"Yes, you are right. I'll go to Herr von Lohm and see if I can have an interview."

Klutz got up with a great show of determination, put the paper in his pocket, and buttoned his coat over it for greater security. Then he hesitated.

"It is a shameful thing, isn't it?" he said, his eyes on Dellwig's face.

"Shameful? It's downright cruel."

"Shameful?" began his wife.

"Silence, I tell thee! Young ladies' jokes are sometimes cruel, you see. I believe it was a joke, but a very heartless one, and one that has made you look more foolish even than half-fledged pastors of your age generally do look. It is only fair in return to spoil her game for her. Take another glass of brandy, and go and do it."

Klutz stared hard for a moment at Dellwig. Then he seized the brandy, gulped it down, snatched up his hat, and taking no farewell notice of either husband or wife, hurried out of the room. They saw him pass beneath the window, his hat over his eyes, his face white, his ears aflame.

"There goes a fool," said Dellwig, rubbing his hands, "and as useful a one as ever I saw. But here's another fool," he added, turning sharply to his wife, "and I don't want them in my own house."

And he proceeded to tell her, in the vigorous and convincing language of a justly irritated husband, what he thought of her.



CHAPTER XXIII

Klutz sped, as fast as his shaking limbs allowed, to Lohm. When he passed Anna's house he flung it a look of burning contempt, which he hoped she saw and felt from behind some curtain; and then, trying to put her from his mind, he made desperate efforts to arrange his thoughts a little for the coming interview. He supposed that it must be the brandy that made it so difficult for him to discern exactly why he was to go to Herr von Lohm instead of to the person principally concerned, the person who had treated him so scandalously; but Herr Dellwig knew best, of course, and judged the matter quite dispassionately. Certainly Herr von Lohm, as an insolently happy rival, ought in mere justice to be annoyed a little; and if the annoyance reached such a pitch of effectiveness as to make him break off the engagement, why then—there was no knowing—perhaps after all——? The ordinary Christian was bound to forgive his erring brother; how much more, then, was it incumbent on a pastor to forgive his erring sister? But Klutz did wish that someone else could have done the annoying for him, leaving him to deal solely with Anna, a woman, a member of the sex in whose presence he was always at his ease. The brandy prevented him from feeling it as acutely as he would otherwise have done, but the plain truth, the truth undisguised by brandy, was that he looked up to Axel Lohm with a respect bordering on fear, had never in his life been alone with him, or so much as spoken to him beyond ordinary civilities when they met, and he was frightened.

By the time he reached Axel's stables, which stood by the roadside about five minutes' walk from Axel's gate, he found himself obliged to go over his sufferings once again one by one, to count the dinners he had missed, to remember the feverish nights and the restless days, to rehearse what Dellwig had just told him of his present ridiculousness, or he would have turned back and gone home. But these thoughts gave him the courage necessary to get him through the gate; and by the time he had rounded the bend in the avenue escape had become impossible, for Axel was standing on the steps of the house. Axel had a cigar in his mouth; his hands were in his pockets, and he was watching the paces of a young mare which was being led up and down. Two pointers were sitting at his feet, and when Klutz appeared they rushed down at him barking. Klutz did not as a rule object to being barked at by dogs, but he was in a highly nervous state, and shrank aside involuntarily. The groom leading the mare grinned; Axel whistled the dogs off; and Klutz, with hot ears, walked up and took off his hat.

"What can I do for you, Herr Klutz?" asked Axel, his hands still in his pockets and his eyes on the mare's legs.

"I wish to speak with you privately," said Klutz.

"Gut. Just wait a moment." And Klutz waited, while Axel, with great deliberation, continued his scrutiny of the mare, and followed it up by a lengthy technical discussion of her faults and her merits with the groom.

This was intolerable. Klutz had come on business of vital importance, and he was left standing there for what seemed to him at least half an hour, as though he were rather less than a dog or a beggar. As time passed, and he still was kept waiting, the fury that had possessed him as he stood helpless before Anna's shut door in the afternoon, returned. All his doubts and fears and respect melted away. What a day he had had of suffering, of every kind of agitation! The ground alone that he had covered, going backwards and forwards between Lohm and Kleinwalde, was enough to tire out a man in health; and he was not in health, he was ill, fasting, shaking in every limb. While he had been suffering (leidend und schwitzend, he said to himself, grinding his teeth), this comfortable man in the gaiters and the aggressively clean cuffs had no doubt passed very pleasant and easy hours, had had three meals at least where he had had none, had smoked cigars and examined horses' legs, had ridden a little, driven a little, and would presently go round, now that the cool of the evening had come, to Kleinwalde, and sit in the twilight while Miss Estcourt called him Schatz. Oh, it was not to be borne! Dellwig was right—he must be annoyed, punished, at all costs shaken out of his lofty indifference. "Let me remind you," Klutz burst out in a voice that trembled with passion, "that I am still here, and still waiting, and that I have only two legs. Your horse, I see, has four, and is better able to stand and wait than I am."

Axel turned and stared at him. "Why, what is the matter?" he asked, astonished. "You are Manske's vicar? Yes, of course you are. I did not know you had anything very pressing to tell me. I am sorry I have kept you—come in."

He sent the mare to the stables, and led the way into his study. "Sit down," he said, pushing a chair forward, and sitting down himself by his writing-table. "Have a cigar?"

"No."

"No?" Axel stared again. "'No thank you' is the form prejudice prefers," he said.

"I care nothing for that."

"What is the matter, my dear Herr Klutz? You are very angry about something."

"I have been shamefully treated by a woman."

"It is what sometimes happens to young men," said Axel, smiling.

"I do not want cheap wisdom like that," cried Klutz, his eyes ablaze.

Axel's brows went up. "You are rude, my good Herr Klutz," he said. "Try to be polite if you wish me to help you. If you cannot, I shall ask you to go."

"I will not go."

"My dear Herr Klutz."

"I say I will not go till I have told you what I came to tell you. The woman is Miss Estcourt."

"Miss Estcourt?" repeated Axel, amazed. Then he added, "Call her a lady."

"She is a woman to all intents and purposes——"

"Call her a lady. It sounds better from a young man of your station."

"Of my station! What, a man with the brains of a man, the mind of a man, the sinews of a man, is not equal, is not superior, whatever his station may be, to a mere woman?"

"I will not discuss your internal arrangements. Has there, then, been some mistake about the salary you are to receive?"

"What salary?"

"For teaching Miss Letty Estcourt?"

"Pah—the salary. Love does not look at salaries."

"That sounds magnificent. Did you say love?"

"For weeks past, all the time that I have taught the niece, she has taken my flowers, my messages, at first verbal and at last written——"

"One moment. Of whom are we talking? I have met you with Miss Leech——"

"The governess? Ich danke. It is Miss Estcourt who has encouraged me and led me on, and now, after calling me her Laemmchen, takes away her niece and shuts her door in my face——"

"You have been drinking?"

"Certainly not," cried Klutz, the more indignantly because of his consciousness of the brandy.

"Then you have no excuse at all for talking in this manner of my neighbour?"

"Excuse! To hear you, one would think she must be a queen," said Klutz, laughing derisively. "If she were, I should still talk as I pleased. A cat may look at a king, I suppose?" And he laughed again, very bitterly, disliking even for one moment to imagine himself in the role of the cat.

"A cat may look as long and as often as it likes," said Axel, "but it must not get in the king's way. I am sure you can guess why."

"I have not come here to guess why about anything."

"Oh, it is not very abstruse—the cat would be kicked by somebody, of course."

"Oh, ho! Not if it could bite, and had what I have in its pocket."

"Cats do not have pockets, my dear Herr Klutz. You must have noticed that yourself. Pray, what is it that you have in yours?"

"A little poem she sent me in answer to one of mine. A little, sweet poem. I thought you might like to see how your future wife writes to another man."

"Ah—that is why you have called so kindly on me? Out of pure thoughtfulness. My future wife, then, is Miss Estcourt?"

"It is an open secret."

"It is, most unfortunately, not true."

"Ach—I knew you would deny it," cried Klutz, slapping his leg and grinning horribly. "I knew you would deny it when you heard she had been behaving badly. But denials do not alter anything—no one will believe them——"

Axel shrugged his shoulders. "Am I to see the poem?" he asked.

Klutz took it out and handed it to him. The twilight had come into the room, and Axel put the paper down a moment while he lit the candles on his table. Then he smoothed out its creases, and holding it close to the light read it attentively. Klutz leaned forward and watched his face. Not a muscle moved. It had been calm before, and it remained calm. Klutz could hardly keep himself from leaping up and striking that impassive face, striking some sort of feeling into it. He had played his big card, and Axel was quite unmoved. What could he do, what could he say, to hurt him?

"Shall we burn it?" inquired Axel, looking up from the paper.

"Burn it? Burn my poem?"

"It is such very great nonsense. It is written by a child. We know what child. Only one in this part can write English."

"Miss Estcourt wrote it, I tell you!" cried Klutz, jumping to his feet and snatching the paper away.

"Your telling me so does not in the very least convince me. Miss Estcourt knows nothing about it."

"She does—she did——" screamed Klutz, beside himself. "Your Miss Estcourt—your Braut—you try to brazen it out because you are ashamed of such a Braut. It is no use—everyone shall see this, and be told about it—the whole province shall ring with it—I will not be the laughing-stock, but you will be. Not a labourer, not a peasant, but shall hear of it——"

"It strikes me," said Axel, rising, "that you badly want kicking. I do not like to do it in my house—it hardly seems hospitable. If you will suggest a convenient place, neutral ground, I shall be pleased to come and do it."

He looked at Klutz with an encouraging smile. Then something in the young man's twitching face arrested his attention. "Do you know what I think?" he said quickly, in a different voice. "It is less a kicking that you want than a good meal. You really look as though you had had nothing to eat for a week. The difference a beefsteak would make to your views would surprise you. Come, come," he said, patting him on the shoulder, "I have been taking you too seriously. You are evidently not in your usual state. When did you have food last? What has Frau Pastor been about? And your eyelids are so red that I do believe——" Axel looked closer—"I do believe you have been crying."

