Only a Girl Part 62

Leuthold's cheek blanched again, and Johannes saw that he had thrust his probe into a deep wound. He instantly availed himself of his advantage. "I suppose that the superintendent at Unkenheim, acquainted as he is with your Italian friends, will shortly be able to produce the witnesses required for the vindication of your innocence, and I will do all that I can to bring about this desirable termination of the affair." Then, with a glance at Leuthold, who could scarcely hold up his head, "Now, Herr Gleissert, I will give you twenty-four hours in which to decide whether you prefer an explanation with me or in a court of justice. If by to-morrow evening you are not ready to explain matters thoroughly with regard to Fraulein von Hartwich's property, and either to produce the same or, if it is invested in the Unkenheim factory, to give sufficient security for it, your fate is sealed. From this hour your house will be watched day and night. You are now my prisoner. At the slightest attempt to escape, you will be handed over to the custody of the law, even although I should be forced to deliver you up with my own hands. You see I am resolved to proceed to extremities. You have nothing to hope for, either from my weakness or your cunning, even if a miracle could be worked in your favour, and the costly expedient succeed of bribing some Italian rogue to personate 'the false friend,' to declare your crime his own and endure the punishment of it,--even although the notary, who could establish your ident.i.ty and the drawing up of the deed, were dead,---even then you could never hope to escape the punishment for mail-robbery!"

Leuthold started as if stung.

"You can hardly accuse of falsehood the sharp eyes of a peasant of this place, who can testify that, in default of other amus.e.m.e.nt, you selected for your perusal the contents of the village letter-box, retaining in your own possession whatever especially interested you."

Johannes turned to Ernestine. "I do not know, Fraulein Ernestine, whether you have done me the honour to write to me lately, but, if you have, your uncle probably knows the contents of your letter much better than I, who have never received it. At all events, this little occurrence, for which I can produce witnesses, is a significant ill.u.s.tration of your uncle's character. And you, Herr Gleissert, can now understand that there is no escape for you unless you fulfil the conditions upon which alone I will spare Fraulein von Hartwich the disgrace of having so near a relative occupy a criminal's cell. You are beset on all sides,--entangled in your own crimes. There is no hope for you!"

He ceased. Leuthold sat still, pale and mute. Ernestine looked down at him with compa.s.sion. Then she glanced at Johannes with admiration bordering on awe. "You are, as I have always known you, upright, but severe!"

"Severe? No, by Heaven! The punishment too severe for this unprincipled man is yet to be devised. My imagination is not cruel enough for the task!" He regarded Ernestine mournfully. "You are worn out,--you need repose." Then he awaited a reply, but none came. The setting sun threw its crimson rays across the room. Ernestine stood silent, her hands hanging clasped before her, exerting all her self-control. Leuthold had propped his head upon his hand, and did not stir. Johannes took his hat. "Farewell, Ernestine. Permit me to return to-morrow to learn your uncle's final decision." He stepped up to her side. "I will not weary you. Let me watch over your destiny. I ask it as the right of friendship,--nothing more,--I a.s.sure you,--nothing more!"

"Nothing more!" It echoed harshly in Ernestine's heart, and, without a word or a look, with only a cold inclination of the head, she dismissed him. "He does not love me," she said to herself, and her heart grew like ice. He watched over her as a man of honour, not as a lover. He knew that she cared for him,--she had not concealed it from him; he had thrust the obstacle to their union between them in the shape of his narrow-minded conditions--he knew that these were all that separated them, and he preferred to relinquish her rather than his own stubborn will! He demanded of her every concession, without making any, even the smallest, himself! No, her uncle was right, he had never loved her. How could she make advances now without proof that she was the object of his love? How could she humble herself to make the required sacrifice, possessed by the terrible doubt that he had required it in the full conviction that it would not be made? The least advance on his side, the faintest sign that he would yield one jot of the prejudice that separated them, would have given her new life and made her happy. But from this day their union was impossible,--it was not to be thought of.

Leuthold interrupted her reverie. He had left the room, and now returned with a letter. With the air of a man resolved upon death, he held it out to his niece. "Read that, and then show me how truly great you are!"

