CHAPTER II.
He had thrown himself down on a lounge that stood near the door, and his head sank on his breast. For a long time he remained in this position apparently forgetting where he was, and to whom he had been telling his dreary, melancholy story.
The dog rose up, and, with a singularly wistful expression in his eyes, went to the side of his master, who now roused himself with an effort, and made as though he would take his departure.
But Julie did not change her position, nor look at him, but merely said in her soft voice:
"What must you have suffered!" Then, after a moment's pause, she went on: "And you have never seen her since?"
"No. I only waited until the child had recovered sufficiently to bear the journey. Then I broke loose from all that held me there, and came to this city. Here I might be a new man--or so I sometimes imagined when I did not think of the past. Yes, the doctors are right--a change of air will work wonders. Do you suppose it was in the slightest degree hard for me to set up my 'saint-factory?' I merely did it so that I might be safe from all dunning letters, and might send the stipulated and very considerable sum, every quarter, to our intermediary in Hamburg. In this way I freed myself from importunities, and consoled myself with the thought that a man need not scruple as to how he earns money that is going to pay for his own shame. A fortunate man, one who lives openly and uprightly, has a right to give himself up to that noblest of all luxuries, the luxury of sacrificing himself to his convictions. If I had had a wife with a pure and noble soul, then it would have been glorious to have accepted even poverty and want in order to remain true to my ideals, and never to have moved a finger except in the service of true art. But as it was--a broken man, a disgraced life--that very stolidity that helped me to bear my fate alone, dulled my susceptibility to all that was base in my money-getting. It was all one, after all.
"And yet, for all that, the old defiance, the old peasant's pride was not quite dead in me even now. One day, in the midst of my work, the thought came over me--'What is she doing now?--who is with her?' Then I sprang to my feet as if I had been stung by an adder, and immediately sat down and wrote to her that I thought it would be more dignified and better for us both to cut the last wretched bond that held us together, so that she might have full freedom. I added that I would provide for her all the same, if she would only consent to a legal separation. I was not ashamed to humiliate myself so far as to beg her to do this. It seemed to me as if the happiness of my future life depended upon my accomplishing this end.
"She kept me waiting for an answer for more than a fortnight. Then she wrote that she could only yield to my request if I would give up the child to her. Who dictated this answer for her, I do not know. Certainly not her heart.
"Give the child into her hands! I would rather have caught it up like a kitten, and thrown it into the sea! I had found a family here--good, honest people--to whose care I could intrust it, and with whose children it is growing up. I myself have a room under the same roof. When I come home of an evening, I only need to open the door a little to see the little motherless thing asleep in its bed. But on Sunday I either stay at home in the afternoon, or take a drive or a walk with it to some place where I am sure of not meeting any curious acquaintances, who might ask me whose child it is. I pass in the city for unmarried. But, for some time past, I have been led to suspect that I have an enemy who is determined I shall not bear that character any longer. Lucie's mother appeared here a year or two ago. Had I known this woman before my marriage, I might perhaps have been warned not to trust those violet eyes. She has some hidden object for being here; she follows all my movements--I know that she wishes me ill--that letter to you confirms it. But, perhaps, it was better so. The letter that I wrote to you last night, who knows whether I should have had the courage to send it to-day? And yet, every hour longer that I kept you in the dark would have been a reproach to me. And now--"
"I have a great favor to ask of you," she suddenly interrupted.