The Northern Light Part 49

"It was no accident. I was at the Rodeck forestry and heard that you had been gone several hours; a terrible suspicion took possession of me and drove me to follow you. I was almost certain I should find you here."

"You were seeking me? Me, Ada?" His voice trembled with emotion as he asked the question. "How did you learn that I was at the forestry?"

"Through Prince Adelsberg, who was with me to-day. You received a letter from him this morning?"

"No, only some intelligence," responded Hartmut, with drawn lips. "The few short lines contained no word directed personally to me, only business, only a communication which the prince thought necessary to make--I understood it!"

Adelheid was silent; she had felt sure that those few lines would be as death to him. Slowly she stepped toward him in the shadow of a great tree, the wind blew so fiercely that it was a necessity to have such protection as the trees could afford; Hartmut did not seem to notice its increasing fury.

"I see that you know what those few lines contained," he began again, "but it was not new to you. You heard it all at Rodeck. Ada, when I saw you standing in the shimmering, ghostly light on that frightful night, and knew that you had seen me trampled in the dust--even my own father, who loathes me, would have been satisfied with my punishment."

"You do him injustice," said Frau von Wallmoden, earnestly. "You saw him only when he was thrusting you from him with such iron relentlessness. I saw him afterwards when you had disappeared. He broke into the wildest anguish and I caught a glimpse of the father's heart which loved his son above all else on earth. Have you made no effort since then to convince him?"

"No, he would believe me as little as did Egon. He who has once broken his word destroys all belief in himself, no matter though he afterwards give his life in defense of truth. Had I met my death upon the battle-field, perhaps his eyes and Egon's would have been opened. Now when I fall by my own hand, the few who know my life will say, 'it was his guilt which drove him to despair, and forced him to commit the deed.'"

"No," said Adelheid softly, "one would not say it. I believe in you Hartmut, despite everything."

He looked at her, and through the gray hopelessness of despair a gleam of the old light shone forth.

"You, Ada? And you tell me this on the very spot where you condemned me?

At that time, too, you knew nothing--"

"That was why I had a horror of the man to whom nothing was holy, who knew no law but his own pa.s.sions; but when I saw you pleading at your father's feet, I felt fate rather than guilt had led you astray. Since then I have known that you could not throw aside that unfortunate heritage of your mother. Rouse yourself, Hartmut! The way which I showed you then is yet open. Whether it leads to life or death--it leads onward and upward."

Hartmut shook his head darkly!

"No, that has all gone by now. You do not know what my father did for me with his frightful words, what my life has been since then; but I will be silent, no one would understand. I thank you for your belief in me, Ada. My death will be easier."

"G.o.d help us! You dare not do it."

"What value has life for me?" said Hartmut with great excitement. "My mother has marked me with a brand as of seething iron, and that mark closes every door to atonement, to salvation. I am alone, condemned, thrust out from my own countrymen. Why, even the poorest peasant can fight; that right is denied only to the criminal without honor, and such I am in Egon's eyes. He fears that I would only join with my own countrymen to betray them, to--be a spy!" He put his hands over his face, and his last words died out in a groan. Then he felt a hand laid gently on his arm.

"The stigma lies in the name of Rojanow. Abandon that name, Hartmut. I bring you that for which you so ardently long--your admission to the army."

Hartmut gazed in unutterable astonishment at the speaker.

"Impossible! How could you?"

"Take these papers," said Adelheid, drawing out a long sealed envelope which she carried under her cloak. "You will answer the description of Joseph Tanner, twenty-nine years old, slender, dark complexion, dark hair and eyes. It's all right, you see; no one will question your right with these papers."

She handed him the envelope which she held with a convulsive grasp, as if it were a costly treasure.

"And these papers?" he asked doubting yet.

"Belonged to the dead! They were given me for one who will not use them now, for he died to-day; and I will be forgiven if I save the living by their use."

Hartmut tore open the envelope, the wind nearly blew the papers from his hand, so that it was with difficulty he could master their contents, while the baroness continued:

"Joseph Tanner had a small office at Ostwalden. This morning he had an unusually severe hemorrhage and died an hour after. Poor fellow, he had only time to leave a message with me for his old mother. I shall send her everything belonging to him, except these papers, which I, myself, obtained for him, and these I have kept for you. We rob no one; they would be of no use whatever to the mother. A severe judge might question my right, but I take all responsibility. G.o.d and my fatherland will forgive me."

Hartmut folded the papers carefully and hid them in his breast, then he threw the wet locks back from his broad forehead, his father's forehead, for that mark of the Falkenried blood was patent to the most careless observer.