Ernestine, in surprise, unfolded the letter. It was from the superintendent, received the day previous. It contained the announcement in a few words that the establishment was bankrupt and Leuthold ruined. If he did not escape by instant flight, he would be overtaken by the punishment of his crime. Ernestine read and re-read the letter; she seemed unable to understand it "What does it mean?" she asked at last.

"It means that Mollner is right when he calls me forger and thief."

"Uncle!" cried Ernestine in the greatest alarm.

"The money that is lost in the Unkenheim factory was yours----"

Leuthold faltered.

"You have, then, deprived me of my fortune?" she asked in a low tone.

Leuthold stood before her apparently annihilated. "Yes!"

There was silence. Ernestine uttered a low cry and recoiled from him.

He breathed with difficulty, and continued, "I could and would confess nothing to that man. There is only one soul on earth magnanimous enough to forgive me, and to it alone I will reveal all my weakness.

Ernestine, I have shown you before, in my love and care for you, the reasons that induced me to conceal from you the termination of your minority. Did you believe me?"

"I will believe it."

"I never dreamed into what fearful temptation I was thereby led. The consequences of what I did were these:--I was obliged, in order to conceal the fact of your majority from you, to appropriate in your name the amount that was yours when you reached the age of eighteen, and this without your knowledge. I did it with the firm intention of doing what was best for you. I executed the forgery, never dreaming of the punishment that it would entail upon me. For months I kept your money in my possession, guarding it like the apple of my eye. Hitherto I had been an honest man, even although, with the best intentions, I had transgressed the letter of the law. Now, Ernestine, came the turning-point of my life, and I implore you to lend a lenient ear to this terrible confession. The brother of the Staatsrathin Mollner was just bankrupt, and the Unkenheim factory was advertised for sale upon the most favourable conditions. To this temptation I succ.u.mbed. Can you not divine how a man is fascinated by the one pursuit to which he has given the best years of his life, that is in a certain sense the work of his mind and hands? It had been a bitter pain to me to relinquish the flourishing business to which I had so long devoted my best energies, and now it was again in the market. Want of knowledge and capacity had ruined it. I, who knew every part of it most thoroughly, could easily build it up again if I had the means to buy it. I resisted a long time,--the advertis.e.m.e.nt of its sale appeared a second and a third time. I consulted a merchant in Naples who was, I heard, on the point of visiting Germany. He offered to make the purchase for me in my name,--he persuaded me to allow him to do it. The opportunity was so favourable,--the money lay idle in my hands,--I was so certain of doubling it, and thus securing my own and my poor child's future,--I knew as surely that when you should come to know it, you would never reproach me for thus investing your money. Ten times I stood upon your threshold, determined to tell you everything and entreat your permission to dispose of your property thus. I knew you would not withhold it from me. But the insane dread of losing you as soon as you knew you were of age always deterred me. I took the money, firmly resolved to restore it to the uttermost farthing. This is the story of my crime. Now for the tale of my misfortunes. I failed in what I undertook. I enlarged the factory at considerable expense, and suddenly unforeseen obstacles, in the nature of the soil, presented themselves, material that I had purchased at a high price sunk in value before it could be manufactured, and I lost fifty per cent, in the sale of the finished goods. Such disasters as these followed each other in rapid succession. There was a curse upon everything that I undertook,--the curse, I admit it, of an overestimate of my own powers,--for I should have known that a clever scholar is not necessarily a merchant, and that the technical knowledge as a chemist which had stood me in such stead in a comparatively small establishment was not business capacity for an immense undertaking. But what now avails my remorse, my late confession? Your fortune, Ernestine, has been the price of the terrible lesson. I can give you no more of it than will pay for your pa.s.sage to New York,--can offer you no indemnification for it but the revenge which this frank confession will afford you the means of gratifying.

Decide; do with me what you will,--I will accept my fate from your hand, but from no other."

The hypocrite sank at her feet, as though utterly crushed, and pressed the tips of her cold fingers to his lips.

"Uncle," began Ernestine, and her voice trembled, "stand up! I cannot endure the sight of a man before whom I have been used to stand in awe, grovelling at my feet like a crushed serpent, whose writhings excite aversion rather than compa.s.sion. Stand up! I pray you stand up!" She turned from him, that she might no longer see him.

