Only a Girl Part 63

"'And why should I give love in return?'" Leuthold completed the thought.

"Or even esteem," Ernestine added with a spasmodic s.h.i.+ver. "No, no! it shall not come to that. I will not sink so low. n.o.ble and true as he is, he shall not accuse me of such selfishness. His proud, suspicious mother shall not find me a beggar at her door,--rather a grave in mid-ocean!" She drew near to Leuthold. Her breath came in gasps, her pulses throbbed. "Uncle, you have destroyed my happiness in life, help me to preserve all that is left for me,--my self-respect!"

"Then come with me. Not until the ocean rolls between you and this man can you be secure from your own weakness."

Ernestine sank down exhausted. "So be it! You have conquered!"

CHAPTER V.

SCIENCE AND FAITH.

The dawning day strove in vain to lift the misty veil that a rainy night had spread over hill and dale. It was one of those mornings when the waning summer--like a belle whose charms are of the past in her morning dishabille--showed plainly that its glories were fading. The rising sun crept behind the cold, misty clouds, and the bushes were dripping with tears of regret. The faithful watcher, who had stood on guard all night near the castle, shook the wet from his cloak and s.h.i.+vered as he looked in the direction of the school-house, whence relief was to arrive.

He did not wait long. The powerful figure of a young man appeared briskly advancing through the mist. Slowly and sleepily the clock in the tower of the village church tolled half-past four.

"To a moment!" cried the watcher to the new arrival. "This is punctuality indeed!"

"Good-morning!" said Walter. "Brr! the air is cold. You must be almost frozen."

"Not more so than the huntsman on the watch," replied Johannes. "Ardour for the chase makes him warm. I burn and long to clutch that beast of prey up there. Oh, Walter, I am not easily roused,--my nature is a quiet one,--but if that man had tried to slip away in the night, and had fallen into my hands, I could not have answered for the consequences."

"I do not wonder at you," laughed Walter. "Nothing would gratify me more than a chance at the fellow. How did you spend the night? Could you not sit down?"

"No, I was not calm enough to do anything but pace to and fro, and now it is beginning to tell upon my wearied limbs."

"Make haste, then, and get dry and warm. My father is impatiently expecting you. He is up and dressed, and my mother has a good cup of coffee waiting for you."

"How kind you all are!" said Johannes. "But I am very anxious, Walter.

Gleissert was with Ernestine until midnight. From the hill yonder I could see their heads through the window. They appeared to be in eager conversation, and moved about, as if they were packing. Oh, if she can possibly intend----"

"Do not be in the least alarmed,--she cannot, after what you have told her."

"But how, after what I have told her, can she endure that man about her for hours? How can she breathe the air of the room where he is, for even ten minutes?"

"Hm--it does seem incredible. But, whatever happens, we have nothing to do but to watch and be ready. I will do my duty in this respect. Go, now, and rest for a couple of hours, that you may relieve me at school-time. Had you only allowed me to watch in your place, he would have found me as difficult as you to deal with."

"You help me enough by a.s.sisting me during the day. Good-by, then. I shall be back at eight o'clock." And Johannes walked slowly and wearily towards the school-house. When he entered the low, dimly-lighted room, he found the steaming coffee-pot already upon the table. Frau Leonhardt had seen him coming, and all was in readiness for him.

Herr Leonhardt sat in his place by the stove, and held out his hand with a kind but anxious "Good-morning! How are you after your unwonted duty through the night?"

"Tolerably, old friend," replied Johannes, "but I cannot deny that my respect has considerably increased since yesterday for the honourable guild of watchmen.--No, thank you, Frau Leonhardt, I cannot eat anything."

"Oh, do not drink your coffee without a morsel of something solid.

Well, if you do not wish it--but, you see, here it is!"

"Yes, my dear Frau Leonhardt, I see it," Johannes a.s.sured her, with a smiling glance at the great basketful of biscuits.

"You must know that my Brigitta was up half the night to prepare her most tempting biscuits for your breakfast,--it is all she could do for you. Yes, Brigitta, the Herr Professor can appreciate your good will."

"Indeed I can," said Johannes. "Such womanly kindness is dear to me wherever I meet with it. Your labour shall not be in vain." And he forced himself to eat.

"Oh," said Brigitta, "if the Fraulein had known that you were walking up and down beneath her windows in the cold night, she would have been grieved enough, and filled with pity!"

"The Fraulein knows no pity, my dear Frau Leonhardt," said Johannes bitterly.

