"Pardon, Madame--"
A slender, trembling hand was laid quickly and restrainingly on his arm.
"Be quiet, not so loud; your companion might hear us, and I want to speak to you, and to you alone, Hartmut."
She stepped back again into the thicket and motioned him to follow.
Hartmut hesitated a moment. How came this heavily-veiled and richly-attired stranger into the lonely wood, and why did she speak so familiarly to him whom she had never seen before? But the mysteriousness of her behavior beginning to charm him, he followed.
She stood now in the shadow of the low trees, where she could not be seen from the lake, and slowly threw back her veil. She was not very young, a woman of more than thirty, but her face with its great burning eyes, possessed an indefinable witchery, and a certain charm lay in her voice, which, though she talked in whispers, had a soft, deep tone, and an odd intonation, as though the German which she spoke so fluently was not her mother tongue.
"Hartmut, look at me. Do you really not know me any more? Does no memory of your childhood come back to you, to tell you who I am?"
The young man shook his head slowly, and yet some dreamy and obscure memory did come to his recollection, of having heard this voice before, and of this face which had looked into his at some far distant period.
Half shy, half fascinated, he stood looking at this stranger, who suddenly threw her arms around him.
"My son, my only child! Do you not know your own mother?"
"My mother is dead," he answered, half aloud.
The stranger laughed bitterly, shrilly, and her laugh seemed but an echo of the hard, joyless sounds which had come from Hartmut"s lips a few moments since.
"So that"s how it is. They would even say I was dead and not leave you the memory of a mother. It is not true, Hartmut. I live, I stand before you; look at me, look at my features, are they not your very own? That at least they could not take from you. Child of my heart, do you not feel that you belong to me?"
Still Hartmut stood motionless, looking into that face in which his own was so faithfully mirrored. He saw the same lines, the same luxuriant, blue-black hair, the same dark, flashing eyes; and the same demoniacal expression which was a flame in the eye of the mother, was a spark in the eye of the son. Their close resemblance to one another was witness enough that they were of one blood. The young man felt the influence of the mysterious tie.
He demanded no explanation, no proof; the dreamy, confused recollections of his childhood were suddenly clear, and after a second"s hesitation he threw himself into the arms which were stretched out to him.
"Mother!"
In this cry lay the whole fervid intensity of the boy, who had never known what it was to have a mother, and who had longed for one with all the pa.s.sion of his nature. His mother! And now he lay in her arms, now she covered him with warm kisses, and called him by sweet, tender names, which had been strangers to his ear until that moment--everything else seemed forgotten by him in this flood of stormy ecstasy.
After a few minutes Hartmut loosed himself from the arms which still enfolded him.
"Why have you never been with me, mamma?" he asked vehemently. "Why have I always been told that you were dead?"
Zalika stepped back, and in an instant all tenderness had died out of her eyes, and in its place was a wild, deadly hate, as the answer came like a hiss from between her set lips.
"Because your father hates me, my son--and because he wishes to deny me the love of my only child since he thrust me from him."
Hartmut was silent. He knew well enough that the name of his mother dare not be mentioned in his father"s presence, and that he had been sharply reproved once for doing so, but he had been too much a child at the time to ask "why." Zalika gave him no time to do so now. She brushed the thick locks back from his brow and a shadow crossed her face.
"You get your forehead from him," she said slowly. "But that is the only thing that reminds me of him, all the rest belongs to me and me alone.
Every feature tells that you are mine--I always knew that."
She suddenly clasped him in her arms again with unspeakable tenderness, and Hartmut returned the embrace with ardor. It seemed to him like the fairy tales which he had so often dreamed, and he gave himself up unresistingly to the spell of happiness which some wonderful magic had cast over him.
Just at that moment, Will called loudly to his friend from the opposite sh.o.r.e to come on, that it was time to go home. Zalika spoke at once.
"We must part now. n.o.body must learn that I have seen and spoken with you; above all things your father must not know it. When do you return to him?"
"In eight days."
"Not for eight days?" The words sounded almost triumphant.
"Until then I can see you daily. Be here by the pond to-morrow at this same hour; make some pretext for leaving your friend behind, so that we may be undisturbed. You will come, Hartmut?"
