Clear the Track! A Story of To-day

Those were plain facts that Runeck reported, but his bearing and tone gave to the narration a frightful emphasis. It was seen what a crushing revelation this was to the listener, although he gave no outward sign of sympathy.

"What else?" said he, bluntly and roughly.

"I neither heard nor saw anything more of Wildenrod until the moment when he made his appearance at Odensburg, as Eric's future brother-in-law. I recognized him at the first glance, while he had no recollection whatever of my personality: a hint that I gave he repelled with great haughtiness."

"And you concealed this from me? You did not mention it at once?"

"Would you have believed me without proofs?"

"No, but I would have set investigations afoot and learned the truth."

"I did that in your stead. I had manifold relations with Berlin, that I now availed myself of: I turned to Wildenrod's native place and to Nice where Eric had made his acquaintance, and it was not my fault that months elapsed before my inquiries were answered. What you would have done was attended to by me, and information was given to me as a stranger that would hardly have been obtainable by you, under the circumstances. Nevertheless, I did think of warning you, provisionally, but then, I suppose, you would have dissolved the tie on which depended the happiness of Eric's life, and that would have been the death of him. He told me himself, once–when apparently without design I suggested such a possibility–that to lose Cecilia would be the death of him. I knew that he spoke the truth–such consequences I could not and would not take upon myself."

"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 "God 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 assertion 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 sunshine and spring. Dry leaves covered the ground, and the reeds lining the shore 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, shivering, 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 sunshine 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.

"I could not unveil that past to your pure child-eyes," continued Wildenrod, his voice sinking into a whisper; "and cannot to-day either, but there is a shadow in it–"

"A misfortune–was it not?" The question had a dispirited sound.

"Yes–a misfortune, that deprived me of my profession, and enticed me into evil and guilt. I had cast all this from me and wanted to begin a new life, here at your side. But again the old shadow looms up, and threatens me again–yes, threatens to snatch you from me, Maia."

"No, no, I am not going to leave you, whatever has happened, or may happen!" cried Maia, vehemently, clinging to him. "My father is lord of Odensburg, he will protect you."

"No, your father will dissolve our engagement, and part us irrevocably. Stern man that he is, with his rigid principles, he would rather see you dead than at the side of a husband whose past is not what it should he. There is only one way for you to be preserved to me, one single one–but you must have courage."

"What–what am I to do?" she stammered, powerless under the ban of his eyes and his voice. He stooped lower down to her and these words streamed hotly and passionately over his lips: "You are my betrothed–I have the right to claim you as my wife! Let us fly from Odensburg, and just as soon as we cross the German boundary line, I shall lead you to the altar. Then nobody, not even your father, will have the right to take you from me–no power can stand against our marriage. And you will be mine indissolubly."

Oscar von Wildenrod knew very well that a marriage of this kind was null and void in the eyes of the law; but what cared he for that, if it only satisfied Maia and made her believe herself to be his wife? Then Dernburg would have to consent; for the sake of the honor of his name, he could not admit that his daughter had lived for a while in a foreign land with a man who was not her husband, and the legal forms could be gone through with hereafter. After all, his claim to Odensburg might yet be made good. Was not Maia still her father's heir? Hence upon her hand depended freedom and wealth.

It was a wild, crazy scheme, suggested to the Baron by despair. Meanwhile it was practicable, if Maia only gave her consent. But now, in horror, she started back, releasing herself from his arms.

"Oscar! What is it that you ask of me?"

"My salvation!" he exclaimed, vehemently. "I am lost if I stay–you alone can save me. Go with me, Maia; be my wife, my shield, and I shall thank you for it on my knees. Only two paths are left to me now–the one with you leads to life, the other without you–"

"To death!" shrieked Maia. "Oh, how dreadful! Oh! no, no, Oscar, you are not to die. I am going with you, wherever you choose."

A cry of joy escaped his lips; he overwhelmed his betrothed with passionate caresses. "My Maia! I knew it. You would not forsake me, even though all others forsook me. And now, come! we have no time to lose."

"Now? This very hour?" asked Maia, shuddering. "Am I to see my father no more?"

"Impossible! You would betray yourself! We must leave on the spot. The carriage is in waiting to carry us to the station, at the gate in the rear of the park; I have with me my papers and a sum of money. In the excitement prevailing to-day at Odensburg, our departure will not be noticed. I shall see to it that they find not a trace of us, until I can announce our union to your father."

Maia's eyes were fixedly riveted upon the speaker, but hers were no longer glad, innocent child-eyes; there was an expression in them that Oscar could not fathom.

"Not say farewell to my father?" repeated she, mechanically. "Not even that, when I am giving him up forever?"