"Sir," began Klutz, struggling hard with a dreadful inclination to cry again, for self-pity is a very tender and tearful sentiment, "Sir——"

"Let me order that beefsteak," said Axel kindly. "My cook will have it ready in ten minutes."

"Sir," said Klutz, with the tremendous dignity that immediately precedes tears, "Sir, I am not to be bribed."

"Well, take a cigar at least," said Axel, opening his case. "That will not corrupt you as much as the beefsteak, and will soothe you a little on your way home. For you must go home and get to bed. You are as near an illness as any man I ever saw."

The tears were so near, so terribly near, that, hardly knowing what he did, and sooner than trust himself to speak, Klutz took a cigar and lit it at the match Axel held for him. His hand shook pitifully.

"Now go home, my dear Klutz," said Axel very kindly. "Tell Frau Pastor to give you some food, and then get to bed. I wish you would have taken the beefsteak—here is your hat. If you like, we will talk about this nonsense later on. Believe me, it is nonsense. You will be the first to say so next week."

And he ushered him out to the steps, and watched him go down them, uneasy lest he should stumble and fall, so weak did he seem to be. "What a hot wind!" he exclaimed. "You will have a dusty walk home. Go slowly. Good-night."

"Poor devil," he thought, as Klutz without speaking went down the avenue into the darkness with unsteady steps, "poor young devil—the highest possible opinion of himself, and the smallest possible quantity of brains; a weak will and strong instincts; much unwholesome study of the Old Testament in Hebrew with Manske; a body twenty years old, and the finest spring I can remember filling it with all sorts of anti-parsonic longings. I believe I ought to have taken him home. He looked as though he would faint."

This last thought disturbed Axel. The image of Klutz fainting into a ditch and remaining in it prostrate all night, refused to be set aside; and at last he got his hat and went down the avenue after him.

But Klutz, who had shuffled along quickly, was nowhere to be seen. Axel opened the avenue gate and looked down the road that led past the stables to the village and parsonage, and then across the fields to Kleinwalde; he even went a little way along it, with an uneasy eye on the ditches, but he did not see Klutz, either upright or prostrate. Well, if he were in a ditch, he said to himself, he would not drown; the ditches were all as empty, dry, and burnt-up as four weeks' incessant drought and heat could make them. He turned back repeating that eminently consolatory proverb, Unkraut vergeht nicht, and walked quickly to his own gate; for it was late, and he had work to do, and he had wasted more time than he could afford with Klutz. A man on a horse coming from the opposite direction passed him. It was Dellwig, and each recognised the other; but in these days of mutual and profound distrust both were glad of the excuse the darkness gave for omitting the usual greetings. Dellwig rode on towards Kleinwalde in silence, and Axel turned in at his gate.

But the poor young devil, as Axel called him, had not fainted. Hurrying down the dark avenue, beyond Axel's influence, far from fainting, it was all Klutz could do not to shout with passion at his own insufferable weakness, his miserable want of self-control in the presence of the man he now regarded as his enemy. The tears in his eyes had given Lohm an opportunity for pretending he was sorry for him, and for making insulting and derisive offers of food. What could equal in humiliation the treatment to which he had been subjected? First he had been treated as a dog, and then, far worse, far, far worse and more difficult to bear with dignity, as a child. A beefsteak? Oh, the shame that seared his soul as he thought of it! This revolting specimen of the upper class had declared, with a hateful smile of indulgent superiority, that all his love, all his sufferings, all his just indignation, depended solely for their existence on whether he did or did not eat a beefsteak. Could coarse-mindedness and gross insensibility go further? "Thrice miserable nation!" he cried aloud, shaking his fist at the unconcerned stars, "thrice miserable nation, whose ruling class is composed of men so vile!" And, having removed his cigar in order to make this utterance, he remembered, with a great start, that it was Axel's.

He was in the road, just passing Axel's stables. The gate to the stableyard stood open, and inside it, heaped against one of the buildings, was a waggon-load of straw. Instantly Klutz became aware of what he was going to do. A lightning flash of clear purpose illumined the disorder of his brain. It was supper time, and no one was about. He ran inside the gate and threw the lighted cigar on to the straw; and because there was not an instantaneous blaze fumbled for his matchbox, and lit one match after the other, pushing them in a kind of frenzy under the loose ends of straw.

There was a puff of smoke, and then a bright tongue of flame; and immediately he had achieved his purpose he was terrified, and fled away from the dreadful light, and hid himself, shuddering, in the darkness of the country road.



CHAPTER XXIV

"It's in Stralsund," cried the princess, hurrying out into the Kleinwalde garden when first the alarm was given.

"It's in Lohm," cried someone else.

Anna watched the light in silence, her face paler than ordinary, her hair blown about by the hot wind. The trees in the dark garden swayed and creaked, the air was parching and full of dust, the light glared brighter each moment. Surely it was very near? Surely it was nearer than Stralsund? "It's in Lohm," cried someone with conviction; and Anna turned and began to run.

"Where are you running to, Aunt Anna?" asked Letty, breathlessly following her; for since the affair with Klutz she followed her aunt about like a conscience-stricken dog.

"The fire-engine—there is one at the farm—it must go——"

They took each other's hands and ran in silence. Between the gusts of wind they could hear the Lohm church-bells ringing; and almost immediately the single Kleinwalde bell began to toll, to toll with a forlorn, blood-curdling sound altogether different from its unmeaning Sunday tinkle.

In front of her house Frau Dellwig stood, watching the sky. "It is Lohm," she said to Anna as she came up panting.

"Yes—the fire-engine—is it ordered? Has it gone? No? Then at once—at once——"

"Jawohl, jawohl," said Frau Dellwig with great calm, the philosophic calm of him who contemplates calamities other than his own. She said something to one of the maids, who were standing about in pleased and excited groups laughing and whispering, and the girl shuffled off in her clattering wooden shoes. "My husband is not here," she explained, "and the men are at supper."

"Then they must leave their supper," cried Anna. "Go, go, you girls, and tell them so—look how terrible it is getting——"

"Yes, it is a big fire. The girl I sent will tell them. They say it is the Schloss."

"Oh, go yourself and tell the men—see, there is no sign of them—every minute is priceless——"

"It is always a business with the engine. It has not been required, thank God, for years. Mietze, go and hurry them."

The girl called Mietze went off at a trot. The others put their heads together, looked at their young mistress, and whispered. A stable-boy came to the pump and filled his pail. Everyone seemed composed, and yet there was that bloody sky, and there was that insistent cry for help from the anxious bell.

Anna could hardly bear it. What was happening down there to her kind friend?

"It is the Schloss," said the stable-boy in answer to a question from Frau Dellwig as he passed with his full pail, spilling the water at every step.

"Ach, I thought so," she said, glancing at Anna.

Anna made a passionate movement, and ran down the steps after the girl Mietze. Frau Dellwig could not but follow, which she did slowly, at a disapproving distance.

But Dellwig galloped into the yard at that moment, his horse covered with sweat, and his loud and peremptory orders extracted the ancient engine from its shed, got the horses harnessed to it, and after what Anna thought an eternity it rattled away. When it started, the whole sky to the south was like one dreadful sheet of blood.

"It is the stables," he said to Anna.

"Herr von Lohm's?"

"Yes. They cannot be saved."

"And the house?"

He shrugged his shoulders. "It's a windy night," he said, "and the wind is blowing that way. There are pine-trees between. Everything is as dry as cinders."

"The stables—are they insured?"

But Dellwig was off again, after the engine.

"What can we do, Letty? What can we do?" cried Anna, turning to Letty when the sound of the wheels had died away and only the hurried bell was heard above the whistling and banging of the wind. "It's horrible here, listening to that bell tolling, and looking at the sky. If I could throw one single bucketful of water on the fire I should not feel so useless, so utterly, utterly of no use or good for anything."

Neither of them had ever seen a fire, and horror had seized them both. The night seemed so dark, the world all round so black, except in that one dreadful spot. Anna knew Axel could not afford to lose money. From things Trudi had said, from things the princess had said, she knew it. There was at Lohm, she felt rather than knew, an abundance of everything necessary to ordinary comfortable living, as there generally is in the country on farms; but money was scarce, and a series of bad seasons, perhaps even one bad season, or anything out of the way happening, might make it very scarce, might make the further proper farming of the place impossible. Suppose the stables were not insured, where would the money come from to rebuild them? And the horses—she had heard that horses went mad with fright in a fire, and refused to leave their stables. And the house—suppose this cruel wind made the checking of the fire impossible, and it licked its way across the trees to Axel's house? "Oh, what can we do?" she cried to the frightened Letty.

"Let's go there," said Letty.

"Yes!" cried Anna, striking her hands together. "Yes! The carriage—Frau Dellwig, order the carriage—order Fritz to bring the carriage out at once. Tell him to be quick—quick!"

"The gracious Miss will go to Lohm?"

"Yes—call him, send for him—Fritz! Fritz!" She herself began to call.

"But——"

"Fritz! Fritz! Run, Letty, and see if you can find him."

"If I may be permitted to advise——"

"Fritz! Fritz! Fritz!"

"Call the herrschaftliche Kutscher Fritz," Frau Dellwig then commanded a passing boy in a loud and stern voice. "Not only mad, but improper," was her private comment. "She goes by night to her Braeutigam—to her unacknowledged Braeutigam." Even a possible burning Braeutigam did not, in her opinion, excuse such a step.

The darkness concealed the anger on her face, and Anna neither noticed nor cared for the anger in her voice, but began herself to run in the direction of the stables, leaving Frau Dellwig to her reflections.

"Princess Ludwig is looking for you everywhere, Aunt Anna," said Letty, coming towards her, having found Fritz and succeeded in making him understand what she wanted.

"Where is she? Is the carriage coming?"

"He said five minutes. She was at the house, asking the servants if they had seen you."

"Come along then, we'll go to her."

"I was afraid I should not find you here," said the princess as Anna came up the steps of the house into the light of the entry, "and that you had run off to Lohm to put the fire out. My dear child, what do you look like? Come and look at yourself in the glass."

She led her to the glass that hung above the Dellwig hat-stand.