"Certainly, mother, but--"
She gave him no time for any objection, but continued in a pa.s.sionate whisper:
"Above all things maintain absolute silence toward every one. Do not forget that. Good-bye, my child, my own dear son, good-bye."
Another kiss and she had retreated in the woods as noiselessly as she had come. It was high time, for Willibald appeared at this moment, though not noiselessly by any means, for he broke the twigs with many a crackle as he stepped heavily on them.
"Why didn"t you answer me?" he asked. "I called you three times. You have been asleep; you look as if you were dreaming."
Hartmut did have a dazed look as he stood gazing at the trees behind which his mother had disappeared. Now he straightened himself and drew his hand across his forehead.
"Yes, I have been dreaming. A very strange, marvelous dream," he said slowly.
"You had better have been fishing," returned Will. "See what a fine catch I have made. A man should never dream in daylight--that"s the time to be at something serious--mother says."
CHAPTER II.
The Falkenried and Wallmoden families had been on friendly terms for years. Living upon adjoining estates, their intercourse was frequent, and their children grew up together, while many common interests united the bonds of friendship still more closely. Neither of the families were wealthy, and the sons, after completing their education, always had to make their own way in the world, and this in their turn Major Hartmut von Falkenried and Herbert von Wallmoden had done.
They had played together in their youth, and as men had remained true to their boyhood"s friendship. At one time it looked as if they would be more closely allied, for their parents had planned a marriage between Lieutenant Falkenried, as he was then, and Regine Wallmoden. The young couple seemed to understand one another fully, and everything stood on the happiest footing, when an event occurred which put an abrupt termination to all their plans.
A cousin of the Wallmoden family, an incorrigible idler and spendthrift, who had made his longer residence at home an impossibility by his wild conduct, had gone out into the world years before, and after much wandering, and an adventurous career, had finally turned his steps in the direction of Roumania, where he obtained the management of a wealthy Bojar"s estate. After the Bojar"s death he succeeded in winning the widow"s hand, and once more regained the position among the n.o.bility which he had lost earlier in life, through his own folly. And now, after an absence of more than ten years, he returned with his wife to make a long visit to his kinsfolk.
Frau von Wallmoden was by no means a youthful bride. She had long since reached maturity, but she was accompanied by her daughter by her first marriage, Zalika Rojanow; and this young Sclave, scarcely seventeen years old, turned the heads of the simple country gentry, who after all had seen but little of the world, by her grace and strange beauty, and the fascination of her warm southern temperament. She was a strange enough figure in this little circle, whose forms and customs she set aside with such sovereign indifference. But there was many an earnest shake of the head, many a word of blame, which was not outspoken, because they only considered the girl a fleeting guest; she would vanish again as suddenly as she had appeared on their little horizon.
Then Hartmut Falkenried came home from his garrison on leave, and met the new family in the house of his friends. He saw Zalika, and his life"s destiny was sealed. It was a sudden and blinding pa.s.sion, for which one too often pays with the peace of a whole life.
He forgot the wishes of his parents, their plans for his future, and his quiet, warm attachment for his youth"s playfellow, Regine. He had eyes no longer for the simple woodland flower, which yet bloomed young and fresh for him; but, inhaling the fragrance of the strange and beautiful exotic, all else sank into insignificance. In an unguarded hour he threw himself at her feet, and told her of his love.
Strangely enough, Zalika returned his affection. Perhaps it was according to the old adage of extremes meeting, for this man was, in every particular, her opposite; perhaps it flattered her to see that a word, a glance from her, could so powerfully effect this earnest, quiet officer, who, even then, had a touch of melancholy in his disposition.
Enough, she accepted him, and with joy he clasped his affianced bride in his arms.
The news of their betrothal aroused a storm in the family circle. From all sides came objections and warnings. Zalika"s mother and step-father were sorely opposed to it, but resistance only increased the ardor of the young lovers. The engagement, in spite of kinsfolk, was soon an established fact, and six months later Falkenried took his young bride to his own house.
But the voices which had foretold unhappiness from this marriage were prophetic.
It was not long before the brief intoxication of joy was followed by bitter disenchantment. It had been a fatal error to believe a woman like Zalika Rojanow, who had grown up in the unrestrained freedom of a disorderly, extravagant Bojar family, could accommodate herself to the rules and restrictions of a settled German household.