"Ernestine," cried Leuthold terrified, "you are marble!"

"I am what you have made me."

He had expected a different result from his confession, and he watched Ernestine with the greatest anxiety. She read the letter once more, and then sank on the sofa and buried her face in the cushions.

"Ernestine, be composed!" he cried, with a degree of his native insolence which could not all be concealed behind the mask that he had a.s.sumed. "Punish my crime, take what revenge you will, but spare me the sight of your humiliating despair at the loss of wealth."

"Do you imagine, man of no conscience, that I mourn for my lost wealth?" said Ernestine wrathfully, but with dignity. "If you had asked me honourably for the money and then lost it through some misfortune, I would have died sooner than have reproached you by a word or a tear.

But I must despise the only human being in the world upon whom I have any claim. All that I have is lost through crime, and this pa.s.ses my endurance. You know well what depends upon the shining bits of metal of which you have robbed me--freedom of thought and action,--the n.o.blest possessions that life can give. For the sake of these you have robbed me, for you are no thief to steal money only for the sake of money. You know, too, what a loss it is for a woman,--that it entails upon her dependence perhaps servitude,--yes, servitude, to become a mere machine, obeying unquestioningly another's will,--and this for a soul that would have bowed to no power on earth or in heaven, but that rejoiced in its pride in being the centre of its own self-created world! And you, knowing how in this thought I die a thousand deaths, dare to reproach me with despair at the loss of mere wealth! Look you, I do not forget, even in this terrible moment, what you have done for me since my childhood,--what an inexhaustible mine of intellectual wealth you have revealed to me in exchange for the earthly treasure you have taken from me,--and, remembering this, I renounce the revenge that you offer me. Save yourself if you can, but do not require of me sufficient 'greatness of soul' to forgive you!"

Leuthold breathed freely once more. This was all he wished to hear,--that she would not deliver him up to justice. The worst was over. If she thus in the first outburst of her anger rejected the idea of bringing punishment upon him, she might, when more composed, be brought to connive at and share his flight.

"Ernestine," he said, after a moment of reflection, "every one of your words is like a coal of fire upon my guilty head. Even in your righteous indignation you are n.o.ble and gentle. You tell me I may save myself, but do you imagine that I can go away without you? Could I endure the thought of you struggling with poverty, without me to labour for you and to shield you? Have I tended you for all these years with a mother's solicitude, to leave you to your fate now, when you need me more than ever? Girl, if you think thus of me, you do me grievous wrong!" Ernestine looked at him in surprise.

"Either you fly with me, or I remain and brave the worst!" said Leuthold with heroic resolution.

Ernestine recoiled. "I go with you! No, I cannot descend so low,--our paths in life lie, from this moment, far, far apart."

Leuthold saw her aversion. He was lost if she persisted in her refusal.

For even although he might succeed in escaping Mollner's vigilance for the time, it would soon be known abroad that he had embezzled Ernestine's fortune and left her impoverished, and his foe would only pursue him all the more obstinately. Ernestine would be required by the law to speak, and, truthful as she was, there was no doubt that she would expose all his villainy. Only by keeping her with him could she be rendered harmless; concealment without her was impossible.

"You hate me, and it is natural for you to do so," said he. "I will not recall to you all the time and trouble that I have expended upon you since your childhood,--the patience with which I have endured your caprices, nor the love with which, when Heim gave you up, I watched over and preserved your life. All this you know, and you believe it fully repaid by your magnanimous resolve not to deliver up your uncle to a jail. You best know your duty in this matter. But, Ernestine, you should not hate me more than you do your father, whom you have long since forgiven, and upon whom you now bestow so much sympathy, for I can truly affirm that I have dealt more kindly by you than he. He was a drunkard,--a man degraded to the level of a brute. He did not bring you up; I have done it. He scarcely clothed and fed you. I have surrounded you with everything that your heart could desire. He always hated you, I have loved you from a child. You must remember well how often I protected you from his ill treatment, and that once, when I was not by, he almost killed you. He never would have provided for you as a father should, had he not been driven to it by remorse for his conduct towards you. Two-thirds of the property, Ernestine, that he bequeathed to you were mine by right. I had earned it in his service. He bequeathed it to you, and I acquiesced silently. I resigned it without even hinting to you my just claims. I separated myself from my child that she might be educated as became her moderate expectations, a sure proof that I had no designs upon your wealth. For all this self-sacrifice I asked only the delight, the great delight, of training to full perfection a young mind,--such a mind as no woman was ever before possessed of. You can bear me witness that I have taught you nothing evil,--that I have opened your eyes to the good and the beautiful, helping you to decipher the book of nature, where only what can elevate the mind is to be found. You can comprehend, by the aversion with which you now regard your fallen teacher, how pure his teachings have preserved your heart.

