhof had finished reading it he still held it in his hand, and his eyes were riveted upon the written page, as though it could afford him further intelligence. And yet he knew what must follow. He knew that Julutta's hopes were fulfilled, that she left Trouville with that same singer and came to Germany, where her distant cousin, Marzell Wronsky, met her beneath the roof of her protectress and married her.
At last he laid aside the sheets that she had given him at his visit of the morning, and sighed deeply. "Poor, poor creature!" he murmured. "I judged her too harshly; and she is so gentle, so humble to me in spite of the pain I have given her."
He remembered how pale and ill she had looked to-day. The event of the previous evening had evidently agitated and distressed her fearfully. And yet when Bernhard had offered to seek out Möhâzy, to induce him to pursue his journey immediately, she had not hastened to accept his aid.
"You must first know the story of my youth," she said, "and then decide whether I am worthy of your help. I could not trust myself to tell you this story; but if you will read it--since my marriage I have indulged the idle practice of keeping a diary, and that it might be complete I have prefaced it with my sad story. No human eye save my own was ever to rest upon these pages; but I make an exception in your case, because fate has already willed that you should have some knowledge of my secret."
In this wise had Bernhard come into possession of these pages. "Fate has dealt cruelly with her," he thought, "and I have added to its cruelty wherever I could. Oh, I have much to atone for!"