Clear the Track! Part 47

"Cecilia?" repeated Dernburg with a gleam of suspicion. "Quite right.

She too is deeply concerned in this thing. What part did she play in the affair? What did she know about it?"

"Nothing--not the least thing! She lived unsuspectingly by her brother's side, deeming him a rich man. Under this impression she engaged herself to Eric, and it was here at Odensburg that she became aware of something dark and mysterious in her brother's past. What it was I did not have the heart to tell her, but the manner in which she took my hints gave me convincing proof that not the slightest blame was to be attached to her."

Dernburg's deep sigh of relief betrayed the dread that he had entertained lest a shadow might also fall upon his daughter-in-law. A hardly audible "G.o.d be thanked!" came from his lips.

Egbert drew out a pocket-book, and took from it a number of papers.

"Here is a letter from Count Almers, who gives his word of honor for the a.s.sertion that he made that time; here are accounts as to what happened at the death of the old Baron, and here information from Nice.

Eric must have been blind, or they purposely kept him aloof from other society, else he would have known that his brother already had the reputation of being a doubtful character throughout the bounds of Nice, being looked upon as a professional gambler. How he managed to force his 'luck,' was suspected here and there, perhaps, but not to be proved, and that gave him the possibility of maintaining an appearance of respectability."

Dernburg took the proffered papers and stepped at once to the table, whereon stood a bell.

"First of all I must hear Wildenrod himself! You will not shrink, I hope, from repeating your accusation in his presence?"

"I have just done that--I came from his room. It was a last effort to end the matter in a way that would spare his exposure, but it failed.

The Baron knows that I am revealing all this to you, at this hour--he has not followed me to answer for himself."

"Never mind, he is to render me an account!" Dernburg pressed on the bell and called to the servant who entered: "Tell Baron von Wildenrod to come to me, please, at once."

The servant went; along, awkward silence ensued. Nothing was heard but the rustling of the papers that Dernburg opened one after the other and looked through: he turned ever paler as he proceeded. Egbert tarried, silent and motionless, in his place. Thus the minutes elapsed. It was long, very long, before the door was opened, and then it was not Wildenrod who entered but the servant who returned, saying:

"The Baron is not in his rooms, nor, indeed, anywhere about the house.

Perhaps he has already ridden away."

"Ridden away? Where to?"

"Apparently to the city. He ordered the horses put to the carriage and that it should drive to the back gate of the park. He must be there by this time."

A silent nod dismissed the servant, and then Dernburg's self-control gave way. He sank into a chair, and a cry of despair escaped his lips.

"My child! my poor, poor Maia! She loves this man with all her heart."

There was something appalling in the grief of this man, who with lofty brow went into a battle that threatened his existence, but who seemed unable to bear the misfortune of his darling.

Egbert gently approached and stooped over him. "Herr Dernburg," said he, with trembling voice.

A fierce and repellent gesture waved him back. "Go! What do you here?"

"Eric is dead, and you have to spurn from you the man who was to take his place. Give me only this once more--only for this hour--the right that I once possessed."

"No," cried Dernburg, drawing himself up, and his features were again as cold and hard as ever. "You have renounced me and mine; you have forfeited the right to endure suffering with us. Go over to your friends and comrades, to whom you have sacrificed me, and who now rage around me like a pack of hounds just let loose. To them you belong; there is your place! They have treated me ill, but you worst of all, because you stood next my heart. From you I want no sympathy and no support--I will go to destruction first."

He walked into the adjacent library and slammed the door to behind him.

The bridge between him and Egbert was broken.

CHAPTER XXIII.

A LOVERS' TRYST.

The park trees rocked and rustled in the wind, which now, towards evening, threatened to become a storm. It drove the red and yellow leaves whirling through the air, and a gray, cloud-covered sky looked down upon the autumnal earth.

Maia came back alone from her brother's resting-place, while Cecilia still lingered there. It had required persuasion to induce the former to go at all. In the midst of life's sunny springtime, the young girl felt a secret horror of all connected with death and burial. Existence beckoned to her, and happiness by the side of the man she loved.

On her way back she came past the Rose Lake, where Oscar had first confessed his love to her. Today, indeed, the spot looked very different from what it had done on that May-day in the splendor of suns.h.i.+ne and spring. Dry leaves covered the ground, and the reeds lining the sh.o.r.e were likewise withered and dry, while the lake itself looked black and uninviting in the dull light of that stormy day. No sweet singing of birds any longer sounded from the thicket, laid bare as it was by autumnal blasts; all was lifeless and still, while the mountain-chain, that had once looked so dreamily blue from the distance, was wrapped to-day in a dense fog.

Involuntarily Maia's steps were arrested here; she gazed fixedly upon the sadly altered spot, and, s.h.i.+vering, drew her mantle closer around her shoulders. Then she heard approaching steps, and the next minute Oscar von Wildenrod emerged from the coppice.

"I have been all through the park looking for you, Maia," said he, petulantly, "and had despaired of finding you."

"I was with Cecilia at Eric's grave," replied the young girl. "She is still there."

"So much the better, for what I have to say is for yourself alone. Will you listen to me?"

Without waiting for an answer, he drew her down upon the bench, over which the beech now stretched her ghostlike arms, half-stripped as they were of their foliage. Not till now had Maia observed that he wore hat and overcoat, and that his features had a strangely disordered expression.

"Nothing bad has happened, has there?" she asked in great agitation.

"Papa----"

"The matter does not concern him, but me, or rather both of us. Maia, I have something serious--hard to tell you. You are to show me, now, whether your love for me stands firm. You love me still, do you not?

You once gave yourself fully to me, on this very spot. I thought, then, I was asking your hand only for happiness, for a life full of suns.h.i.+ne and joy--have you the courage to share sorrow with me also?"

Maia was stunned, as it were, by this torrent of words; she shuddered.

"Oscar, for heaven's sake, tell me what you mean? You distress me unutterably by these dark hints."

"I ask of you a sacrifice--a great, heavy sacrifice. Will you make it for my sake?"

"If you ask it. Everything, everything that you want!"

"Suppose that I were to ask you to leave father and home, to go with me far away into a foreign land--would you follow me?"

"Father! Home!" repeated the young girl, mechanically. "But we stay here at Odensburg."

"No. I must begone--will you go with me?"

"I--I do not understand you," said Maia, trembling in every limb.

He threw his arm around her and drew her to him. His face was as pale as death, and in his eyes glowed that threatening flame which had so alarmed her when they first met.

"I told you once of my earlier life," he began, "of a wild, restless pursuit of fortune, that seemed ever to flee before me, until I finally found it here in possessing you--do you remember that?"

"Yes," whispered Maia. Did she remember it! It had been the same hour in which he had declared his love for her.