"If she has a headache, why didn"t you let her go to sleep long ago?"
When once aroused, not the least inconsistency escaped his attention.
But Miss von Schwertfeger was his match, and rejoined without an instant"s hesitation:
"She wanted compresses again, but I thought it better simply to hold my hand to her forehead. She was just about to go to sleep; and we ought not to disturb her any more. Don"t you agree with me, colonel?
Good-night, colonel."
With that she extinguished the lights.
Lilly wanted to cry to her:
"Stay here, stay here, he"ll choke me."
But Miss von Schwertfeger was already out in the corridor; and she had done such excellent preliminary work that the colonel after a brief "I hope you feel better," to Lilly, left the room without further question.
Had he remained, the game might have ended in a nervous breakdown.
Lilly lay in bed paralysed by a dull fright, listening now for sounds in the colonel"s room, now to the wailing of the wind, interrupted for three or four seconds by a very, very soft rustle.
That was the ladder gliding over the rail as Walter let it down from the balcony. So long as he had seen the light in Lilly"s room, he had wisely remained on the balcony. She could hear him remove the ladder and set it where it belonged. Now at length, now that she felt they were both secure, came a shuddering realisation of what had happened, accompanied by a desire to call out and cry aloud.
Anna von Schwertfeger! What had her conduct meant? What had impelled her to implicate herself in so sinful a deed? Wasn"t she risking her name, her existence, the reward of many years" labour? How had Lilly, wretched sinner that she was, come to deserve so great a sacrifice? Her heart expanded in grat.i.tude. She could no longer endure lying in bed. She would have to go down and thank Anna forthwith.
She dressed without making a sound, took the precaution to bolt the door between the two bedrooms, and slipped out into the dark corridor, where she peeped through the keyhole of the colonel"s room, and saw him lying in bed already. The old oak steps cracked frightfully; but they had that habit even when no one was walking on them, and often kept up the sound of a tread all night.
Light was shining in Miss von Schwertfeger"s room. Lilly heard her sharp, hard steps as she paced to and fro.
Finally she ventured to knock.
"Who"s there?"
"I, Anna. I--Lilly."
"What do you want? Go back to bed."
"No, no, no. I must speak to you. I must."
The door opened.
"Well, then, come in."
Lilly wanted to throw her arms about Miss von Schwertfeger"s neck, but she shook her off.
"I"m not in the mood for scenes," she said. Her trumpet-toned voice, which she m.u.f.fled with difficulty, had lost all traces of sympathy. "And you needn"t thank me, because I did not act from love of you."
Lilly seemed very small to herself and very much scolded. Since the days of her thrashings at the hands of Mrs. Asmussen no one had ever given her such a reception.
"First you help me," she faltered, "and then--"
"Since you are here, you might as well answer some questions I have to ask," said Miss von Schwertfeger. "Close your dress--it"s cold here--and sit down." Lilly obeyed. "In the first place: did I in any way ever help to bring about a meeting between you and that man?"
"When could you have?"
"That"s what I am asking."
"On the contrary. You weren"t even willing for me to take the riding lessons."
"Then, later, did I ever leave you without supervision while you were taking your lessons?"
"Without supervision? Why, almost always you yourself were present."
"Was it I who proposed your going out riding alone with him?"
"You? Of course not. The first time we went without asking, and after that it was the colonel who wanted us to."
"Was I careful to see that everything in your room was in order?"
"I don"t know. I think so. Why, even lately I"ve noticed you come to my room before you went to bed as if to say good-night."
"You"ve probably taken me to be your enemy, your spy."
"You wouldn"t put yourself out for me very much, I thought."
Miss von Schwertfeger laughed a hard, dreary laugh.
"What you say is very valuable," she said. "It proves to me that I made no blunders in carrying out my plan, and need not reproach myself for anything."
"What plan?" asked Lilly, utterly bewildered.
Miss von Schwertfeger measured her with a glance of pitying scorn.
"My dear child, I knew everything. I saw it coming from the very first, the moment you met him. I calculated it on my fingers the way I calculate the cost of a meal. I simply let matters drift. I could do so without dishonouring myself. Besides there was no use interfering. You were bent upon your own ruin."
"What have I done to you," Lilly stammered, swallowing her tears, "to make you hate me so? I never wanted to oust you from your position. I subjected myself to you from the very first. I put myself completely into your hands, and now you do this to me."
"If I hated you, you wouldn"t be sitting here. You would probably be straying along some country road. I had you in my grasp and could have crushed you at least a dozen times, but didn"t. However, I"ll tell you the truth. I _did_ hate you, that is, before I knew you. I imagined you a sly, fresh little thing, who held off from the colonel in a pure spirit of calculation, until he adopted the extreme measure to which old libertines resort in such cases. But when I saw you, you dear child, without malice or guile, defenceless, and with the best intentions in the world to love the colonel and me, too, if possible, I had to back down--I and my hate. Then you became nothing else to me than a small, insignificant creature, which one uses so long as it is serviceable, and shoves aside after it has fulfilled its purpose. I am not concerned with you any more. You dropped out of the game long ago, and now the colonel and myself are playing it alone. I"ll have to have it out with him, and then my work"s done."
Lilly felt nothing but dull, impotent astonishment, as if doors were being opened and curtains drawn aside, and she were looking into men"s hearts as into a fiery abyss.
"I thought you were so attached to him," she said. "I thought--"
Suddenly it occurred to her that her first suspicion had not been far from the truth. This hardened, commanding spinster, whose beauty was not yet entirely faded, had found favour in the eyes of her employer some ten or fifteen years before, had then been neglected, and was now taking revenge.
Miss von Schwertfeger divined her thoughts, and dismissed them with a shrug of her shoulders.
"Had it been that," she said, "I should have known how to acquiesce in my fate. And if I had still retained my place in the castle, I should have cherished it as my sanctuary. No, my dear, matters in this world are not so simple. There are even worse h.e.l.ls."
Lilly now heard a story which filled her soul with horror and pity--the story of the house she lived in, the story of which she was the concluding chapter.