"G.o.d, who art a great and just Judge, and visitest the sins of the fathers on the children to the third and fourth generation, I hereby swear to take my life with my own hand rather than let the curse of Thy priest gain ascendency over me. Amen."
Then he walked towards the house as if freed from an intolerable burden.
"Now the devil is exorcised!" he said as he entered the vestibule, heaving a deep sigh of relief; nevertheless, the hand that lifted the latch still trembled feverishly.
He surveyed the room with one quick shy glance.
In the rosy light of dawn he saw her crouching, dressed on her bed, her hands clasped over her knees. Her jacket was open; her hair hung about her face in tangled ma.s.ses. Her dress was exactly as it had been when he left her the evening before.
She raised her head slowly, and gazed at him as if in a dream with soft melting eyes.
He shrank before that gaze.
"Haven"t you been to bed?" he asked in as harsh a tone as he could command.
She continued to look at him with the same blissfully rigid expression, and said nothing.
"Didn"t you hear?" he asked again imperiously.
She did not start as she used to do when he spoke thus; but a scarcely perceptible vibration pa.s.sed through her frame, as if the sound of his voice filled her with ecstasy. She smiled a little.
"Hear what?" she asked.
"My question as to why you hadn"t been to bed."
"I waited up for you, _Herr_."
"I did not order you to wait for me."
"Nor did you forbid me, _Herr_."
He clung to the back of a chair.
"Why are you afraid of her?" he asked himself. "You have just sworn that danger exists no longer."
Then to get rid of her he told her to go and prepare him something hot for breakfast.
She rose deliberately, stretching her stiff limbs. A dreamy languor seemed to pervade her whole being. Since last night she was completely transformed.
Directly he had shut the door after her, he tore the letter from his pocket, and read it to rea.s.sure himself of is happiness. It ran:--
"Dear Friend Of My Youth,--I hear from papa that you have been highly honoured by our wise and n.o.ble King--that he has made you captain of your division, and given you the Iron Cross. I congratulate you heartily, and am rejoiced at your good fortune. What else pa.s.sed papa wouldn"t tell me, but he was very excited about it, and in a great rage when he mentioned you. Ah! if only you could have managed to win his affection and the goodwill of the parishioners! Then I shouldn"t have to be so careful, and could see and speak to you often.... Dear Boleslav, I implore you never to think of coming into the garden again.
"You know papa--what he is; and if he found out--ah! I believe he would kill me! Wait patiently, my dear friend! The Bible says, you know, patience shall be rewarded. So have patience till the hour when I shall summon you to come to me; then I will tell you all the news. How full of longing I am to see you! Oh, those lovely days of childhood! What has become of them? How happy I was then!--Your
"Helene.
"_Postscript_.--Never come to the garden again. I will appoint another place of meeting. Not in the garden."
Strange, that what a few minutes before had filled him with delight now seemed flat and colourless, and disappointed him. Doubtless the half-wild creature was to blame, whose close proximity confused his judgment. A kind of delirium of bliss seemed to have taken possession of her. And how she had smiled! how strangely she had stared into s.p.a.ce!
She came back into the room, and moved about it like a somnambulist.
"Regina!"
She half closed her lids, and said, "Yes, _Herr_,"
"What"s the matter with you?"
She smilingly shook her head. "Nothing, _Herr_," she answered, and again that look came into her eyes; they seemed to swim in dreamful contemplation of some infinite felicity.
He felt his throat contract. Clearly there was still reason to be afraid of himself.
Then he resolved to speak and listen to her no more, but to live in his work. He immersed himself in his papers again, sorted and laid aside important doc.u.ments, filed, registered, and made copies of them. It seemed to him that he must get everything in order in antic.i.p.ation of some pending catastrophe.
So the day went by, and the evening. Regina crouched in the darkest and remotest corner she could find and remained motionless. He dared not cast even a glance in her direction. The blood hammered in his temples, yellow circles danced before his eyes, every nerve in his body was on edge from over-fatigue.
On the stroke of ten she rose, murmured goodnight, and disappeared behind her curtain. He neither answered nor looked up.
At eleven he put out the lights and went to bed too.
"Why does your heart beat like this?" he thought. "Remember your oath."
But the superst.i.tious, indefinable dread of coming disaster haunted him like a ghost in the darkness.
He got up again, and stole with bare feet across the room to the case of weapons, that was dimly illumined by the newly-risen moon. He caught up one of his pistols, which he always kept loaded to be forearmed against unforeseen events. It had been his faithful friend and protector in many a b.l.o.o.d.y fray. To-day it should protect him from himself. With its trigger c.o.c.ked, he laid it on the small table by his bedside.
"It"s doubtful whether you sleep a wink now," he said, as he nestled his head on the pillows. Yet scarcely three seconds later he lost consciousness, and slumber lapped his tired limbs.
A curious dream recalled him from profoundest sleep into a half-dozing wakefulness. He fancied he saw two bright eyes like a panther"s glittering at him out of the darkness. They were only a few inches from his face, and seemed to be fixed on it with fiery earnestness, as if with the intention of bringing him under the spell of their enchantment.
His breath came slower, almost stopped, then he felt another breath well over him in full soft waves.
It was no dream after all, for his eyes were wide open. The moon cast a patch of light on the counterpane of his bed, and still those other lights glowed on, devouring him with their fire. The outline of a face was visible. A woman"s white figure bent over him.
A thrill of mingled pleasure and alarm ran through his body.
"Regina," he murmured.
Then she sank on her knees by the bed and covered his hands with kisses and tears. In the enervation that had crept over him he would have stroked the black tresses which streamed across the pillow, only he lacked the strength to extricate his hands from hers.
Then--"Your oath, think of your oath!" a voice cried within him.
In dismay, he started up. Not yet fully awake, he reeled forwards, and tearing his hands out of her grasp, fumbled for the pistol.