"You are right, Ada. I can never thank you enough for what you have done to-day, but I will strive to deserve it!"

"I know that. G.o.d guard you from danger, and now good-bye."

"No, you cannot wish that for me!" said Hartmut sadly. "This battle of life and death into which I go can ease my own conscience of a load, but my father and Egon will never know, if I live, that I have fought for my country, and the old stain will still be there. But if I fall, then you can tell them that I fought under a strange name, and am at rest, perhaps under foreign soil. They will at least have some respect for my grave."

"You would fall?" asked Ada, with sad reproof in her voice. "Even if I tell you that your death will be mine too?"

"Yours, Ada?" he cried excitedly, "and do you no longer turn in abhorrence from my love, from the fate which threw us together? To possess you would be my highest glory, for you are free. Such joy comes to me now, only for a single fleeting minute, and then ascends again to unattainable heights, like the prophetess of my drama who bore your name. No matter; it is with me now in this moment of parting."

He drew her to him and pressed a kiss on her brow, while she broke into a pa.s.sion of tears on his shoulder.

"Hartmut, promise me that you will not seek death."

"No, but it will seek me! Good-bye, my own, good-bye."

He tore himself from her, and rushed away through the storm. She stood still, leaning in her turn against the old tree, whose branches tossed their arms and kept time to the moaning and shrieking winds which played at hide and seek through the leafy foliage. But suddenly in the west, through a rent in the angry clouds, shone a purple ray. It was only for a minute, only a single lost beam of the descending sun, but it lighted up the woodland height and beamed across the face of the departing man, as he turned back once to wave a last adieu. Then the dark clouds met again, and hid the light--the last greeting of the setting sun.

The red, flickering firelight lit up the interior of a small house which had formerly been the home of a signal man, but now served as headquarters for the officers of the advanced guard. The room made anything but a comfortable impression, with its cold, rough, whitewashed walls, low ceilings and narrow barred windows; the heavy logs of wood which blazed and crackled in the clumsy stone fire-place, threw out a grateful warmth, for the weather was bitter cold and the ground covered with snow. The regiments which lay here were little better off than those before Paris although these belonged to the army of the South.

Two young officers entered the room, and one, as he held the door open for his comrade, said with a laugh: "You'll have to stoop here, for the entrance to our villa is somewhat out of repair."

The warning was not unnecessary, for the tall figure of the guest, a Prussian Lieutenant of Reserves, had need to stoop to avoid the loose, overhanging plaster. His companion who was doing the honors, wore the uniform of a South German regiment.

"Permit me to offer you a chair in our salon," he continued. "Not so bad after all, considering everything; we'll have worse than this before the campaign is over. You are looking for Stahlberg. He is at an outpost near here with one of my comrades, but he'll certainly be back soon. You won't have to wait above fifteen minutes."

"I'll wait with pleasure," responded the Prussian. "Eugen's wound was not very serious, I judge. I looked for him in the hospital and heard that he had gone on a visit to the outpost, but would probably be back shortly, so I thought I'd come over and see him at once."

"The wound was but a slight one, a shot in the arm, but not deep; it's almost healed now, but Stahlberg cannot use it in active service for some time yet. You are acquainted with him?"

"Oh, yes, I was a kinsman of his sister's late husband. I see you do not remember me. My name is Willibald von Eschenhagen. I have met your highness several times in past years."

"At Furstenstein!" exclaimed Egon with animation. "Certainly, now I remember you well, but it is wonderful what a change the uniform makes in one's appearance. I didn't recognize you at all at first."

He cast an admiring, surprised glance at the tall, handsome man whom he had once ridiculed as a cabbage grower, but who looked so brave and manly in his military dress. It was not the uniform which had so altered Willibald; love, camp life and entire change from the old monotonous existence had done it. The young heir was no longer a "weak tool," as his uncle Schonau had called him, but a brave, determined, genuine man.

"Our former meetings have been but fleeting," the prince went on, "so you must forgive the liberty if I offer you my congratulations; you are betrothed, I believe to--"

"I believe your highness is laboring under a mistake," Willibald interrupted him, with some embarra.s.sment. "When I last saw you at Furstenstein I was to be the future son of that house, but--"

"That's all changed," interrupted Egon, laughing. "I know all about it from a comrade of mine, Lieutenant Walldorf, who is to marry your cousin, Fraulein von Schonau. My words had reference to Fraulein Marietta Volkmar."

"Now Frau von Eschenhagen."

"What! you are a married man?"

"And have been for five months. We were married just before I marched, and my wife is at Burgsdorf with my mother."