But above them all there rang out such a shriek as is the utterance of an agony of despair, and Ernst, turning, saw his betrothed, erect in her saddle, every vestige of colour fled from her face, gazing towards the spot where the catastrophe had occurred.
"Erna!" he exclaimed. She did not hear him, but gave her horse the rein. The brute, terrified by the noise, shied and would not go forward. A merciless cut with the whip forced it to obey, and the next instant horse and rider were speeding down the slope towards the group of men.
It parted at Erna"s stormy approach; some of the labourers, who thought the horse had become unmanageable from fright, seized it by the bridle and stopped it. Erna seemed hardly aware of it; in mortal terror her eyes sought only--Wolfgang! and on the instant she perceived him standing quite unhurt in the midst of the throng.
He too had seen her as she broke through the crowd; he had recognized the look that sought him out,--had heard the deep-drawn sigh of relief when she found him uninjured,--and from his eyes there shot a ray of pa.s.sionate ecstasy. His mortal peril had revealed her secret,--she did love him, then!
"Your fear was unfounded; the engineer-in-chief is unharmed," said Ernst Waltenberg, who had followed his betrothed and had paused just outside the throng. His voice sounded unnatural, his face was strangely pale, and in the dark eyes now riveted upon Erna and Wolfgang there gleamed an evil fire. Erna shivered, and Wolfgang turned hastily. It needed but a glance to tell him that he was confronting a deadly foe; yet appearances must be preserved in view of all these stranger eyes.
"The affair might have turned out badly," he said, with forced composure. "The blast was tardy at first, and then took place before we could get well away from it. Two of the men are wounded; I am glad to know, only slightly. The rest of us escaped almost by a miracle."
"But you are bleeding, Herr Elmhorst," said one of the engineers, pointing to Wolfgang"s forehead, where two or three trickling drops of blood were visible. The young man pressed his pocket-handkerchief upon the wound, of which he had not before been aware.
"It is not worth mentioning; one of the stones must have grazed my forehead. Have the wounds of those men bandaged immediately. Fraulein von Thurgau, I regret that the accident should have frightened you----"
"It frightened my horse, at least," Erna interposed, with ready presence of mind. "It shied and ran; I could not control it."
The fiction was a plausible one and gained instant credence from the bystanders, explaining as it did the sudden appearance of the young lady and her evident terror and emotion. It was fortunate that the frightened animal had been brought under control in time.
There were two men, however, who were not thus deceived,--Wolfgang, to whom those few instants of alarm had revealed a certainty which came, indeed, too late, but which he would not for worlds have relinquished, and Ernst, who still maintained his place, closely observing the pair.
There was a contemptuous emphasis in his voice as he remarked,--
"We have been fortunately spared another catastrophe. Have you recovered from your alarm, Erna?"
"Yes."
"Then we will continue our ride. _Au revoir_, Herr Elmhorst."
Wolfgang bowed formally, perfectly comprehending the significance of that "_Au revoir_;" then he turned to see after the wounds of the two men, which were in fact very slight, as was his own. A fragment of stone had, as he said, merely grazed his forehead. The entire occurrence seemed to have ended very fortunately.
But this was only seeming, as might have been clearly seen in Waltenberg"s countenance. He rode beside his betrothed in silence, without even turning towards her; this went on for a quarter of an hour, until Erna could bear it no longer.
"Ernst," she said, softly.
"Beg pardon?"
"Let us turn back. The skies are more threatening, and we can take the mountain-road home."
"As you please."
They turned their horses into another road, and again complete silence ensued. Erna was only too conscious that she had betrayed herself, but she could have borne the wildest outburst of jealousy from her betrothed rather than this gloomy silence, which was terrible. She did not indeed fear for herself, but she saw that an explanation was inevitable so soon as they should reach the house.
Her expectations were, however, disappointed, for at the door of the villa, after Ernst had helped her to dismount, he got on his horse again.
"You are going?" she asked, surprised.
"Yes. I need the open air this afternoon."
"Do not go, Ernst. I wanted to ask you----"
"Good-bye!" he interrupted her, curtly; and before she could make any further attempt to detain him he was gone, leaving her a prey to a vague anxiety in her ignorance of his intentions.
When Waltenberg reached the forest he checked his horse"s speed and rode on slowly beneath the dark pines, through the tops of which the wind was whistling. He needed no further explanation; he knew everything now,--everything! But in the midst of the tempest raging within him he was aware of a savage satisfaction: the phantom which had tortured him for so long had finally taken on flesh and blood. Now he could a.s.sail and destroy it!
CHAPTER XXI.
A CHALLENGE.
It was evening; Elmhorst was in his office with Dr. Reinsfeld, who had arrived half an hour previously, and from the air of both men it was evident that the subject of their conversation was a grave one. Benno seemed especially agitated.
"So matters stand at present," he concluded, after a long explanation.
"Gronau came directly to me after his interview with the president, and all my efforts to deter him from his purpose are vain. I begged him to remember that it would cost him his position with Waltenberg, who never could tolerate such an a.s.sault upon the fair fame of the uncle and guardian of his betrothed, and that he had no positive proof; that Nordheim would do all that lay in his power to brand him as a liar and slanderer. It was of no use. He reproached me bitterly with cowardice,--with indifference to my father"s memory. G.o.d knows, he was wrong there; but--I cannot bring forward the accusation!"
"Wolfgang had listened in silence, a contemptuous smile hovering about his lips. It was high time indeed to break off all a.s.sociation with that man; never for an instant did he doubt the truth of Gronau"s suspicions.
"I thank you for your frankness, Benno," he said. "It would have been perfectly excusable if you had never taken me into consideration, but had acted only as your father"s son. I know how great is the regard you thus show me."
Benno cast down his eyes; he was conscious that these thanks were undeserved. It was not to spare his friend that he would have buried that discovery in oblivion.
"You understand that I cannot possibly move in the affair," he rejoined. "I must leave it to you to speak with your future father-in-law----"
"No," Wolfgang coldly interrupted him.
Reinsfeld gazed at him in surprise. "You will not?
"No, Benno; Grouau has openly declared war to him, as you tell me, therefore he is fully prepared; and, moreover, my relations with him are no longer what they were. We are parted once for all."
The doctor"s amazement was inexpressible: "Parted? And your betrothal with Fraulein Alice----"
"Is at an end. I cannot give you a detailed explanation of the matter.
Nordheim has shown himself to me also,--as what you now know him to be.
He endeavoured to impose upon me conditions entirely inconsistent, in my opinion, with my honour; therefore I was obliged to retire."
Reinsfeld still stared at him, bewildered; he could not understand how the man who had once staked everything upon this connection could speak thus composedly of his shattered hopes.
"And Alice is free?" he managed to ask at last.
"Yes. But what is the matter with you? What is it?"
Benno had started up in extreme agitation: "Wolf, you never loved your betrothed. I am sure of it, or you could not speak so coldly and calmly of losing her. You do not even know what you are losing, for you never appreciated what you possessed."
There was so pa.s.sionate a reproach in his words that they betrayed everything. Elmhorst was startled, and gazed at the doctor half incredulously: "What does this mean? Benno, can it be--what? do you love Alice?"
The young physician"s honest blue eyes sparkled as he looked into those of his friend: "No need to reproach me with it, Wolf. I have never spoken a word to your betrothed that you might not have heard, and when I saw how impossible it was to struggle against my love, I made up my mind to depart. Do you suppose I would ever have accepted the position in Neuenfeld, which I more than suspected was the result of the president"s influence, if any other way out of the difficulty had been possible? There was nothing else to do if I wished to leave Oberstein."