"I am just going there," said Anna, looking at her reflection without seeing it. "The carriage is being got ready now."

"Then I am coming too. What has the wind been doing to your hair? See, I knew you were running about bare-headed, and have brought you a scarf. Come, let me tie it over all these excited little curls, and turn you into a sober and circumspect young woman."

Anna bent her head and let the princess do as she pleased. "Herr Dellwig is afraid the fire will spread to the house," she said breathlessly. "Our engine has only just gone——"

"I heard it."

"It is such a lumbering thing, it will be hours getting there——"

"Oh, not hours. Half a one, perhaps."

"Are they insured?"

"The buildings? They are sure to be. But there is always a loss that cannot be covered—ach, Frau Dellwig, good-evening—you see we have taken possession of your house. To have no stables and probably no horses just when the busy time is beginning is terrible. Poor Axel. There—now you are tidy. Wait, let me fasten your cloak and cover up your pretty dress. Is Letty to come too?"

"Oh—if she likes. Why doesn't the carriage come?"

"It will be much better if Letty goes to bed," said the princess.

"Oh!" said Letty.

"It is long past her bedtime, and she has no hat, and nothing round her. Shall we not ask Frau Dellwig to send a servant with her home?"

"Aber gewiss——" began Frau Dellwig.

But Anna was out again on the steps, was shutting out the flaming sky with one hand while she strained her eyes into the darkness of the corner where the coach-house was. She could hear Fritz's voice, and the horses' hoofs on the cobbles, and she could see the light of a lantern jogging up and down as the stable-boy who held it hurried to and fro. "Quick, quick, Fritz," she cried.

"Jawohl, gnaediges Fraeulein," came back the answer in the old man's cheery, reassuring tones. But it was like a nightmare, standing there waiting, waiting, the precious minutes slipping by, terrible things happening to Axel, and she herself unable to stir a step towards him.

"Take me with you—let me come too," pleaded Letty from behind her, slipping her hand into Anna's.

"Then tie a handkerchief or something round your head," said Anna, her eyes on the lantern moving about before the coach-house. Then the carriage lamps flashed out, and in another moment the carriage rattled up.

It was a ghostly drive. As the tops of the pine-trees swayed aside they caught glimpses of the red horror of the sky; and when they got out into the open Anna cried out involuntarily, for it seemed as if the whole world were on fire. The spire of Lohm church and the roofs of the cottages stood out clear and sharp in the fierce light. The horses, more and more frightened the nearer they drew, plunged and reared, and old Fritz could hardly hold them in. On turning the corner by the parsonage they were not to be induced to advance another yard, but swerved aside, kicking and terrified, and threatening every moment to upset the carriage into the ditch.

Anna jumped out and ran on. The princess, slower and more bulky, was helped out by Letty and followed after as quickly as she could. In the road and in the field opposite the stables the whole population was gathered, illuminated figures in eager, chattering groups. From the pump on the green in front of the schoolhouse, a chain of helpers had been formed, and buckets of water were being passed along from hand to hand to the engines; and there was no other water. The engines were working farther down the road, keeping the hose turned on to the trees between the stables and the house. There were clumps of pine-trees among them, and these were the trees that would carry the fire across to Axel's house. Men in the garden were hacking at them, the blows of their axes indistinguishable in the uproar, but every now and then one of the victims fell with a crash among its fellows still standing behind it.

"Oh, poor Axel, poor Axel!" murmured Anna, drawing her scarf across her face as she passed along to protect it from the intolerable heat. But she was an unmistakable figure in her blue cloak and white dress, stumbling on to where the engines were; and the groups of onlookers nudged each other and turned to stare after her as she passed.

"How did it happen?" she asked, suddenly stopping before a knot of women. They were in the act of discussing her, and started and looked foolish.

"No one knows," said the eldest, when Anna repeated her question. "They say it was done on purpose."

"Done on purpose!" echoed Anna, staring at the speaker. "Why, who would set fire to a place on purpose?"

But to this question no reply at all was forthcoming. They fidgeted and looked at each other, and one of the younger ones tittered and then put her hand before her mouth.

In the potato field across the road, two storks, whose nest for many springs had been on one of the roofs now burning, had placed their young ones in safety and were watching over them. The young storks were only a few days old, and had been thrown out of the nest by the parents, and then dragged away out of danger into the field, the parents mounting guard over their bruised and dislocated offspring, and the whole group transformed in the glow into a beautiful, rosy, dazzling white, into a family of spiritualised, glorified storks, as they huddled ruefully together in their place of refuge. Anna saw them without knowing that she saw them; there were three little ones, and one was dead. The princess and Letty found her standing beside them, watching the roaring furnace of the stableyard with parted lips and wide-open, horror-stricken eyes.

"Most of the horses were got out in time," said the princess, taking Anna's arm, determined that she should not again slip away, "and they say the buildings are fully insured, and he will be able to have much better ones."

"But the time lost—they can't be built in a day——"

"The man I spoke to said they were such old buildings and in such a bad state that Axel can congratulate himself that they have been burned. But of course there will always be the time lost. Have you seen him? Let us go on a little—we shall be scorched to cinders here."

Both Axel and Dellwig were superintending the working of the hose. "I do not want my trees destroyed," he said to Dellwig, with whom in the stress of the moment he had resumed his earlier manner; "they are not insured." He had watched the stables go with an impassiveness that struck several of the bystanders as odd. Dellwig and many others of the dwellers in that district were used to making a great noise on all occasions great and small, and they could by no means believe that it was natural to Axel to remain so calm at such a moment. "It is a great nuisance," Axel said more than once; but that also was hardly an adequate expression of feelings.

"They are well insured, I believe?" said Dellwig.

"Oh yes. I shall be able to have nice tight buildings in their place."

"They were certainly rather—rather dilapidated," said Dellwig, eyeing him.

"They were very dilapidated," said Axel.

Anna and the princess stood a little way from the engines watching the efforts to check the spread of the fire for some time before Axel noticed them. Manske, who had been the first to volunteer as a link in the human chain to the pump, bowed and smiled from his place at them, and was stared at in return by both women, who wondered who the begrimed and friendly individual could be. "It is the pastor," then said the princess, smiling back at him; on which Manske's smiles and bows redoubled, and he spilt half the contents of the bucket passing through his hands.

"So it is," said Anna.

"Take care there, No. 3!" roared Dellwig, affecting not to know who No. 3 was, and glad of an opportunity of calling the parson to order. Dellwig was making so much noise flinging orders and reprimands about, that a stranger would certainly have taken him for the frantic owner of the burning property.

"You see the pastor looks anything but alarmed," said the princess. "If Axel were losing much by this, Manske would be weeping into his bucket instead of smiling so kindly at us."

"So he would," said Anna, a little reassured by that cheerful and grimy countenance. Her eyes wandered to Axel, so cool and so vigilant, giving the necessary orders so quietly, losing no precious moments in trying to save what was past saving, and without any noise or any abuse getting what he wanted done. "It can't be a good thing, a fire like this," she said to herself. "Whatever they say, it can't be a good thing."

A huge pine-tree was dragged down at that moment, dragged in a direction away from its fellows, against a beech, whose branches it tore down in its fall, ruining the beech for ever, but smothering a few of its own twigs that had begun to burn among the fresh young leaves. Anna watched the havoc going on among poor Axel's trees in silence. "He can't not care," she said to herself. He turned round quickly at that moment, as though he heard her thinking of him, and looked straight into her eyes. "You here!" he exclaimed, striding across the road to her at once.

"Yes, we are here," replied the princess. "We cannot let our neighbour burn without coming to see if we can do anything. But seriously, I hear that it is a good thing for you."

"I prefer the less good thing that I had before, just now. But it is gone. I shall not waste time fretting over it."

He ran back again to stop something that was being done wrong, but returned immediately to tell them to go into his house and not stand there in the heat. "You look so tired—and anxious," he said, his eyes searching Anna's face. "Why are you anxious? The fire has frightened you? It is all insured, I assure you, and there is only the bother of having to build just now."

He could not stay, and hurried back to his men.

"We can go indoors a moment," said the princess, "and see what is going on in his house. It will be standing empty and open, and it is not necessary that he should suffer losses from thieves as well as from fire. His Mamsell is like all bachelors' Mamsells—losing, I am sure, no opportunity of feathering her nest at his expense."

Anna thought this a practical way of helping Axel, since the throwing of water on the flames was not required of her. She turned to call Letty, and found that no Letty was to be seen. "Why, where is Letty?" she asked, looking round.

"I thought she was behind us," said the princess.

"So did I," said Anna anxiously.

They went back a few steps, looking for her among the bystanders. They saw her at last a long way off, her handkerchief still round her head and her long thick hair blowing round her shoulders, rapt in contemplation of the fiery furnace. Then a shout went up from the people in the road, and they all ran back into the potato field. Anna and the princess stood rooted to the spot, clutching each other's hands. Letty looked round when she heard the shout, and began to run too. The flaming outer wall of the yard swayed and tottered and then fell outwards with a terrific crash and crackling, filling the road with a smoking heap of rubbish, and sending a shower of sparks on a puff of wind after the flying spectators.

The princess had certainly not run so fast since her girlhood as she did with Anna towards the spot in the field where they had last seen Letty. A crowd had gathered round it, they could see, an excited, gesticulating crowd. But they found her apparently unhurt, sitting on the ground, surrounded by sympathisers, and with someone's coat over her head. She looked up, very pale, but smiling apologetically at her aunt. "It's all gone," she said, pointing to her head.

"What is gone?" cried Anna, dropping on her knees beside her.

"Ach Gott, die Haare—die herrlichen Haare!" lamented a woman in the crowd. The smell of burnt hair explained what had happened.

Anna seized her in her arms. "You might have been killed—you might have been killed," she panted, rocking her to and fro. "Oh, Letty—who saved you?"

"Somebody put this beastly thing over my head—it smells of herrings. Sparks got into my hair, and it all frizzled up. Can't I take this off? It's out now—and off too."

