O Thou, My Austria! Part 52

He tossed the pen aside.

The others were still dancing. The sound of the music came softly from the distance. He rested his head on his hands and pondered.

He has seen clearly that it must be. He had written the letters as the first irrevocable step. But how was it to be done?

He looked for his revolver. It might all be over in a moment. He caught up the little weapon with a kind of greed. Suddenly he recalled a friend who had shot himself, and whose body he had seen lying on the bed where the deed had been done: there were ugly stains of blood upon the pillow. His nature revolted from everything ugly and unclean. And then the scene, the uproar that would ensue upon discovering the corpse. If he could only avoid all that, could only cloak the ugly deed. Meanwhile, his faithful hound came to him from a corner of the room, and, as if suspicious that all was not right with its master, laid its head upon his knee.

The way was clear,--Lato had lately frequently risen early in the morning to stalk a deer, which had escaped his gun again and again; he had but to slip out of the house for apparently the same purpose, and---- and It would be more easily done beneath G.o.d's open skies. But several hours must elapse before he could leave the castle. That was terrible. Would his resolve hold good? He began to pace the room restlessly to and fro.

Had he forgotten anything that ought to be done? He paused and listened, seeming to hear a light footfall in the room above him. Yes, it was Olga's room; he could hear her also walking to and fro, to and fro. His breath came quick; everything within him cried out for happiness, for life! He threw himself upon his bed, buried his face among the pillows, clinched his hands, and so waited, motionless.

At last the steps overhead ceased, the music was silent; there was a rustling in the corridors,--the guests were retiring to their rooms; then all was still, as still as death.

Lato arose, lit a candle, and looked at his watch,--half-past two.

There was still something on his heart,--a discontent of which he would fain disburden himself before the end. He sat down again at his writing-table, and wrote a few lines to Olga, pouring out his soul to her; then, opening his letter to Harry, he added a postscript: "It would be useless to attempt any disguise with you,--you have read my heart too clearly,--and therefore I can ask a last office of friends.h.i.+p of you. Give Olga the enclosed note from me,--I do not wish any one here to know of this,--my farewell to her. Think no evil of her. Should any one slander her, never believe it!--never!"

He would have written more, but words failed him to express what he felt; so he enclosed his note to Olga in his letter to Harry and sealed and stamped it.

His thoughts began to wander vaguely. Old legends occurred to him.

Suddenly he laughed at something that had occurred ten years before, at Komaritz,--the trick Harry had played upon Fainacky, the "braggart Sarmatian."

He heard himself laugh, and shuddered. The gray dawn began to glimmer in the east. He looked at his watch,--it was time! He drew a long, sighing breath, and left his room; the dog followed him. In the corridor he paused, possessed by a wild desire to creep to Olga's door and, kneeling before it, to kiss the threshold. He took two steps towards the staircase, then, by a supreme effort, controlled himself and turned back.

But in the park he sought the spot where he had met her yesterday, where he had kissed her for the first and only time. Here he stood still for a while, and, looking down, perceived the half-effaced impress of a small foot upon the gravel. He stooped and pressed his lips upon it.

Now he has left the park, and the village too lies behind him; he has posted his letter to Harry in the yellow box in front of the post-office. He walks through the poplar avenue where she came to meet him scarcely three weeks ago. He can still feel the touch of her delicate hand. A bird twitters faintly above his head, and recalls to his memory how he had watched the belated little feathered vagabond hurrying home to its nest.

"A life that warms itself beside another life in which it finds peace and comfort," he murmurs to himself. An almost irresistible force stays his steps. But no; he persists, and walks on towards the forest. He will only wait for the sunrise, and then----

He waits in vain. The heavens are covered with clouds; a sharp wind sighs above the fields; the leaves tremble as if in mortal terror; for the first time in six weeks a few drops of rain fall. No splendour hails the awakening world, but along the eastern horizon there is a blood-red streak. Just in Lato's path a solitary white b.u.t.terfly flutters upon the ground. The wind grows stronger, the drops fall more thickly; the pale blossoms by the roadside s.h.i.+ver; the red poppies do not open their cups, but hang their heads as if drunk with sleep.

CHAPTER XLII.

FOUND.

Olga had remained in her room because she could not bring herself to meet Treurenberg again. No, she could never meet him after the words, the kiss, they had exchanged,--never--until he should call her. For it did not occur to her to recall what she had said to him,--she was ready for everything for his sake. Not a thought did she bestow upon the disgrace that would attach to her in the eyes of the world. What did she care what people said or thought of her? But he,--what if she had disgraced herself in his eyes by the confession of her love? The thought tortured her.

She kept saying to herself, "He was shocked at me; I wounded his sense of delicacy. Oh, my G.o.d! and yet I could not see him suffer so,--I could not!"

