"Regine told me you and he understood one another at last," remarked Wallmoden, with a glance at his friend"s dark, gloomy face.
"For a few minutes; then I had to be the stern, hard father again, and this last hour has shown me how hard a task it will be to conquer and direct this unruly, undisciplined nature, but for all that, I must and will subdue it."
His friend stepped to the window and looked out upon the garden.
"It is twilight already and the Burgsdorf fish-pond is half an hour"s walk from here," he said, half aloud. "You could have this last meeting held in your presence if you saw fit."
"And see Zalika again? Impossible! I could and would not do that."
"If this farewell does not end as you antic.i.p.ate--if Hartmut does not come back?"
"Then he would be beneath contempt, a liar," said Falkenried, "a deserter too, for he already carries arms at his side. But do not insult me with such thoughts, Herbert. It is my son of whom you speak."
"He is Zalika"s son also. But we won"t discuss it any more. They are waiting for you in the dining-room; you will not go to-night?"
"Yes, in two hours," answered the Major, steadily and quietly. "Hartmut will be back by then--I"ll answer for it."
The gray shadows of evening already lay on field and meadow, and they grew each moment thicker and darker. The short hazy autumn day was at an end, and the clouded sky brought the night down more quickly than usual.
A woman"s figure could be seen pacing impatiently up and down on the sh.o.r.e of the little lake. She had a dark mantle drawn closely around her shoulders, but she paid little heed to the frosty evening air which was blowing about her; she was feverish with expectation, and her ear was strained to catch the first echo of approaching footsteps.
Since the first day on which Willibald had surprised them both, and they had been forced to take him into their confidence, Zalika had chosen a late hour in the afternoon, and a lonely place in the wood for her meetings with her son. She was accustomed to meet him before the twilight began, in order that he might not attract attention by returning late to Burgsdorf. He had always been punctual, but to-day his mother had waited already an hour, in vain. What accident had detained him, or had their secret been disclosed? Since a third knew it, she was prepared for such a contingency.
All was so silent in the wood that the rustle of her gown and her light footsteps as she walked to and fro, were the only sounds which greeted her ear.
Beneath the tall trees lay long nocturnal shadows; over the pond where there was more light, being free from shade, hung a faint vapory cloud, and over yonder in the meadows, where a pool of water, concealed by the mossy moorland, had formed, the mists had gathered still more thickly and hung like a gray-white veil over all the heath. The air from the meadows was blowing damp and chill.
At last there was a light step, faint and uncertain--then, as it came on quickly in the direction of the pond, firmer and more resolute. Now a slender figure came in view, scarcely recognizable in the gathering darkness, and Zalika flew to meet her son, who, in the next minute lay in her arms.
"What has happened?" she asked amidst the wonted stormy caresses. "Why are you so late? I had begun to despair of seeing you to-day. What detained you?"
"I could not come sooner," Hartmut explained, still breathless, after his long run. "I come from my father."
Zalika drew back.
"From your father? And he knows--?"
"All!"
"So he is at Burgsdorf? Since when? who told him?"
The young man related in a few words all that had happened, but he had not finished when a bitter laugh from his mother interrupted him.
"Of course, they are all in the plot together to keep me from my child.
And your father? He has threatened and punished you again as if you were a criminal, because you have been in your mother"s arms?"
Hartmut shook his head. The memory of the moment when his father drew him to his breast was yet before him, despite all the bitterness with which the scene had ended.
"No," he said sadly, "but he has forbidden me to see you again, and sternly commanded me to part from you."
"And in spite of all, you are here? O, I knew it!"
Her words had a joyful sound.
"Do not triumph too soon, mamma," her son answered her bitterly. "I only came to say good-bye."
"Hartmut!"
"Father has given me permission to see you this time, and then--"
"Then he will take you away again, and you will be forever lost to me.
Is that it?"
Hartmut did not answer, he only threw himself upon his mother"s breast with a wild, pa.s.sionate sob, which had as much anger and bitterness in it, as pain.
It had now grown quite dark and the night was upon them, a cold, misty, autumn night, without moon or starlight, and over in the meadows, where the vapor was so dense, a light rain had just begun to fall, and through the rain and the mist a blue shimmering light appeared, now faint and dull, now with a clear, bright gleam like a flame.
It disappeared, then started forth again a second and a third time--the will-o"-the-wisp had begun its unearthly, spectral dance.
"You are crying!" said Zalika holding her son fast in her arms. "I have long foreseen this day, and if young Eschenhagen had not surprised us the other morning. I should before this have given you the choice between returning to your father and forming some other plan."
"What other plan? What do you mean?" asked Hartmut, perplexed.
Zalika bent over him and although they were alone, her voice sank into a whisper.
"Will you allow this tyranny to go on, will you permit yourself to be separated from your mother and our holy love trodden under foot, without a.s.serting yourself, or protecting our joint right? If you do permit it, you are no son of mine, and my blood does not flow in your veins. He sent you to bid me farewell, and you take his word as final. Do you really come to take leave of me, for long years, in all probability?"
"I must do it," her son broke out despairingly. "You know my father.
Against his iron will there is no appeal."
"If you return to him--no! But who will force you to return?"
"Mamma. Do not tempt me, for the love of heaven!" he cried trying to free himself from the arms which held him so fast, but the pa.s.sionate voice still whispered in his ear:
"What alarms you in the thought? You but go with your mother, who loves you with a boundless love and will live only for you. You have often complained to me that you hate the service into which you are forced.
Have you forgotten your longing for freedom? If you go back you have no option, for your father will bind you fast in the chains, and he will but shorten the links, when he sees you are intolerant of them."
She had no need to tell her son this, for he knew it all better than she could tell him. Scarcely an hour since, had he not heard the words: "You shall obey and learn to yield while yet there is time."
His voice was full of bitterness as he replied.
"In any case, I must go back. I have given my word to be at Burgsdorf again in two hours."
"Really?" asked Zalika, sharply and scornfully. "I thought as much. I see he treats you like a child, marks out your every step for you and gives you your allotted time, as if you had no judgment or mind of your own; but the time has gone by to treat you thus, you are old enough to a.s.sume the prerogatives of a man. The day has come when you must show that you are a man in action as well as word. A promise wrung from one is valueless; tear asunder this invisible chain by which you are held, and set yourself free."
"No--no," murmured Hartmut, with another effort to free himself, but his mother held him fast in her arms. He turned his face away and looked with hot eyes into the dark night, upon the desolate blackness of the wood and across at the will-o"-the-wisp, still pursuing its erratic course, now rising with convulsive, trembling flame, now sinking into the ground beneath, only to come up again quivering and glimmering.
There was something ghostly and horrible, and withal strangely fascinating in the ceaseless dance of this imp of night.
"Come with me, my son," Zalika begged, in those dulcet tones which were hers, as well as her son"s. "I have long since prepared all for your coming; I knew of a certainty that this day would surely come. My carriage is waiting a short distance from here. We can soon reach the railway station and will be far on our way before they are any the wiser at Burgsdorf. With me lies freedom, life, happiness! I will take you away and show you the great world, and when you are once in it, you will learn to breathe freely and enjoy life, as one redeemed from slavery. I know what it is to be liberated from slavery. I, too, wore the chains which, in an hour of foolish fascination, I forged for myself, but I should have torn them apart in the first year had it not been for my unborn child. O, freedom is sweet, as you will soon learn."