XIV
When Leo entered his bedroom towards two o'clock in the morning, in passing the little table by the bedside, a penetrating and peculiar perfume met him, a perfume that years before had often clung to his clothes and person. Astonished, he turned the marble salver upside down, and between newspapers and books found a small ivory-coloured note with the device in silver of a baron's coronet, and a carrier pigeon beneath it on the outside. The handwriting was disguised. Nevertheless he recognised it at a first glance, and turned pale. He tore open the envelope with trembling fingers. The contents were as follows:--
"Leo,
"I trust you, and I trust myself, to make a meeting between us possible. It would be simply cowardice to avoid it any longer. It is time that we arrived at a clear understanding with regard to our position to each other and to the outside world. I will wait for you every morning when the fog lies on the stream, at the Isle of Friendship. For the sake of one who is dear to us both I conjure you to come. Our unhappiness makes it imperative that you should come."
With a harsh laugh he cast the note from him. It flew between the bed-curtains and rested on the pillow.
This was too good. He had struggled with himself honestly--weary days and nights, resisted and been proof against the excommunication of scripture, the appeals of honour and friendship, the exhorting of his own conscience, and now was all his defiance and hardihood to be swept away by this small clandestine billet?
"But what can I do?" he murmured, seeing his position with sudden distinctness. "I am in for it."
Still, there should be no question of repentance. Let all the priests and all the hysterical women of the earth enter into a conspiracy of vengeance against him, he would yet remain true to himself and his principle.
In one thing, however, Johanna had been right. If Felicitas did not understand what was due to the honour of her house he must be the first and only one to remind her of her duty. If it was true that their common guilt had really given him a power over her weak and vacillating nature, he must use that power for Ulrich's welfare. It would, indeed, be cowardice not to do so.
Besides, she was so vain that she might easily interpret his avoiding her as a sign that he was afraid to meet her because he had preserved the old passion intact in his heart all these years with doglike fidelity. Nothing could be more absurd than such an idea.