When night came on she lay dressed upon her bed for hours, now and then rising to pace the room to and fro. At last she fell asleep. She was roused by hearing a door creak. She listened: it was the door of Lato's room. Again she listened. No, she must have been mistaken; it was folly to suppose that Lato would think of leaving the house at a little after three in the morning! She tried to be calm, and began to undress, when suddenly a horrible suspicion a.s.sailed her; her teeth chattered, the heart in her breast felt like lead.

"I must have been mistaken," she decided. But she could not be at rest.

She went out into the corridor; all there was still. The dawn was changing from gray to white. She glided down the staircase to the door of Lato's room, where she kneeled and listened at the key-hole. She could surely hear him breathe, she thought. But how could she hear it when her own pulses were throbbing so loudly in her heart, in her temples, in her ears?

She listened with all her might: nothing, nothing could she hear. Her head sank against the door, which was ajar and yielded. She sprang up and, half dead with shame, was about to flee, when she paused. If he were in his room would not the creaking of the door upon its hinges have roused him? Again she turned and peered into the room.

At the first glance she perceived that it was empty, and that the bed had not been slept in.

With her heart throbbing as if to break, she rushed up to her room, longing to scream aloud, to rouse the household with "He has gone! he has gone! Search for him! save him!"

But how is this possible? How can she confess that she has been in his room? Her cheeks burn; half fainting in her misery, she throws wide her window to admit the fresh morning air.

What is that? A scratching at the house door below, and then a melancholy whine. Olga hurries out into the corridor again, and at first cannot tell whence the noise proceeds. It grows louder and more persistent, an impatient scratching and knocking at the door leading out into the park. She hastens down the stairs and opens it.

"Lion!" she exclaims, as the dog leaps upon her, then crouches before her on the gravel, gazes piteously into her face, and utters a long howl, hoa.r.s.e and ominous. Olga stoops down to him. Good G.o.d! what is this? His shoulder, his paws are stained with blood. The girl's heart seems to stand still. The dog seizes her dress as if to drag her away; releases it, runs leaping into the park, turns and looks at her. Shall she follow him?

Yes, she follows him, trembling, panting, through the park, through the village, out upon the highway, where the trees are vocal with the shrill twittering of birds. A clumsy peasant-cart is jolting along the road; the sleepy carter rubs his eyes and gazes after the strange figure with dishevelled hair and disordered dress, hastening towards the forest.

She has reached it at last. The dog's uneasiness increases, and he disappears among the trees. Olga stops; she cannot go on. The dog howls more loudly, and slowly, holding by the trees, she totters forward.

What is it that makes the ground here so slippery? Blood? There,--there by the poacher's grave, at the foot of the rude wooden cross, she finds him.

A shriek, wild and hoa.r.s.e, rings through the air. The leaves quiver and rustle with the flight of the startled birds among their branches. The heavens are filled with wailing, and the earth seems to rock beneath the girl's feet.

Then darkness receives her, and she forgets the horror of it all in unconsciousness.

CHAPTER XLIII.

COUNT HANS.

There was a dinner at Count Capriani's, and Count Hans Treurenberg, slender and erect, the embodiment of elegant frivolity, had just said something witty. One of his fellow-aristocrats, a n.o.ble slave of Capriani's, had been discoursing at length upon the new era that was dawning upon the world, and had finally proposed a toast to the union of the two greatest powers on earth, wealth and rank. All present had had their gla.s.ses ready; Count Hans alone had hesitated for a moment, and had then remarked, with his inimitable smile,--

"Well, let us, for all I care, drink to the marriage of the Golden Calf to the Chimera." And when every one stared in blank dismay, he added, thoughtfully, "What do you think, gentlemen, is it a marriage of expediency, or one of love? Capriani, it would be interesting to hear your views upon this question." Then, in spite of the lowering brow of the host, the aristocrats present burst into Homeric laughter.

At that moment a telegram was brought to the Count. Why did his hand tremble as he unfolded it? He was accustomed to receive telegraphic messages:

"There has been an accident. Lato seriously wounded while hunting.

"Selina."

An hour afterwards he was in the railway-train.

He had never been to Dobrotschau, and did not know that the route which he had taken stopped two stations away from the estate. The Harfink carriage waited for him at an entirely different station. He had to send his servant to a neighbouring village to procure a conveyance.

Meanwhile, he made inquiries of the railway officials at the station as to the accident at Dobrotschau. No one knew anything with certainty: there was but infrequent communication between this place and Dobrotschau. The old Count began to hope. If the worst had happened, the ill news would have travelled faster. Selina must have exaggerated matters. He read his telegram over and over again:

"There has been an accident. Lato seriously wounded while hunting."

It was the conventional formula used to convey information of the death of a near relative.