The princess felt all over her head through the coat, patting and pressing it carefully; then she took the coat off, and restored it with effusive thanks to its sheepish owner. There was a murmur of sympathy from the women as Letty emerged, shorn of those flowing curls that were her only glory. "Oh Weh, die herrlichen Haare!" sighed the women to one another, "Oh Weh, oh Weh!" But the handkerchief tied so tightly round her head had saved her from a worse fate; she had been an ugly little girl before—all that had happened was that she looked now like an ugly little boy.

"I say, Aunt Anna, don't mind," said Letty; for her aunt was crying, and kissing her, and tying and untying the handkerchief, and arranging and rearranging it, and stroking and smoothing the singed irregular wisps of hair that were left as though she loved them. "I'm frightfully sorry—I didn't know you were so fond of my hair."

"Come, we'll go to the house," was all Anna said, stumbling on to her feet and putting her arm round Letty. And they clung to each other so close that they could hardly walk.

"We are going indoors a moment," called the princess, who was very pale, to Axel as they passed the engines.

He smiled across at her, and lifted his hat.

"I never saw anyone quite so composed," she observed to Anna, trying to turn her attention to other things. "Your man Dellwig, who has nothing to do with it all, is displaying the kind of behaviour the people expect on these occasions. I am sure that Axel has puzzled a great many people to-night."

Anna did not answer. She was thinking only of Letty. What a slender thread of chance had saved her from death, from a dreadful death, the little Letty who was under her care, for whom she was responsible, and whom she had quite forgotten in her stupid interest in Axel Lohm's affairs. Woman-like, she felt very angry with Axel. What did it matter to her whether his place burnt to ashes or not? But Letty mattered to her, her own little niece, poor solitary Letty, practically motherless, so ugly, and so full of good intentions. She had scolded her so much about Klutz; wretched Klutz, it was entirely his fault that Letty had been so silly, and yet only Letty had had the scoldings. Anna held her closer. In the light of that narrow escape how trivial, how indifferent, all this folly of love-talk and messages and anger seemed. For a short space she touched the realities, she saw life and death in their true proportion; and even while she was looking at them with clear and startled vision they were blurred again into indistinctness, they faded away and were gone—rubbed out by the inevitable details of the passing hour.

"I thought as much," said the princess, as they drew near the house. "All the doors wide open and the place deserted." And Anna came back with a start from the reality to the well-known dream of daily life, and immediately felt as though that other flash had been the dream and only this were real.

The hall was in darkness, but there was light shining through the chinks of a door, and they groped their way towards it. The house was as quiet as death. They could hear the distant shouts of the men cutting down the trees in the garden, and the blows of the axes. The princess pushed open the door behind which the light was, and they found themselves in Axel's study, where the candles he had lit in order to read Letty's poem were still guttering and flaring in the draught from the open window. A clock on the writing-table showed that it was past midnight. The room looked very untidy and ill-cared for.

"A man without a wife," said the princess, gazing round at the litter, composed chiefly of cigar-ashes and old envelopes, "is a truly miserable being. What condition can be more wretched than to be at the mercy of a Mamsell? I shall go and inquire into the whereabouts of this one. Axel will want some food when he comes in."

She took up one of the candles and went out. Letty had sat down at once on the nearest chair, and was looking very pale. Anna untied the handkerchief, and tried to arrange what was left of her hair. "I must cut off these uneven ends," she said, "but there won't be any scissors here."

"I say," began Letty, staring very hard at her.

"I believe you were terribly scared, you poor little creature," said Anna, struck by her pale face, and passing her hand tenderly over the singed head.

"Oh, not much. A bit, of course. But it was soon over. Don't worry. What will mamma say to my head?" And Letty's mouth widened into a grin at this thought. "I say," she began again, relapsing into solemnity.

"Well, what?" smiled Anna, sitting down on the same chair and putting her arm round her.

"You don't know the whole of that poetry business."

"That silly business with Herr Klutz? Oh, was there more of it? Oh, Letty, what did you do more? I am so tired of it, and of him, and of everything. Tell me, and then we'll forget it for ever."

"I'm afraid you won't forget it. I'm afraid I'm a bigger beast than you think, Aunt Anna," said Letty, with a conviction that frightened Anna.

"Oh, Letty," she said faintly, "what did you do?"

"Why, I—I will get it out—I—he was so miserable, and went on so when you didn't answer that poetry—that he sent with the heart, you know——"

"Oh yes, I know."

"Well, he was in such a state about it that I—that I made up a poem, just to comfort him, you know, and keep him quiet, and—and pretended it came from you." She threw back her head and looked up at her aunt. "There now, it's out," she said defiantly.

Anna was silent for a moment. "Was it—was it very affectionate?" she asked under her breath. Then she slipped down on to the floor, and put both her arms round Letty. "Don't tell me," she cried, laying her face on Letty's knees, "I don't want to know. Suppose you had been dreadfully hurt just now, burnt, or—or dead, what would it have mattered? Oh, we will forget all that ridiculous nonsense, and only never, never be so silly again. Let us be happy together, and finish with Herr Klutz for ever—it was all so stupid, and so little worth while." And she put up her face, and they both began to cry and kiss each other through their tears. And so it came about that Letty was in the same hour relieved of the burden on her conscience, of most of her hair, and was taken once again, and with redoubled enthusiasm, into Anna's heart. Logic had never been Anna's strong point.



CHAPTER XXV

When Axel came in two hours later, bringing Dellwig and Manske and two or three other helpers, farmers, who had driven across the plain to do what they could, he found his house lit up and food and drink set out ready in the dining-room.

Letty and Anna had had time to recover from their tears and vows, sundry small blisters on the back of Letty's neck had been treated with cotton wool, and they had emerged from their agitation to a calmer state in which the helping of the princess in the middle of the night to make somebody else's house comfortable was not without its joys. The Mamsell, no more able than the Kleinwalde servants to withstand the authority of the princess's name and eye, had collected the maids and worked with a will; and when, all danger of the fire spreading being over, Axel came in dirty and smoky and scorched, prepared to have to hunt himself in the dark house for the refreshment he could not but offer his helpers, he was agreeably surprised to find the lamp in the hall alight, and to be met by a wide-awake Mamsell in a clean apron who proposed to provide the gentlemen with hot water. This was very attentive. Axel had never known her so thoughtful. The gentlemen, however, with one accord refused the hot water; they would drink a glass of wine, perhaps, as Herr von Lohm so kindly suggested, and then go to their homes and beds as quickly as possible. Manske, by far the grimiest, was also the most decided in his refusal; he was a godly man, but he did not love supererogatory washings, under which heading surely a washing at two o'clock in the morning came. Axel left them in the hall a moment, and went into his study to fetch cigars; and there he found Letty, hiding behind the door.

"You here, young lady?" he exclaimed surprised, stopping short.

"Don't let anyone see me," she whispered. "Princess Ludwig and Aunt Anna are in the dining-room. I ran in here when I heard people with you. My hair is all burnt off."

"What, you went too near?"

"Sparks came after me. Don't let them come in——"

"You were not hurt?"

"No. A little—on the back of my neck, but it's hardly anything."

"I am very glad your hair was burnt off," said Axel with great severity.

"So am I," was the hearty reply. "The tangles at night were something awful."

He stood silent for a moment, the cigar-boxes under his arm, uncertain whether he ought not to enlighten her as to the reprehensibility of her late conduct in regard to her aunt and Klutz. Evidently her conscience was cloudless, and yet she had done more harm than was quite calculable. Axel was fairly certain that Klutz had set fire to the stables. Absolutely certain he could not be, but the first blaze had occurred so nearly at the moment when Klutz must have reached them on his way home, that he had hardly a doubt about it. It was his duty as Amtsvorsteher to institute inquiries. If these inquiries ended in the arrest of Klutz, the whole silly story about Anna would come out, for Klutz would be only too eager to explain the reasons that had driven him to the act; and what an unspeakable joy for the province, and what a delicious excitement for Stralsund! He could only hope that Klutz was not the culprit, he could only hope it fervently with all his heart; for if he was, the child peeping out at him so cheerfully from behind the door had managed to make an amount of mischief and bring an amount of trouble on Anna that staggered him. Such a little nonsense, and such far-reaching consequences! He could not speak when he thought of it, and strode past her indignantly, and left the room without a word.

"Now what's the row with him?" Letty asked herself, her finger in her mouth; for Axel had looked at her as he passed with very grave and angry eyes.

The men waiting in the hall were slightly disconcerted, on being taken into the dining-room, to find the Kleinwalde ladies there. None of them, except Manske, liked ladies; and ladies in the small hours of the morning were a special weariness to the flesh. Dellwig, having made his two deep bows to them, looked meaningly at his friends the other farmers; Miss Estcourt's private engagement to Lohm seemed to be placed beyond a doubt by her presence in his house on this occasion.

"How delightful of you," said Axel to her in English.

"I am glad to hear," she replied stiffly in German, for she was still angry with him because of Letty's hair, "I am glad to hear that you will have no losses from this."

"Losses!" cried Manske. "On the contrary, it is the best thing that could happen—the very best thing. Those stables have long been almost unfit for use, Herr von Lohm, and I can say from my heart that I was glad to see them go. They were all to pieces even in your father's time."

"Yes, they ought to have been rebuilt long ago, but one has not always the money in one's pocket. Help yourself, my dear pastor."

"Who is the enemy?" broke in Dellwig's harsh voice.

"Ah, who indeed?" said Manske, looking sad. "That is the melancholy side of the affair—that someone, presumably of my parish, should commit such a crime."

"He has done me a great service, anyhow," said Axel, filling the glasses.

"He has imperilled his immortal soul," said Manske.

"Have you such an enemy?" asked Anna, surprised.

"I did not know it. Most likely it was some poor, half-witted devil, or perhaps—perhaps a child."

"But I saw the blaze immediately after I passed you," said Dellwig. "You were within a stone's throw of the stables, going home. I had hardly reached them when the fire broke out. Did you then see no one on the road?"

"No, I did not," said Axel shortly. There was an aggressive note in Dellwig's voice that made him fear he was going to be very zealous in helping to bring the delinquent to justice.

"It was the supper hour," said Dellwig, musing, "and the men would all be indoors. Had you been to the stables, gnaediger Herr?"

