"After this I was haunted by a fear of my servant; my conscience told me what I had done, and I was afraid that some day or other she would be robbing, or perhaps murdering me. Shortly, however, I became acquainted with a young knight, who pleased me exceedingly. I gave him my hand; and here, Herr Walters, is my story ended."
"Ah, you should have seen her then," Egbert broke in hastily; "her youthful freshness and beauty; and what an indescribable charm she had received from her retired education! She came before me as a kind of miraculous being, and I set no bounds to my affection for her. I was poor myself; indeed I had nothing; but through her love I was placed in the position in which you find me. We withdrew hither, and neither of us has ever, for a single moment, regretted our union."
"But see, with our talking and chatting," interrupted Bertha, "it is already past midnight; we had better go to bed."
She rose to retire to her chamber; as they parted Walters kissed her hand, and wished her good night. "Thanks, noble lady," he said, "for your story. I think I can see you with your strange bird, and feeding the little Strohmian."
Walters, too, retired to sleep; but Egbert continued restlessly pacing up and down the hall. "What fools we men are!" he said to himself. "Was it not I that prevailed on my wife to tell her story? and now I am sorry it should have been told! Will he not make use of it for some evil purpose? Will he not blab, and let our secret out to others? Is he not very likely (it is just what a man would naturally do) to feel some accursed hankering after one's jewels, and lay some plan or other to get hold of them?"
It struck him Walters had not taken leave of him with, as much heartiness as he naturally would have done after being admitted into such a piece of confidence. When once a man has admitted a feeling of suspicion into his breast, every trifle becomes a confirmation of it. Then for a moment he would feel ashamed of so ungenerous a distrust of his noble-hearted friend; and yet he could not fling it off; all night long these feelings kept swaying to and fro through his breast. He slept but little.
The next morning Bertha was unwell, and could not appear at breakfast. Walters did not seem much to distress himself about it, and of the knight also he took leave with apparent unconcern. Egbert could not well make it out; he went to his wife's room, she was in a violent fever; she said she supposed telling her story the preceding night must have over-excited her.
After that evening Walters came seldom to his friend's castle; and when he did he never stayed, but went away again almost immediately with a few unmeaning words. Egbert was excessively distressed at this behaviour: he never said any thing about it, either to his wife or to Walters; but they must both have seen that there was something which made him uneasy. Bertha's illness too was another subject of distress to him. The physician became alarmed; the colour faded from her cheeks, and her eyes grew of an unnatural brightness. One morning she called her husband to her bedside, and sent the servants out of the room.
"My dear husband," she began, seriously, "I have something to tell you, which, however unmeaning and trifling it may seem to you, has been the cause of all my illness, and has almost driven me out of my senses. You know that whenever I have spoken of the events of my childhood, in spite of all the trouble I have taken, I have never been able to think of the name of the little dog that was so long with me. The other evening as Walters took leave of me, he said, suddenly, 'I fancy I see you feeding the little Strohmian.' Can it be accident that he hit upon the name? or does he know the dog, and said what he did on purpose? In what mysterious way is this man bound up with my destiny? At times I try to persuade myself that it is all fancy; but no, it is certainly true, too true. I cannot tell you how it has terrified me to be so helped out with my recollection by a perfect stranger: what do you say, Egbert?"
Egbert regarded his suffering wife with the deepest emotion. For some time he could not speak, but stood lost in his own reflections. At last he muttered a few words of consolation, and left her. He retired to a remote apartment, and paced up and down in indescribable uneasiness. Walters had for many years been his only companion; and now was this man the only one in the world whose existence was a pain and grief to him. Could this one being be removed out of his path, all, he thought, would then be well with him. To dissipate his unpleasant reflections, he took his cross-bow and went out into the mountains to hunt.