Only a Girl: or, A Physician for the Soul.

by Wilhelmine von Hillern

Having written these lines, he slipped out to the stables, had the horses put into the carriage, and drove to the station. In two hours his fate would be decided! Once off in the train, and he was safe!

The time spent by Ernestine in mortal struggle with her doubts and reawakening faith was no less a time of torture to him who was the cause of all her woe. Any one who has waited a couple of hours for the arrival of a railroad-train at some insignificant station knows the meaning of the word "patience." To stand about upon a desolate platform, stamping your feet to keep them warm, now peering forward to look along the endless level road, in hopes of discovering the red spark in the distance, then walking up and down the narrow space again, and interrogating the sleepy superintendent as often as you think his patience will permit, as to whether the train will not soon arrive, and always hearing the same answer, "It will soon be here now,"--an assertion which the official himself does not believe,--then, for a change, to wander into the dreary refreshment-room, with its eternal leathery sandwiches and its faded waiter-girls, who reward you with such an offensive want of interest because you are not sufficiently exhausted by a long journey to be brought down to the point of purchasing any of their stale provisions,--to look at the clock every ten minutes, under the full conviction that at least half an hour must have elapsed since you looked last,--and finally, when, stupefied with fatigue and dully resigned to waiting, you have sunk upon a seat, to be roused with a start by the shrill whistle of the locomotive, causing you hastily to collect your seven bundles and rush out, only to be stopped by the station-porter, because this is not the train you want, but one that passes before your train,--all these are the miseries of human life at a railroad-station that every one is familiar with. But for him who is waiting for the iron steed to save him from pursuit and death, they become the most terrible tortures that malicious demons can devise.

Leuthold experienced them to the utmost, with the added anxiety of watching in two different directions,--in that whence the train was to approach, and in that whence he himself had come, and where the avenger might now be upon his track. Thus he passed two hours upon a mental rack--and when at last the glittering point appeared upon the horizon, and, coming nearer and nearer, the train swept up before the station, he thought he should fall senseless at the sound of the whistle that rung in his ears. With all the strength that he was master of, he mounted the high steps of the car, and the black, red-eyed, guardian angel of thieves and murderers spread abroad its smoky pinions and steamed away with him into the night.

Safety seemed assured. Upon the iron path, along which he was carried with such fiery speed, no pursuit could overtake him, except through the electric spark,--that might outstrip him and cause his arrest at some other station. But this fear did not trouble him greatly, for no one knew whither he had fled. To baffle pursuit, he had purchased a ticket for a distant town on the left bank of the Rhine while he intended going directly to Hamburg, first stopping at Hanover to take his daughter from her boarding-school.

It was a cold, disagreeable night. Overpowered by fatigue, he fell asleep once or twice. He dreamed he was in the cabin of a vessel upon the ocean,--once more he breathed freely--his fears were at an end. And as we are apt to say, when some danger is past, "Now we are on dry land again," he, on the contrary, exulted in being on the water. But suddenly the cruel guard shouted in at the door his monotonous "Five minutes for refreshment!" and recalled him to the consciousness that he was still on the land, on the land where for him there was no real safety. Thus the night passed between waking and sleeping. The other travellers looked compassionately, by the flickering light of the car-lamp, at the pale, beardless man leaning back so wearily in the corner, and thought he must be very ill.

At last the dawn flushed the horizon, and revealed the uninteresting level landscape. The usual beverage was offered at all the stopping-places, and drank for coffee by the chilly travellers, who, reduced to a state of physical and mental weakness, made no complaints, only murmured, "At least it is something warm!"

An old lady, who had got into the car during the night, and, seated by Leuthold, fairly drank herself through the whole journey, was greatly troubled by the presence of the pale man who appeared impervious to earthly needs and sat perfectly motionless in his corner. What kind of a man could this be, who never stirred, never took any refreshment, never smoked, never spoke, not even to answer the usual question, "Where are we now?" which is almost sure to open a conversation? Nothing makes friends more speedily than common discomfort in travelling at night. All the other travellers in the car had grown confidential,--had stretched themselves, and told whether and how they had slept. Leuthold alone was as if deaf and dumb. Of course the others leagued against him. They watched him curiously, and made whispered remarks upon his appearance. At last he grew very uncomfortable. The restlessness of the old lady by his side tormented him, she was perpetually burying him beneath her huge fur cloak, which, she informed him, she had brought into the car with her because it would not go into her trunk, and now it had turned out quite useful--who would have thought a September night would be so cool? Still, she must take it off, lest she should take cold, and she disentangled herself from the voluminous garment, almost smothering Leuthold in the process. The other gentlemen smilingly assisted her, and Leuthold extricated himself impatiently. The cloak was at last, with considerable pains, secured in the place made for portmanteaus on one side of the car, during which process the towers of the capital, looming in the light of morning, were approached unperceived. The pains had been fruitless, for the guard opened the door with the words that would release Leuthold, "Tickets for Hanover, gentlemen!"

"Oh, good gracious I are we there already?" cried the old lady, rummaging her pockets for her ticket, which Leuthold fortunately picked up from the floor and handed to her.

Appeased by his courtesy, she asked him if he too was going to get out at Hanover, and, upon his answering by a brief "Yes," she informed him, to his horror, that she was going to take her youngest daughter from the boarding-school there, to establish her as companion with a lady in Copenhagen. She had a hard journey before her, for she should continue it that very night.

Therefore he determined not to take the night train for Hamburg, as he had at first intended, since then he would have to travel the long road thither from Hanover in company with this officious old gossip and her daughter. He could not avoid them, as the daughter was in the same boarding-school with Gretchen, and probably one of her friends. It was incumbent upon him to have no companions to whom he might become known and who could thus afford intelligence to the authorities concerning his route. Great as was the danger in delay, this peril was still greater. He must choose the lesser evil, and lose a day.