"No, I had not. Take another glass of wine. A cigar? Whoever it was, he has done me a good turn."

"Beyond all doubt he has," said Dellwig, his eyes fixed on Axel with an odd expression.

"Some of us would have no objection to the same thing happening at our places," remarked one of the farmers jocosely.

"No objection whatever," agreed another with a laugh.

"If the man could be trusted to display the same discrimination everywhere," said the third.

"Joke not about crime," said Manske, rebuking them.

"The discrimination was certainly remarkable," said Dellwig.

"That is why I think it must have been done by some person more or less imbecile," said Axel; "otherwise one of the good buildings, whose destruction would really have harmed me, would have been chosen."

"He must be hunted down, imbecile or not," said Dellwig.

"I shall do my duty," said Axel stiffly.

"You may rely on my help," said Dellwig.

"You are very good," said Axel.

Dellwig's voice had something ominous about it that made Anna shiver. What a detestable man he was, always and at all times. His whole manner to-night struck her as specially offensive. "What will be done to the poor wretch when he is caught?" she asked Axel.

"He will be imprisoned," Dellwig answered promptly.

She turned her back on him. "Even though he is half-witted?" she said to Axel. "Are you obliged to look for him? Can't you leave him alone? He has done you a service, after all."

"I must look for him," said Axel; "it is my duty as Amtsvorsteher."

"And the gracious Miss should consider——" shouted Dellwig from behind.

"I'll consider nothing," said Anna, turning to him quickly.

"—should consider the demands of justice——"

"First the demands of humanity," said Anna, her back to him.

"Noble," murmured Manske.

"The gracious Miss's sentiments invariably do credit to her heart," said Dellwig, bowing profoundly.

"But not to her head, he thinks," said Anna to Axel in English, faintly smiling.

"Don't talk to him," Axel replied in a low voice; "the man so palpably hates us both. You must go home. Where is your carriage? Princess, take her home."

"Ach, Herr Dellwig, seien Sie so freundlich——" began the princess mellifluously; and despatched him in search of Fritz.

When they reached Kleinwalde, silent, wornout, and only desiring to creep upstairs and into their beds, they were met by Frau von Treumann and the baroness, who both wore injured and disapproving faces. Letty slipped up to her room at once, afraid of criticisms of her hairlessness.

"We have waited for you all night, Anna," said Frau von Treumann in an aggrieved voice.

"You oughtn't to have," said Anna wearily.

"We could not suppose that you were really looking at the fire all this time," said the baroness.

"And we were anxious," said Frau von Treumann. "My dear, you should not make us anxious."

"You might have left word, or taken us with you," said the baroness.

"We are quite as much interested in Herr von Lohm as Letty or Princess Ludwig can be," said Frau von Treumann.

"Nobody could tell us here for certain whether you had really gone there or not."

"Nor could anybody give us any information as to the extent of the disaster."

"We presumed the princess was with you, but even that was not certain."

"My dear baroness," murmured the princess, untying her shawl, "only you would have had a doubt of it."

"The reflection in the sky faded hours ago," said Frau vein Treumann.

"And yet you did not return," said the baroness. "Where did you go afterwards?"

"Oh, I'll tell you everything to-morrow. Good-night," said Anna, candle in hand.

"What! Now that we have waited, and in such anxiety, you will tell us nothing?"

"There really is nothing to tell. And I am so tired—good-night."

"We have kept the servants up and the kettle boiling in case you should want coffee."

"That was very kind, but I only want bed. Good-night."

"We too were weary, but you see we have waited in spite of it."

"Oh, you shouldn't have. You will be so tired. Good-night."

She went upstairs, pulling herself up each step by the baluster. The clock on the landing struck half-past three. Was it not Napoleon, she thought, who said something to the point about three-o'clock-in-the-morning courage? Had no one ever said anything to the point about three-o'clock-in-the-morning love for one's fellow-creatures? "Good-night," she said once more, turning her head and nodding wearily to them as they watched her from below with indignant faces.

She glanced at the clock, and went into her room dejectedly; for she had made a startling discovery: at three o'clock in the morning her feeling towards the Chosen was one of indifference verging on dislike.



CHAPTER XXVI

Looking up from her breakfast the morning after the fire to see who it was riding down the street, Frau Manske beheld Dellwig coming towards her garden gate. Her husband was in his dressing-gown and slippers, a costume he affected early in the day, and they were taking their coffee this fine weather at a table in their roomy porch. There was, therefore, no possibility of hiding the dressing-gown, nor yet the fact that her cap was not as fresh as a cap on which the great Dellwig's eyes were to rest, should be. She knew that Dellwig was not a star of the first magnitude like Herr von Lohm, but he was a very magnificent specimen of those of the second order, and she thought him much more imposing than Axel, whose quiet ways she had never understood. Dellwig snubbed her so systematically and so brutally that she could not but respect and admire him: she was one of those women who enjoy kissing the rod. In a great flutter she hurried to the gate to open it for him, receiving in return neither thanks nor greeting. "Good-morning, good-morning," she said, bowing repeatedly. "A fine morning, Herr Dellwig."

"Where's Klutz?" he asked curtly, neither getting off his horse nor taking off his hat.

"Oh, the poor young man, Herr Dellwig!" she began with uplifted hands. "He has had a letter from home, and is much upset. His father——"

"Where is he?"

"His father? In bed, and not expected to——"

"Where's Klutz, I say—young Klutz? Herr Manske, just step down here a minute—good-morning. I want to see your vicar."

"My vicar has had bad news from home, and is gone."

"Gone?"

"This very morning. Poor fellow, his aged father——"

"I don't care a curse for his aged father. What train?"

"The half-past nine train. He went in the post-cart at seven."

Dellwig jerked his horse round, and without a word rode away in the direction of Stralsund. "I'll catch him yet," he thought, and rode as hard as he could.

"What can he want with the vicar?" wondered Frau Manske.

"A rough manner, but I doubt not a good heart," said her husband, sighing; and he folded his flapping dressing-gown pensively about his legs.

Klutz was on the platform waiting for the Berlin train, due in five minutes, when Dellwig came up behind and laid a hand on his shoulder.

"What! Are you going to jump out of your skin?" Dellwig inquired with a burst of laughter.

Klutz stared at him speechlessly after that first start, waiting for what would follow. His face was ghastly.

"Father so bad, eh?" said Dellwig heartily. "Nerves all gone, what? Well, it's enough to make a boy look pale to have his father on his last——"

"What do you want?" whispered Klutz with pale lips. Several persons who knew Dellwig were on the platform, and were staring.

"Why," said Dellwig, sinking his voice a little, "you have heard of the fire—I did not see you helping, by the way? You were with Herr von Lohm last night—don't look so frightened, man—if I did not know about your father I'd think there was something on your mind. I only want to ask you—there is a strange rumour going about——"

"I am going home—home, do you hear?" said Klutz wildly.

"Certainly you are. No one wants to stop you. Who do you think they say set fire to the stables?"

Klutz looked as though he would faint.

"They say Lohm did it himself," said Dellwig in a low voice, his eyes fixed on the young man's face.

Klutz's ears burnt suddenly bright red. He looked down, looked up, looked over his shoulder in the direction from whence the train would come. Small cold beads of agitation stood out on his narrow forehead.

"The point is," said Dellwig, who had not missed a movement of that twitching face, "that you must have been with Lohm nearly till the time when—you went straight to him after leaving us?"

Klutz bowed his head.

"Then you couldn't have left him long before it broke out. I met him myself between the stables and his gate five minutes, two minutes, before the fire. He went past without a word, in a great hurry, as though he hoped I had not recognised him. Now tell me what you know about it. Just tell me if you saw anything. It is to both our interests to cut his claws."

Klutz pressed his hands together, and looked round again for the train.

"Do you know what will certainly happen if you try to be generous and shield him? He'll say you did it, and so get rid of you and hush up the affair with Miss Estcourt. I can see by your face you know who did it. Everyone is saying it is Lohm."

"But why? Why should he? Why should he burn his own——" stammered Klutz, in dreadful agitation.

"Why? Because they were in ruins, and well insured. Because he had no money for new ones; and because now the insurance company will give him the money. The thing is so plain—I am so convinced that he did it——"

They heard the train coming. Klutz stooped down quickly and clutched his bag. "No, no," said Dellwig, catching his arm and gripping it tight, "I shall not let you go till you say what you know. You or Lohm to be punished—which do you prefer?"

Klutz gave Dellwig a despairing, hunted look. "He—he——" he began, struggling to get the words over his dry lips.

"He did it? You know it? You saw it?"

"Yes, yes, I saw it—I saw him——"

Klutz burst into a wild fit of sobbing.

"Armer Junge," cried Dellwig very loud, patting his back very hard. "It is indeed terrible—one's father so ill—on his death-bed—and such a long journey of suspense before you——"

And sympathising at the top of his voice he looked for an empty compartment, hustled him into it, pushing him up the high steps and throwing his bag in after him, and then stood talking loudly of sick fathers till the last moment. "I trust you will find the Herr Papa better than you expect," he shouted after the moving train. "Don't give way—don't give way. That is our vicar," he exclaimed to an acquaintance who was standing near; "an only son, and he has just heard that his father is dying. He is overwhelmed, poor devil, with grief."

To his wife on his arrival home he said, "My dear Theresa,"—a mode of address only used on the rare occasions of supremest satisfaction—"my dear Theresa, you may set your mind at rest about our friend Lohm. The Miss will never marry him, and he himself will not trouble us much longer." And they had a short conversation in private, and later on at dinner they opened a bottle of champagne, and explaining to the servant that it was an aunt's birthday, drank the aunt's health over and over again, and were merrier than they had been for years.