"Not forever," said Wildenrod, soothingly. "Your father will be reconciled to us. I shall take upon myself alone all the blame and responsibility of this step. We shall come back."

"Not I!" said the young girl, softly. "I shall die of that life in a foreign land, of separation from my father, of that–that dreadful thing, which you will not name before me. Oh, your love will be my death!"

"Maia!" cried he, interrupting her in angry surprise, but she would not be diverted, and continued:

"Somehow, I have always known it. When you first entered our house, and I looked into your eyes for the first time, a sense of distress came over me, as though I were standing on the edge of a precipice and must fall down. And this sense of distress has come ever again, even in that hour when you told me that you loved me, even in the midst of the happiness of these last weeks. I did not want to know the meaning of it, have struggled against it and clung to my supposed happiness. Now you point me to the abyss, and I–I must plunge down."

"And still you are willing to go with me?" asked Oscar, slowly: it was as though breath failed him.

"Yes, Oscar! You say that I can save you, how dare I hesitate?"

She laid her head upon his breast, with a low, heart-rending sob, in which the young creature buried her happiness. Wildenrod stood there, motionless, and looked down upon her: from the beech-tree withered leaves rained slowly down upon the pair.

At last Maia straightened herself up and dried her tears. "Let us go–I am ready!"

"No!" said Oscar, almost rudely, while he let her out of his arms.

The young girl looked at him in surprise.

"What did you say?"

He took off his hat and stroked his forehead, as though he would wipe something away. Suddenly his features appeared to be strangely altered: a few minutes before they had portrayed all the fierce passionateness of his nature, now they were cold and stolid in their calmness.

"I perceive that you are right," said he, and his voice sounded unnaturally composed. "It would be cruel to hinder you from taking leave of your father. Go to him and tell him–what you choose."

"And you?" asked Maia, astonished at this sudden change of mind.

"I shall wait for you here. It is better, perhaps, that you should speak to him once more, ere we venture upon that last desperate measure. Perhaps you will succeed in changing his mind."

It was only a faint glimmer of light that he showed her, but no more was needed for the rekindling of bright hopes in Maia's heart.

"Yes, I shall go to papa!" she cried. "I shall implore him on my knees not to part us. You cannot have done anything so dreadful, so unpardonable, and he will and shall hear me. But–would it not be better for you to go with me?"

"No, it would be in vain! But now go! go!–time is precious."

He urged her almost anxiously to leave, and yet when she actually did turn to go, he suddenly stretched out to her both arms.

"Come to me, Maia! Tell me once more that you love me, that you wanted to go with me, in spite of everything?"

The young girl flew back to him again and nestled up to him.

"You dread lest I should not stand firm? I'll share everything with you, Oscar, though it were the worst. Nothing can separate us. I love you beyond everything."

"Thank you!" said he, fervently. Suppressed feeling quivered in his voice; from his eyes, too, that sinister glare had departed, and they now beamed with unutterable tenderness. "Thank you, my Maia! You have no idea what a freeing, absolving influence that speech has had upon me, what a boon you bestow upon me in its utterance. Perhaps you are about to learn from your father's lips what I cannot tell you. If all of you, then, condemn and cast me from you forever, then remember that I loved you, loved you devotedly. How much I never realized until this moment–and I shall prove it to you."

"Oscar, you stay here?" asked Maia, agonized by a dark foreboding.

"I stay at Odensburg, my word for it–and now, go, my dear!"

He kissed his betrothed once more and then released her. She walked slowly away: on the edge of the thicket, she turned around. Wildenrod was still standing there motionless gazing after her; but he smiled, and that quieted the anxiety of the young girl, who now moved briskly forward into the fog, where she was soon lost in the gathering mist.

Oscar followed the slender form with his eyes until she had vanished, then he went slowly back to the bench and tentatively laid his hand upon his breast-pocket. There rested his papers, the sum of money he carried on his person, and–something else, that he had provided for all emergencies. Now, here it was safe … but no, not here, not so near to the house! Then what mattered one hour the more or the less–night suited his purpose better.

"Poor Maia!" said he, softly. "You will weep bitterly, but your father will fold you in his arms. You are right: such a life and my guilt would kill you.–You shall be saved. I am going alone–to destruction!"

The Dernburg family burying-ground lay in the rear of the park. It was no showy mausoleum, but merely a peaceful spot, encircled by dark fir-trees. Plain marble memorial stones adorned the green hillocks that were mantled in ivy. Here rested Dernburg's father and wife, and here his son Eric had also found a resting-place.