I ask you to reflect, Ernestine, whether all this does not give me at least the same claim upon your sympathy as that which you now yield to your father."

Ernestine listened with increasing emotion and sympathy. She buried her face in the cushions of the sofa, and burst into tears.

Leuthold regarded her with satisfaction. He knew that the woman who weeps yields. He continued, "You have convinced me that I have nothing to fear from your hatred. You have told me that you renounce your revenge, and a nature like yours performs what it promises. But, Ernestine, this does not content me. My tortured conscience cannot rest until you permit me to take charge of your future. Let me at least try to atone for my crime. Grant me this alleviation of the burden that weighs me to the earth. Pity me, and allow me the only expiation that is possible for me!"

"What shall I do, then?" asked Ernestine in broken accents.

"Go with me, my child, that I may share with you the bread that I earn,--that I may open such a future to you as you could never enjoy in Germany. You have just signed a brilliant engagement; you cannot break it now, just when you need a means of support. It would be madness to reject what offers you a position commensurate with your ability. But you can never occupy it satisfactorily without my aid. You well know how indispensable I am to you in every new undertaking. You must pursue fresh studies. Not for the world must you allow a flaw to be found in your acquirements on the other side of the water. Hate me, despise me, if you will, but consent to avail yourself of my protection on the long voyage to New York. Trust me, I detest sentimentality, as you know, but it is hard to bury one of your kin before he is dead. You will find it harder than you think. One cannot tear one's self loose in a moment from the memory of hours, days, and years spent together striving for a common aim, and the buried companion will knock upon his coffin-lid when such memories arise." He paused. Ernestine's short, quick breathing showed what a struggle was going on within her. At last she shook her head, sprang up, and walked undecidedly to and fro.

Leuthold continued, "You cannot help it,--you must go with me,--what else can you do? Reflect, what course can you adopt if you remain here?"

"I do not know," she murmured gloomily in a low tone.

"There are none here to whom you could turn, except the Mollners----"

Ernestine added, "And old Dr. Helm."

"Yes, Heim and the Mollners are like one family. Naturally, they would all do what they could for you. Heim would exult greatly in the fulfilment of his prophecies."

Ernestine bit her lip.

"To be sure, after what has occurred, you may safely look to them for the means of support. Perhaps they may find you a place as a governess, if they should become tired of you. But the question is whether that would not be a deeper humiliation than going abroad with me. Good heavens! in this world you must call many a one comrade whose conscience is far from clear, and whom you must not ask for a certificate of character. Let your uncle be to you one of these. I will not intrude upon you,--will not enter your presence, if you do not desire it."

He waited for an answer. Ernestine's eyes were fixed broodingly upon the ground.

"Or possibly you would rather reconsider your determination, and go to the Frau Staatsrathin and beg to be forgiven. I fear,--I greatly fear,--the prudent mother would say, 'Aha, she was haughty enough as long as she had plenty of money, but, now that it has all gone, she grows humble and is quite willing to ask for shelter and countenance.

She asks for bread now that she is hungry. The most savage brutes are tamed by hunger,--when its pangs are keen the heart is weak.'"

"Hush, uncle! oh, hush!" cried Ernestine with a shudder.

But Leuthold was not to be silenced. He was in his element again. "That is what the supercilious mother would say, for these intellectual aristocrats are filled with the pride of independence, and exact it from others. And the Herr Professor? Naturally, he would feel it doubly his duty to marry you and cherish the starving woman. But when the first enthusiasm of sympathy was past, what, think you, Ernestine, would be his reflections in cooler moments?"

"He would say, 'Necessity made her my wife,--not love.'"