CHAPTER XXVII

It was an odd and a nearly invariable consequence of Anna's cold morning bath that she made resolutions in great numbers. The morning after the fire there were more of them than ever. In a glow she assured herself that she was not going to allow dejection and discouragement to take possession of her so easily, that she would not, in future, be so much the slave of her bodily condition, growing selfish, indifferent, unkind, in proportion as she grew tired. What, she asked, tying her waist-ribbon with great vigour, was the use of having a soul and its longings after perfection if it was so absolutely the slave of its encasing body, if it only received permission from the body to flutter its wings a little in those rare moments when its master was completely comfortable and completely satisfied? She was ashamed of herself for being so easily affected by the heat and stress of the days with the Chosen. How was it that her ideals were crushed out of sight continually by the mere weight of the details of everyday existence? She would keep them more carefully in view, pursue them with a more unfaltering patience—in a word, she was going to be wise. Life was such a little thing, she reflected, so very quickly done; how foolish, then, to forget so constantly that everything that vexed her and made her sorry was flying past and away even while it grieved her, dwindling in the distance with every hour, and never coming back. What she had done and suffered last year, how indifferent, of what infinitely little importance it was, now; and yet she had been very strenuous about it at the time, inclined to resist and struggle, taking it over-much to heart, acting as though it were always going to be there. Oh, she would be wise in future, enjoying all there was to enjoy, loving all there was to love, and shutting her eyes to the rest. She would not, for instance, expect more from her Chosen than they, being as they were, could give. Obviously they could not give her more than they possessed, either of love, or comprehension, or charitableness, or anything else that was precious; and it was because she looked for more that she was for ever feeling disappointed. She would take them as they were, being happy in what they did give her, and ignoring what was less excellent. She herself was irritating, she was sure, and often she saw did produce an irritating effect on the Chosen. Of sundry minor failings, so minor that she was ashamed of having noticed them, but which had yet done much towards making the days difficult, she tried not to think. Indeed, they could hardly be made the subject of resolutions at all, they were so very trivial. They included a habit Frau von Treumann had of shutting every window and door that stood open, whatever the weather was, and however pointedly the others gasped for air; the exceedingly odd behaviour, forced upon her notice four times a day, of Fraeulein Kuhraeuber at table; and an insatiable curiosity displayed by the baroness in regard to other people's correspondence and servants—every postcard she read, every envelope she examined, every telegram, for some always plausible reason, she thought it her duty to open: and her interest in the doings of the maids was unquenchable. "These are little ways," thought Anna, "that don't matter." And she thought it impatiently, for the little ways persisted in obtruding themselves on her remembrance in the middle of her fine plans of future wisdom. "If we could all get outside our bodies, even for one day, and simply go about in our souls, how nice it would be!" she sighed; but meanwhile the souls of the Chosen were still enveloped in aggressive bodies that continued to shut windows, open telegrams, and convey food into their mouths on knives.

The one belonging to Frau von Treumann was at that moment engaged in writing with feverish haste to Karlchen, bidding him lose no time in coming, for mischief was afoot, and Anna was showing an alarming interest in the affairs of that specious hypocrite Lohm. "Come unexpectedly," she wrote; "it will be better to take her by surprise; and above all things come at once."

She gave the letter herself to the postman, and then, having nothing to do but needlework that need not be done, and feeling out of sorts after the long night's watch, and uneasy about Axel Lohm's evident attraction for Anna, she went into the drawing-room and spent the morning elaborately differing from the baroness.

They differed often; it could hardly be called quarrelling, but there was a continual fire kept up between them of remarks that did not make for peace. Over their needlework they addressed those observations to each other that were most calculated to annoy. Frau von Treumann would boast of her ancestral home at Kadenstein, its magnificence, and the style in which, with a superb disregard for expense, her brother kept it up, well knowing that the baroness had had no home more ancestral than a flat in a provincial town; and the baroness would retort by relating, as an instance of the grievous slanderousness of so-called friends, a palpably malicious story she had heard of manure heaps before the ancestral door, and of unprevented poultry in the Schloss itself. Once, stirred beyond the bounds of prudence enjoined by Karlchen, Frau von Treumann had begun to sympathise with the Elmreich family's misfortune in including a member like Lolli; but had been so much frightened by her victim's immediate and dreadful pallor that she had turned it off, deciding to leave the revelation of her full knowledge of Lolli to Karlchen.

The only occasions on which they agreed were when together they attacked Fraeulein Kuhraeuber; and more than once already that hapless young woman had gone away to cry. Anna's thoughts had been filled lately by other things, and she had not paid much attention to what was being talked about; but yet it seemed to her that Frau von Treumann and the baroness had discovered a subject on which Fraeulein Kuhraeuber was abnormally sensitive and secretive, and that again and again when they were tired of sparring together they returned to this subject, always in amiable tones and with pleasant looks, and always reducing the poor Fraeulein to a pitiable state of confusion; which state being reached, and she gone out to hide her misery in her bedroom, they would look at each other and smile.

In all that concerned Fraeulein Kuhraeuber they were in perfect accord, and absolutely pitiless. It troubled Anna, for the Fraeulein was the one member of the trio who was really happy—so long, that is, as the others left her alone. Invigorated by her cold tub into a belief in the possibility of peace-making, she made one more resolution: to establish without delay concord between the three. It was so clearly to their own advantage to live together in harmony; surely a calm talking-to would make them see that, and desire it. They were not children, neither were they, presumably, more unreasonable than other people; nor could they, she thought, having suffered so much themselves, be intentionally unkind. That very day she would make things straight.

She could not of course dream that the periodical putting to confusion of Fraeulein Kuhraeuber was the one thing that kept the other two alive. They found life at Kleinwalde terribly dull. There were no neighbours, and they did not like forests. The princess hardly showed herself; Anna was English, besides being more or less of a lunatic—the combination, when you came to think of it, was alarming,—and they soon wearied of pouring into each other's highly sceptical ears descriptions of the splendours of their prosperous days. The visits of the parson had at first been a welcome change, for they were both religious women who loved to impress a new listener with the amount of their faith and resignation; but when they knew him a little better, and had said the same things several times, and found that as soon as they paused he began to expatiate on the advantages and joys of their present mode of life with Miss Estcourt, of which no one had been talking, they were bored, and left off being pleased to see him, and fell back for amusement on their own bickerings, and the probing of Fraeulein Kuhraeuber's tender places.

About midday Anna, who had been writing German letters all the morning helped by the princess, letters of inquiry concerning a new teacher for Letty, came round by the path outside the drawing-room window looking for the Chosen, and prepared to talk to them of concord. The window was shut, and she knocked on the pane, trying to see into the shady room. It was a broiling day, and she had no hat; therefore she knocked again, and held her hands above her head, for the sun was intolerable. She wore one of her last summer's dresses, a lilac muslin that in spite of its age seemed in Kleinwalde to be quite absurdly pretty. She herself looked prettier than ever out there in the light, the sun beating down on her burnished hair.

"Anna wants to come in," said Frau von Treumann, looking up from her embroidery at the figure in the sun.

"I suppose she does," said the baroness tranquilly.

Neither of them moved.

Anna knocked again.

"She will be sunstruck," observed Frau von Treumann.

"I think she will," agreed the baroness.

Neither of them moved.

Anna stooped down, and tried to look into the room, but could see nothing. She knocked again; waited a moment; and then went away.

The two ladies embroidered in silence.

"Absurd old maid," Frau von Treumann thought, glancing at the baroness. "As though a married woman of my age and standing could get up and open windows when she is in the room."

"Ridiculous old Treumann," thought the baroness, outwardly engrossed by her work. "What does she think, I wonder? I shall teach her that I am as good as herself, and am not here to open windows any more than she is."

"Why, you are here," said Anna, surprised, coming in at the door.

"Where have you been all the morning?" inquired Frau von Treumann amiably. "We hardly ever see you, dear Anna. I hope you have come now to sit with us a little while. Come, sit next to me, and let us have a nice chat."

She made room for her on the sofa.

"Where is Emilie?" Anna asked; Emilie was Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, and Anna was the only person in the house who called her so.

"She came in some time ago, but went away at once. She does not, I fear, feel at ease with us."

"That is exactly what I want to talk about," said Anna.

"Is it? Why, how strange. Last night, while we were waiting for you, the baroness and I had a serious conversation about Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, and we decided to tell you what conclusions we came to on the first opportunity."

"Certainly," said the baroness.

"It is surprising that Princess Ludwig should not have opened your eyes."

"It is truly surprising," said the baroness.

"But they are open. And they have seen that you are not very—not quite—well, not very kind to poor Emilie. Don't you like her?"

"My dear Anna, we have found it quite impossible to like Fraeulein Kuhraeuber."

"Or even endure her," amended the baroness.

"And yet I never saw a kinder, more absolutely amiable creature," said Anna.

"You are deceived in her," said Frau von Treumann.

"We have found out that she is here under false pretences," said the baroness.

"Which," said Frau von Treumann, unable to forbear glancing at the baroness, "is a very dreadful thing."

"Certainly," agreed the baroness.

Anna looked from one to the other. "Well?" she said, as they did not go on. Then the thought of her peace-making errand came into her mind, and her certainty that she only needed to talk quietly to these two in order to convince. "What do you think I came in to say to you?" she said, with a low laugh in which there was no mirth. "I was going to propose that you should both begin now to love Emilie. You have made her cry so often—I have seen her coming out of this room so often with red eyes—that I was sure you must be tired of that now, and would like to begin to live happily with her, loving her for all that is so good in her, and not minding the rest."

"My dear Anna," said Frau von Treumann testily, "it is out of the question that ladies of birth and breeding should tolerate her."

"Certainly it is," emphatically agreed the baroness.

"And why? Isn't she a woman like ourselves? Wasn't she poor and miserable too? And won't she go to heaven by and by, just as we, I hope, shall?"

They thought this profane.

"We shall all, I trust, meet in heaven," said Frau von Treumann gently. Then she went on, clearing her throat, "But meanwhile we think it our duty to ask you if you know what her father was."

"He was a man of letters," said Anna, remembering the very words of Fraeulein Kuhraeuber's reply to her inquiries.

"Exactly. But of what letters?"

"She tried to give us that same answer," said the baroness.

"Of what letters?" repeated Anna, looking puzzled.

"He carried all the letters he ever had in a bag," said Frau von Treumann.

"In a bag?"

"In a word, dear child, he was a postman, and she has told you untruths."

There was a silence. Anna pushed at a neighbouring footstool with the toe of her shoe. "It is not pretty," she said after a while, her eyes on the footstool, "to tell untruths."

