August had ushered Reinhold, who, in his bewilderment, followed him mechanically, up the stairs, and opened the door of the drawing-room.
Reinhold remained alone for a few anxious moments. What could have occurred to have caused the family such a shock as he saw reflected even in the servant’s face? And today, of all days! As if his heart were not heavy enough already!
A light step crossed the floor of the dining-room and over the carpet in the next room, and Elsa stepped in, holding out her hand to him.
“You have come to take leave. I know all from Fräulein—from Meta.”
“I have come to take leave,” answered Reinhold; “but before we speak of that, tell me, if you can, what misfortune has happened to you? It must be some misfortune.”
He still held her hand in his, and gazed, himself pale from emotion and sympathy, into her pale lovely face, with the beloved brown eyes, which, formerly so bright and happy, now looked so anxious and sorrowful.
“My father would reproach me if he heard me call that a misfortune of which he affirms himself to be proud. And yet—who knows how it appears to him in his heart, or how he bears it in his heart, and how he will bear it?”
She suppressed her sorrowful emotion with a deep-drawn breath, and offering Reinhold a chair, and herself taking a place on the sofa, continued in a calm voice:
“My father has been passed over in the promotion for which he stood next! You know what that means. He has just gone to offer his resignation in person to the Minister!”
“Good God!” said Reinhold, “an officer of his high character, of his vast services to the nation—is it possible!”
Elsa sat there, her fixed burning eyes looking down, a bitter smile trembling on her lips, while she slowly nodded her head once or twice. Reinhold saw how forced was the self-command with which she had come to meet him, how deeply she felt the insult which had been offered to her father.
“And to think,” he said in a low voice, “that I myself assisted to bring about this catastrophe. Your father has repeatedly impressed upon me what difficulties he had to struggle with, how precarious, how insecure his position was, and that a mere trifle might suffice to make it untenable—”
Elsa shook her head. “No, no!” she said, “it is not that. My father was determined to retire if ever this unhappy concession was carried through against his will. But that they should not even have waited, even given him time to carry out his resolution, that is what he resents, and what I fear will make his proud heart bleed.”
The tears ran from her fixed eyes down her pale cheeks. Reinhold’s heart was full to overflowing with love and sympathy. A voice within him cried out, “My poor, poor darling,” but he dared not speak out yet.
Elsa had dried her tears with her handkerchief.
“You must not look so miserable,” she said, trying to smile; “my father has done his duty, and you have done your duty. Is not the consciousness of this the best, the only consolation in such a case as this, which we must accept whether we will or no?”
“Certainly,” said Reinhold; “and yet how sad it sounds from such lips.”
“Because I am a girl,” said Elsa. “I think it is just we girls who can do so little for ourselves, who are often so helpless in the face of circumstances, who are not early enough impressed with this idea. What would have become of me in these last few days if I had not done so. If I had not at least tried to do so, so far as lay in my power. And now today, when I have heard everything from my father about Ottomar—”
Reinhold looked up startled.
Elsa’s eyes had fallen, a burning colour had come into her cheeks; she went on slowly in a low voice, “I have learnt everything!”
“Could not that, at least, have been spared you?” said Reinhold after a silent pause.
“I think not,” said Elsa, again looking up. “I think that my father followed a right impulse this morning when he told me everything, as to a friend (and, oh! how thankful I am to him for it, and proud!), told me of his position, of our position—confided to me even that. Oh! I cannot get rid of the thought that it would have been better, that it would have turned out better—for us all, if I had known it, if not from the beginning, at least after that terrible morning. Only a woman’s hand could, had it still been possible, have smoothed out the entangled threads of all the faults and follies there and here. What would I not give for the minutes that have been irreparably lost. Ah! I know I should have found the words to touch Ottomar’s and your cousin’s hearts. Poor Ferdinanda! What must she have suffered? What must she suffer? And my poor Ottomar, too! He is really not so guilty as he perhaps appears to you. It is not your fault that you have not learnt to know him better, that the wish of my heart has not been fulfilled—that you might become true friends. We know now why he shunned you, as indeed he did even his best friends, Schönau and the others—even myself—all of us. And so he has strayed so far, so helplessly away in the loneliness of his heart. And yet I know him from earlier, better days, how tender, how loving and affectionate his heart was; how susceptible he was to all that was beautiful and good, even if he had not the