The old man laid his hand kindly upon Johannes' shoulder. "You do not mean what you say. You cannot think so meanly of her--your impatience speaks now, not you. If you could only understand her n.o.ble nature as I do, who am not blinded by pa.s.sion!"

"But, Father Leonhardt, I do not deny Ernestine's n.o.ble nature. Should I devote myself to her as I am now doing after her rejection of me, if I did not know her to be more than worthy of all that I can do? But if you could have seen her rigid, marble face yesterday, you would have questioned, as I did, whether that young girl really possessed a heart."

"Indeed, indeed she does possess one," affirmed the old man. "But remember, Herr Professor, her heart has. .h.i.therto been fed solely through her understanding. She has had nothing to love but ideas. Human beings she has known nothing of. What wonder, then, if she imagines that she should love only where her intellect can say Amen? That Amen cannot be said in your case, for you have opposed all that has. .h.i.therto had the warrant of her intellect, which must needs be in arms against you, and the oppressed young heart must mutely acquiesce. Ernestine's intellect is that of a full-grown man, while her sensibilities are as undeveloped as those of a girl of fifteen. The consequence is that incessant contradictions appear in her conduct. Give these undeveloped sensibilities time, do not stunt them by coldness, and you will see them a.s.sert their rights in opposition to the intellect. She might almost be called a kind of Caspar Hauser in the world of sentiment. She is not at home there. She needs a patient teacher, and such a one she will find in you, I am sure. Do all that you can to prevent her from going to America; if she goes, she is as good as dead for us."

"Rely upon me, faithful and wise old friend," cried Johannes, and fresh resolution was depicted on his face. "I will do all that I can for her,--not for my own sake, but for hers."

"If you have finished your breakfast, you must take some rest," said Leonhardt. "My wife has arranged a bed for you."

"I accept your kindness gratefully," replied Johannes, "for I am exhausted, and have a fatiguing day before me."

"Then let me show you to your room. That service even a blind man can render you," said the old man with a smile.

And the two ascended to the upper story, where Herr Leonhardt opened a door and showed his guest into a scrupulously neat little apartment, containing a most inviting bed. Then he groped about, a.s.suring himself that all was as it should be, and returned to the room below, saying, as he closed the door, "Take a good sleep,--you may need the strength it will give you."

"Thanks, a thousand thanks, Father Leonhardt!" Johannes cried after him, and he listened to the careful tread of his kind host upon the narrow stairway. Then his eyes closed. Frau Brigitta's words sounded in his ears, "If the Fraulein had known that you were walking up and down beneath her windows in the cold night----"

She must have known it. He had told her plainly enough that he should do so, and she had not even opened a window or looked out at him. But stay,--stay! She would come out to him herself. See! see! The gate opened softly. Was her uncle with her? No! She was alone,--quite alone!

"Come," she whispered, "you are cold. Come in." And she took his hands and breathed upon them and rubbed them. "Will you not come into the house?" she asked. "There you can watch for my uncle and be out of the rain, and I will stay with you and never, never leave you."

"Ernestine," cried Johannes, stretching out his arms to embrace her.

The sudden motion awoke him, and he found himself alone. He could not have slept more than a quarter of an hour, and yet he could not go to sleep again. He lay quietly resting for a time, and then arose, prepared to go through with the decisive day that awaited him.

Evening had come. As on the previous day, Ernestine was sitting at her writing-table, but it was empty now. Its contents were packed up in the chests which were standing in the room, locked and ready for the voyage. Ernestine sat idly, with her hands in her lap, listening to her uncle's directions to the weeping housekeeper in reference to the price at which she was to dispose of the furniture of the house.

"The scientific works and the apparatus I shall leave to Walter Leonhardt," she said.

"What!" cried Leuthold. "Are you going to give away at least a thousand thalers?" He paused, with a glance at Frau Willmers, who had the tact to leave the room. "Why throw money out of the window, now that we are beggared?"

"The thousand thalers that the things would bring would not keep me from starving, while they will secure the young man's future. He has talents that must not run to waste, and which I can foster by giving him the means of pursuing his studies."

"Is it possible? You think it your duty, then, to foster all neglected genius?"

"Uncle," said Ernestine with cold severity, "I pray you spare me your opinion of my conduct. The habit of submission, it appears, is more easily discarded than that of ruling. I have cast aside the former, since yesterday, like a garment. It would be well for you to do the same with the latter."

"But I thought I might at least be suffered to advise," observed Leuthold.

"I will ask your advice when I think it necessary. In this matter it is enough that I choose to do as I have said."