"Certainly it is not," agreed the baroness.

"Especially in this case," said Frau von Treumann.

"Yes, especially in this case," said Anna, looking up.

"We thought you could not know the truth, and felt certain you would be shocked. Now you will understand how impossible it is for ladies of family to associate with such a person, and we are sure that you will not ask us to do so, but will send her away."

"No," said Anna, in a low voice.

"No what, dear child?" inquired Frau von Treumann sweetly.

"I cannot send her away."

"You cannot send her away?" they cried together. Both let their work drop into their laps, and both stared blankly at Anna, who looked at the footstool.

"Have you made a lifelong contract with her?" asked Frau von Treumann, with great heat, no such contract having been made in her own case.

"I did not quite say what I mean," said Anna, looking up again. "I do not mean that I cannot really send her away, for of course I can if I choose. Exactly what I mean is that I will not."

There was a pause. Neither of the ladies had expected such an attitude.

"This is very serious," then observed Frau von Treumann helplessly. She took up her work again and pulled at the stitches, making knots in the thread. Both she and the baroness had felt so certain that Anna would be properly incensed when she heard the truth. Her manner without doubt suggested displeasure, but the displeasure, strangely enough, seemed to be directed against themselves instead of Fraeulein Kuhraeuber. What could they, with dignity, do next? Frau von Treumann felt angry and perplexed. She remembered Karlchen's advice in regard to ultimatums, and wished she had remembered it sooner; but who could have imagined the extent of Anna's folly? Never, she reflected, had she met anyone quite so foolish.

"It is a case for the police," burst out the baroness passionately, all the pride of all the Elmreichs surging up in revolt against a fate threatening to condemn her to spend the rest of her days with the progeny of a postman. "Your advertisement specially mentioned good birth as essential, and she is here under false pretences. You have the proofs in her letters. She is within reach of the arm of the law."

Anna could not help smiling. "Don't denounce her," she said. "I should be appalled if anything approaching the arm of the law got into my house. I'll burn the proofs after dinner." Then she turned to Frau von Treumann. "If you think it over," she said, "I know you will not wish me to be so merciless, so pitiless, as to send Emilie back to misery only because her father, who has been dead thirty years, was a postman."

"But, Anna, you must be reasonable—you must look at the other side. No Treumann has ever yet been required to associate——"

"But if he was a good man? If he did his work honestly, and said his prayers, and behaved himself? We have no reason for doubting that he was a most excellent postman," she went on, a twinkle in her eye; "punctual, diligent, and altogether praiseworthy."

"Then you object to nothing?" cried the baroness with extraordinary bitterness. "You draw the line nowhere? All the traditions and prejudices of gentlefolk are supremely indifferent to you?"

"Oh, I object to a great many things. I would have liked it better if the postman had really been the literary luminary poor Emilie said he was—for her sake, and my sake, and your sakes. And I don't like untruths, and never shall. But I do like Emilie, and I forgive it all."

"Then she is to remain here?"

"Yes, as long as she wants to. And do, do try to see how good she is, and how much there is to love in her. You have done her a real service," Anna added, smiling, "for now she won't have it on her mind any more, and will be able to be really happy."

The baroness gathered up her work and rose. Frau von Treumann looked at her nervously, and rose too.

"Then——" began the baroness, pale with outraged pride and propriety.

"Then really——" began Frau von Treumann more faintly, but feeling bound in this matter to follow her example. After all, they could always allow themselves to be persuaded to change their minds again.

Anna got up too, and they stood facing each other. Something awful was going to happen, she felt, but what? Were they, she wondered, both going to give her notice?

The baroness, drawn up to her full height, looked at her, opened her lips to complete her sentence, and shut them again. She was exceedingly agitated, and held her little thin, claw-like hands tightly together to hide how they were shaking. All she had left in the world was the pride of being an Elmreich and a baroness; and as, with the relentless years, she had grown poorer, plainer, more insignificant, so had this pride increased and strengthened, until, together with her passionate propriety and horror of everything in the least doubtful in the way of reputations, it had come to be the very mainspring of her being. "Then——" she began again, with a great effort; for she remembered how there had actually been no food sometimes when she was hungry, and no fire when she was cold, and no doctor when she was sick, and how severe weather had seemed to set in invariably at those times when she had least money, making her first so much hungrier than usual, and afterwards so much more sick, as though nature itself owed her a grudge.

"Oh, these ultimatums!" inwardly deplored Frau von Treumann; the baroness was very absurd, she thought, to take the thing so tragically.

And at that instant the door was thrown open, and without waiting to be announced, Karlchen, resplendent in his hussar uniform, and beaming from ear to ear, hastened, clanking, into the room.

"Karlchen! Du engelsgute Junge!" shrieked his mother, in accents of supremest relief and joy.

"I could not stay away longer," cried Karlchen, returning her embrace with vigour, "I felt impelled to come. I obtained leave after many prayers. It is for a few hours only. I return to-night. You forgive me?" he added, turning to Anna and bowing over her hand.

"Yes," she said, smiling; Karlchen had come this time, she felt, exactly at the right moment.

"I wrote this very morning——" began his mother in her excitement; but she stopped in time, and covered her confusion by once again folding him in her arms.

Karlchen was so much delighted by this unexpectedly cordial reception that he lost his head a little. Anna stood smiling at him as she had not done once last time. Yes, there were the dimples—oh, sweet vision!—they were, indeed, glorious dimples. He seized her hand a second time and kissed it. The pretty hand—so delicate and slender. And the dress—Karlchen had an eye for dress—how dainty it was! "Your kind welcome quite overcomes me," he said enthusiastically; and he looked so gay, and so intensely satisfied with himself and the whole world, that Anna laughed again. Besides, the uniform was really surprisingly becoming; his civilian clothes on his first visit had been melancholy examples of what a military tailor cannot do.

"Ah, baroness," said Karlchen, catching sight of the small, silent figure. He brought his heels together, bowed, and crossing over to her shook hands. "I have come laden with greetings for you," he said.

"Greetings?" repeated the baroness, surprised. Then an odd look of fear came into her eyes.

He had not meant to do it then; he had not been certain whether he would do it this time at all; but he was feeling so exhilarated, so buoyant, that he could not resist. "I was at the Wintergarten last night," he said, "and had a talk with your sister, Baroness Lolli. She dances better than ever. She sends you her love, and says she is coming down to see you."

The baroness made a queer little sound, shut her eyes, spread out her hands, and dropped on to the carpet as though she had been shot.



CHAPTER XXVIII

"Is Herr von Treumann gone?"

It was late the same afternoon, and Princess Ludwig had come into the bedroom where the Stralsund doctor was still vainly endeavouring to bring the baroness back to life, to ask Anna whether she would see Axel Lohm, who was waiting downstairs and hoped to be allowed to speak to her. "But is Herr von Treumann gone?" inquired Anna; and would not move till she was sure of that.

"Yes, and his mother has gone with him to the station."

Anna had not left the baroness's side since the catastrophe. She could not see the unconscious face on the pillow for tears. Was there ever such barbarous, such gratuitous cruelty as young Treumann's? His mother had been in once or twice on tiptoe, the last time to tell Anna that he was leaving, and would she not come down so that he might explain how sorry he was for having unwittingly done so much mischief? But Anna had merely shaken her head and turned again to the piteous little figure on the bed. Never again, she told herself, would she see or speak to Karlchen.

The movement with which she turned away was expressive; and Frau von Treumann went out and heaped bitter reproaches on Karlchen, driving with him to Stralsund in order to have ample time to heap all that were in her mind, and doing it the more thoroughly that he was in a crushed condition and altogether incapable of defending himself. For what had he really cared about the baroness's relationship to Lolli? He had thought it a huge joke, and had looked forward with enjoyment to seeing Anna promptly order her out of the house. How could he, thick of skin and slow of brain, have foreseen such a crisis? He was very much in love with Anna, and shivered when he thought of the look she had given him as she followed the people who were carrying the baroness out of the room. Certainly he was exceedingly wretched, and his mother could not reproach him more bitterly than he reproached himself. While she was vehemently pointing out the obvious, he meditated sadly on the length of the journey he had taken for worse than nothing. All the morning he had been roasted in trains, and he was about to be roasted again for a dreary succession of hours. His hot uniform, put on solely for Anna's bedazzlement, added enormously to his torments; and the distance between Rislar and Stralsund was great, and the journey proportionately expensive—much too expensive, if all you got for it was one intoxicating glimpse of dimples, followed by a flashing look of wrath that made you feel cold with the thermometer at ninety. He had not felt so dejected since the eighties, he reflected, in which dark ages he had been forced to fight a duel. Karlchen had a prejudice against duelling; he thought it foolish. But, being an officer—he was at that time a conspicuously gay lieutenant—whatever he might think about it, if anyone wanted to fight him fight he must, or drop into the awful ranks of Unknowables. He had made a joke of a personal nature, and the other man turned out to have no sense of humour, and took it seriously, and expressed a desire for Karlchen's blood. Driving with his justly incensed mother through the dust and heat to the station, he remembered the dismal night he had passed before the duel, and thought how much his dejection then had resembled in its profundity his dejection now; for he had been afraid he was going to be hurt, and whatever people may say about courage nobody really likes being hurt. Well, perhaps after all, this business with Anna would turn out all right, just as that business had turned out all right; for he had killed his man, and, instead of wounds, had been covered with glory. Thus Karlchen endeavoured to snatch comfort as he drove, but yet his heart was very heavy.

"I hope," said his mother bitingly when he was in the train, patiently waiting to be taken beyond the sound of her voice, "I do hope that you are ashamed of yourself. It is a bitter feeling, I can tell you, the feeling that one is the mother of a fool."

To which Karlchen, still dazed, replied by unhooking his collar, wiping his face, and appealing with a heart-rending plaintiveness to a passing beer-boy to give him, um Gottes Willen, beer.

Axel was in the drawing-room, where the remains of Karlchen's valedictory coffee and cakes were littered on a table, when Anna came down. "I am so sorry for you," he said. "Princess Ludwig has been telling me what has happened."

"Don't be sorry for me. Nothing is the matter with me. Be sorry for that most unfortunate little soul upstairs."

