Valerie started back with a shudder, as she so suddenly saw before her the terrible man, who seemed to belong to the darkness and the raging elements. But he had already caught her hand and drawn her into the path, while Elsa, at her aunt’s entreating “Let me be alone with him!” unwillingly obeyed her, and remained standing at the shattered door, following with her keen eyes their retreating figures through the dark pathway, ready and determined to hasten to the poor woman’s assistance; straining her ear through the rustling and crackling of the bushes, and the roaring and creaking of the trees, and the raging and howling all round her, for any cry for help.
She stood there gazing, listening—for some fearful minutes, of which she could have counted each second by the beating of her heart. Now she could see them both walking quickly up and down at the lower end of the path; she thought she could catch a few broken words in Italian—an entreating “Il nostro figlio” from him—a passionate “Giammai! giammai!” from her. Then again the wild raving of the storm and the tide drowned every sound; the figures vanished into the darkness. She could bear her anxiety no longer, she hurried down the path—past something that glided by her—past him, the traitor! the murderer!
She shrieked it aloud, “Traitor! murderer!” The wild scream sounded no louder than an infant’s cry. She rushed down the path to the summerhouse, crying: “Aunt! aunt!” though she expected to find nothing but a dead body. There—at the foot of the stairs—was her aunt, her dear aunt!
She crouched on the lower steps of the staircase, and lifted upon her knees the fallen form, from whose icy forehead a warm stream trickled. But she still lived! she had attempted to press with her slender fingers the hand which had grasped hers; and now, now! thank heaven! there came a few low words, which Elsa, bending low over her, tried to catch.
“Do not be alarmed! It is nothing—a fall against the railing as he flung me from him; free—Elsa, free!—free!”
Her head sank again on Elsa’s bosom, but her heart still beat; it was only a swoon, the result of the terror and loss of blood; she tried to rise and sank back again.
Elsa did not lose her courage; as she bound up the wounded forehead with her own and her aunt’s handkerchief and a strip torn from her dress—she had had plenty of practice in the hospitals during the war—she considered whether she should try to carry the slender figure to the castle, or whether it would be better to hasten home alone and procure assistance. She would lose a great deal of time either way; but in the first case she would remain with the sufferer, and need not leave her alone in this terrible situation, without, perhaps, being able to make her understand that it was necessary to leave her.
Still she decided upon the second alternative as the safer. The bandage was arranged; she was just about to raise her aunt gently from her lap and arrange her as comfortable a couch as possible, when through the bushes, through the hedges, between the trees, there came upon her what seemed like thousands and thousands of serpents, whose hissing sounded even through the howling of the storm, with a strange and horrible noise that made Elsa’s blood run chill. For a moment she listened breathlessly, and then with a wild shriek started to her feet, snatching up her aunt, and with the strength of despair dragging her up the steps to save the helpless woman and herself from the flood which had broken over the park. She had hardly reached the last step before the water was pouring through the lower ones, and seeming to be everywhere at once, foaming and roaring through the hedge which ran from the summerhouse to the castle, as if over a weir, rushing into the hollow, which was no longer a valley but the bed of a broad stream whose waters, pouring in from either side, met with a crash like thunder, throwing up jets of water to the balcony, over the edge of which Elsa leant with a shudder.
A bench ran round the inner side of the balcony. Elsa laid her aunt here, who was falling from one fainting fit into another, after wrapping her up as warmly as possible, for the greater part with her own clothes.
And there she sat, with the poor thing’s head again in her lap, as the storm howled and the flood roared around her, and shook the frail slender wooden edifice in every joint of its worm-eaten planks, praying that God would send someone to them—the only man who could save them in their fearful need.
XII
As Ottomar’s steps died away upon the creaking stairs and across the hall, Ferdinanda sprang up, and wringing her hands, paced two or three times up and down the little room; then she threw herself down again as Ottomar had last seen her—her face in her hands, her head leaning against the back of the sofa. But she had not cried then, neither did she cry now; she had no tears to shed; she had no hope left, no wish save one—to die for him since she could not live for him, since her life could only be a burden and a torment to him.