The young widow still lingered alone at the grave, but the ever-increasing violence of the wind warned her that it was time for her, too, to be going. She had just stooped down to readjust the fresh wreath that she had laid on the grave, and was now rising, when all of a sudden she gave a start. Egbert Runeck had emerged from the fir-trees and stood opposite to her. He had evidently had no idea of meeting her here, but quickly composed himself, and said, with a bow: "I beg your pardon, lady, if I disturb you. I expected to find the place solitary!"

"Are you at Odensburg, Herr Runeck?" asked Cecilia, without concealing her surprise.

"I was calling upon Herr Dernburg, and could not let the opportunity pass by without visiting the burial-place of the friend of my youth. It is the first, and probably will be the last, time that I see it."

As he spoke his eye scanned furtively the young widow's figure that was draped in black: then he drew near the grave and looked down upon it long and silently.

"Poor Eric!" said he, after a while. "He had to depart so early, and yet–it is an enviable fate, to die thus in the midst of happiness!"

"You are mistaken–Eric did not die happy!" said Cecilia, in a low tone.

"You believe that he was conscious of approach of death and felt the pangs of parting? I heard, though, that the hemorrhage came upon him in apparently full health, and that he never recovered consciousness."

"I do not know; for me, there was something mysterious in Eric's last moments," replied Cecilia, dejectedly. "When he once more opened his eyes, shortly before he died, I saw that he recognized me. That look still pursues me; I cannot get rid of it. It was so full of woe and reproach, as though he had known or suspected–" she suddenly broke off.

"What could he have suspected?" asked Runeck, impulsively.

Cecilia was silent here; least of all could she say what she feared.

"My brother thinks it is imagination," she then replied evasively. "He may be right, and yet I can never recall that moment but with a sharp, keen pang."

She bowed distantly to Egbert and was on the point of going; he evidently struggled with himself, then made a movement as though to detain the young widow.

"I believe it will be better to prepare you, lady, for the news that you will hear when you reach the house. Baron von Wildenrod has left for good?"

"My brother?" cried Cecilia, her anxieties at once aroused. "And you here at Odensburg? What have you done?"

"Fulfilled a painful duty!" he gravely replied. "Your brother has left me no choice. He was warned through you–he should have been satisfied with what he had already accomplished–Maia ought not to be sacrificed! I have opened her father's eyes."

"And Oscar? He has gone off you say–where to?"

"That nobody knows as yet. He will certainly communicate with you after a while; you stand as high as ever in the affections of your father-in-law. He knows that not the slightest reproach attaches to you."

"The question here is not about myself, is it?" cried the young woman, vehemently. "Do you think that I can live quietly here at Odensburg, with my brother a wanderer upon the face of the earth, once more a prey to those inimical forces that have already brought him so low? You have done your duty–yes, thoroughly well! What asks a stern nature like yours, about whom and what has been crushed in the process?"

"Cecilia!" interposed Runeck, his tone betraying the torture he endured while listening to these reproaches. But Cecilia paid no heed and continued with increasing bitterness:

"Maia's hand and love would have saved Oscar, that I do know, for there was in him as mighty a power for good as for evil. Now he has been hurled back into the old life; now he is lost."

"Through me–is that what you would say?"

She did not answer, but the reproachful glance that she cast upon the young engineer was bitter in the extreme. Proudly but sadly he stood before her.

"You are right," said he, harshly. "Destiny has certainly condemned me to bring woe and misery upon all that I hold dear. I had to wound in the cruelest manner the man who had been more than a father to me. I had likewise to inflict no less a blow upon poor little Maia's heart. But the hardest of all was what I had to do to you, Cecilia, and for which you now condemn me!"

He waited in vain for a reply. Cecilia persisted in her silence. There was a rushing and roaring around the pair, as at that time when they stood at the foot of the Whitestone. Mysteriously came this roaring as from a far distance; on, on it came, ever swelling stronger and then sinking and dying away with the breath of the wind. But now the autumn storm howled furiously among the trees, half-bare of foliage as they were; the first gray shadows of evening began to steal upward, and what mingled with that rushing and roaring was not the peaceful Sabbath bells as before, but strange and dismal noises. A far-off and confused murmur it was, too undecided to determine what it was, for again and again it was swallowed up by the storm. But now the wind lulled for a few minutes, when it came across more loudly and distinctly. Cecilia drew herself up and listened intently. "What was that? Did it come from the house?"

"No, it seemed to come from the works," declared Runeck. "I heard it a while ago."

Both now listened, with bated breath, and suddenly Egbert exclaimed, with a start:

"I hear the voices of men! It is the raging of an angry mob. Something is going on over at the works–I must go over!"

"You, Herr Runeck? What would you there?"

"Protect the master of Odensburg from his people! I best know how they have been goaded and set against him. If he shows himself now, he is no longer safe among his workmen."

"For Heaven's sake!" cried Cecilia, horrified.