Axel kissed Anna's right hand, which was, she knew, the custom; and immediately proceeded to kiss her other hand, which was not the custom at all. She was looking woebegone, with red eyelids and white cheeks; but a faint colour came into her face at this, for he did it with such unmistakable devotion that for the first time she wondered uneasily whether their pleasant friendship were not about to come to an end.

"Don't be too kind," she said, drawing her hands away and trying to smile. "I—I feel so stupid to-day, and want to cry dreadfully."

"Well then, I should do it, and get it over."

"I did do it, but I haven't got it over."

"Well, don't think of it. How is the baroness?"

"Just the same. The doctor thinks it serious. And she has no constitution. She has not had enough of anything for years—not enough food, or clothes, or—or anything."

She went quickly across to the coffee table to hide how much she wanted to cry. "Have some coffee," she said with her back to him, moving the cups aimlessly about.

"Don't forget," said Axel, "that the poor lady's past misery is over now and done with. Think what luck has come in her way at last. When she gets over this, here she is, safe with you, surrounded by love and care and tenderness—blessings not given to all of us."

"But she doesn't like love and care and tenderness. At least, if it comes from me. She dislikes me."

Axel could not exclaim in surprise, for he was not surprised. The baroness had appeared to him to be so hopelessly sour; and how, he thought, shall the hopelessly sour love the preternaturally sweet? He looked therefore at Anna arranging the cups with restless, nervous fingers, and waited for more.

"Why do you say that?" she asked, still with her back to him.

"Say what?"

"That when she gets over this she will have all those nice things surrounding her. You told me when first she came, that if she really were the poor dancing woman's sister I ought on no account to keep her here. Don't you remember?"

"Quite well. But am I not right in supposing that you will keep her? You see, I know you better now than I did then."

"If she liked being here—if it made her happy—I would keep her in defiance of the whole world."

"But as it is——?"

She came to him with a cup of cold coffee in her hands. He took it, and stirred it mechanically.

"As it is," she said, "she is very ill, and has to get well again before we begin to decide things. Perhaps," she added, looking up at him wistfully, "this illness will change her?"

He shook his head. "I am afraid it won't," he said. "For a little while, perhaps—for a few weeks at first while she still remembers your nursing, and then—why, the old self over again."

He put the untasted coffee down on the nearest table. "There is no getting away," he said, coming back to her, "from one's old self. That is why this work you have undertaken is so hopeless."

"Hopeless?" she exclaimed in a startled voice. He was saying aloud what she had more than once almost—never quite—whispered in her heart of hearts.

"You ought to have begun with the baroness thirty years ago, to have had a chance of success."

"Why, she was five years old then, and I am sure quite cheerful. And I wasn't there at all."

"Five ought really to be the average age of the Chosen. What is the use of picking out unhappy persons well on in life, and thinking you are going to make them happy? How can you make them be happy? If it had been possible to their natures they would have been so long ago, however poor they were. And they would not have been so poor or so unhappy if they had been willing to work. Work is such an admirable tonic. The princess works, and finds life very tolerable. You will never succeed with people like Frau von Treumann and the baroness. They belong to a class of persons that will grumble even in heaven. You could easily make those who are happy already still happier, for it is in them—the gratitude and appreciation for life and its blessings; but those of course are not the people you want to get at. You think I am preaching?" he asked abruptly.

"But are you not?"

"It is because I cannot stand by and watch you bruising yourself."

"Oh," said Anna, "you are a man, and can fight your way well enough through life. You are quite comfortable and prosperous. How can you sympathise with women like Else? Because she is not young you haven't a feeling for her—only indifference. You talk of my bruising myself—you don't mind her bruises. And if I were forty, how sure I am that you wouldn't mind mine."

"Yes, I would," said Axel, with such conviction that she added quickly, "Well—I don't want to talk about bruises."

"I hope the baroness will soon get over the cruel ones that singularly brutal young man has inflicted. You agree with me that he is a singularly brutal young man?"

"Absolutely."

"And I hope that when she is well again you will make her as happy as she is capable of being."

"If I knew how!"

"Why, by letting her go away, and giving her enough to live on decently by herself. It would be quite the best course to take, both for you and for her."

Anna looked down. "I have been thinking the same thing," she said in a low voice; she felt as though she were hauling down her flag.

"Perhaps you will let me help."

"Help?"

"Let me contribute. Why may I not be charitable too? If we join together it will be to her advantage. She need not know. And you are not a millionaire."

"Nor are you," said Anna, smiling up at him.

"We unfortunates who live by our potatoes are never millionaires. But still we can be charitable."

"But why should you help the baroness? I found her out, and brought her here, and I am the only person responsible for her."

"It will be much more costly than just having her here."

"I don't mind, if only she is happy. And I will not have you pay the cost of my experiments in philanthropy."

"Is Frau von Treumann happy?" he asked abruptly.

"No," said Anna, with a faint smile.

"Is Fraeulein Kuhraeuber happy?"

"No."

"Tell me one thing more," he said; "are you happy?"

Anna blushed. "That is a queer question," she said. "Why should I not be happy?"

"But are you?"

She looked at him, hesitating. Then she said, in a very small voice, "No."

Axel took two or three turns up and down the room. "I knew it," he said; and added something in German under his breath about Weiber. "After this, you will not, I suppose, receive young Treumann again?" he asked, coming to a halt in front of her.

"Never again."

"You have a difficult time before you, then, with his mother."

Anna blushed. "I am afraid I have," she admitted.

"You have a very difficult few weeks before you," he said. "The baroness probably dangerously ill, and Frau von Treumann very angry with you. I know Princess Ludwig does all she can, but still you are alone—against odds."

The odds, too, were greater than she knew. All day he had been officially engaged in making inquiries into the origin of the fire the night before, and every circumstance pointed to Klutz as the culprit. He had sent for Klutz, and Klutz, they said, had gone home. Then he sent a telegram after him, and his father replied that he was neither expecting his son nor was he ill. Klutz, then, had disappeared in order to avoid the consequences of what he had done; but it was only a question of days before the police brought him back again, and then he would tell the whole absurd story, and Pomerania would chuckle at Anna's expense. The thought of this chuckling made Axel cold with rage.

He stood looking out of the window at the parched garden, the drooping lilac-bushes, the hazy island across the water. The wind had dropped, and a gray film had drawn across the sky. At the bottom of the garden, under a chestnut-tree, Miss Leech was sewing, while Letty read aloud to her. The monotonous drone of Letty's reading, interrupted by her loud complaints each time a mosquito stung her, reached Axel's ears as he stood there in silence. A grim struggle was going on within him. He loved Anna with a passion that would no longer be hidden; and he knew that he must somehow hide it. He was so certain that she did not care about him. He was so certain that she would never dream of marrying him. And yet if ever a woman needed the protection of an all-enfolding love it was Anna at that moment "That child down there has made a pretty fair amount of mischief for a person of her age," he burst out with a vehemence that startled Anna.

"What child?" she said, coming up behind him and looking over his shoulder.

He turned round quickly. The feeling that she was so close to him tore away the last shred of his self-control. "You know that I love you," he said, his voice shaking with passion.

Her face in an instant was colourless. She stood quite still, almost touching him, as though she did not dare move. Her eyes were fixed on his with a frightened, fascinated look.

"You know it. You have known it a long time. Now what are you going to say to me?"

She looked at him without speaking or moving.

"Anna, what are you going to say to me?" he cried; and he caught up her hands and kissed them one after the other, hardly knowing what he did, beside himself with love of her.

She watched him helplessly. She felt faint and sick. She had had a miserable day, and was completely overwhelmed by this last misfortune. Her good friend Axel was gone, gone for ever. The pleasant friendship was done. In place of the friend she so much needed, of the friendship she had found so comforting, there was—this.

"Won't you—won't you let my hands go?" she said faintly. She did not know him again. Was it possible that this agony of love was for her? She knew herself so well, she knew so well what it was for which he was evidently going to break his heart. How wonderful, how pitiful beyond expression, that a good man like Axel should suffer anything because of her. And even in the midst of her fright and misery the thought would not be put from her that if she had happened to look like the baroness or Fraeulein Kuhraeuber, while inwardly remaining exactly as she was, he would not have broken his heart for her. "Oh, let me go——" she whispered; and turned her head aside, and shut her eyes, unable to look any longer at the love and despair in his.

"But what are you going to say to me?"

"Oh, you know—you know——"

"But you are so sorry always for people who suffer——"

"Oh, stop—oh, stop!"

"No, I won't stop; here have I been condemned to look on at you lavishing love on people who don't want it, don't like it, are wearied by it—who don't know how precious it is, how priceless it is, and how I am hungering and thirsting—oh, starving, starving, for one drop of it——" His voice shook, and he fell once more to covering her hands with kisses that seemed to scorch her soul.

This was very dreadful. Her soul had never been scorched before. Something must be done to stop him. She could not stand there with her eyes shut and her hands being kissed for ever. "Please let me go," she entreated faintly; and in her helplessness began to cry.

He instantly released her, and she stood before him crying. What a horrible thing it was to lose her friend, to be forced to hurt him. "I never dreamt that you—that you——" she wept.

"What, that I loved you?" he asked incredulously; but more gently, subdued by her deep distress. His face grew very hopeless. She was crying because she was sorry for him.

"I don't know—I think I did dream that—lately—once or twice—but I never dreamt that it was so bad—that you were such a—such a—such a volcano. Oh, Axel, why are you a volcano?" she cried, looking up at him, the tears rolling down her cheeks. "Why have you spoilt everything? It was so nice before. We were such friends. And now—how can I be friends with a volcano?"

"Anna, if you make fun of me——"

"Oh no, no—as though I would—as though I could do anything so unutterable. But don't let us be tragic. Oh, don't let us be tragic. You know my plans—you know my plans inside out, from beginning to end—how can I, how can I marry anybody?"

"Good God, those women—those women who are not happy, who have spoilt your happiness, they are to spoil mine now—ours, Anna?" He seized her arm as though he would wake her at all costs from a fatal sleep. "Do you mean to say that if it were not for those women you would be my wife?"