"Seven--eight--eight and a half."
Nothing.
"Nine--nine and a half--ten--" Suddenly he emitted a faint whistle, and grasped his revolver.
The front door grated on its hinges, steps resounded, but not the threatening, thundering steps of a vengeful husband. They were soft, hesitating, dragging steps.
Then for a while nothing again--no sound, except the breathing of two persons--and someone else--on the other side of the door, it seemed.
"Who"s there?" called Walter.
Now came a knock.
Soft, broken, as if of trembling, failing fingers.
"Who"s there, in the devil"s name?" he called again.
"Anna von Schwertfeger."
He jumped up and opened the door.
There she stood, ashen-hued, red about the mouth, her lids quivering.
"The colonel has just driven off to Baron von Platow. He will return in three hours. He charged me to tell you, Lilly, that when he comes back he doesn"t want to find you on his premises."
"And what did he charge you to tell me?" sneered Walter von Prell.
Miss von Schwertfeger, without regarding him, took Lilly"s hand.
"Come. You haven"t much time. We must pack."
"But--but where am I to go?" she asked, helplessly, suffering herself to be drawn to her feet.
When she got to the door of the lodge, she saw the carriage that was to convey her from the castle already rolling up the driveway.
PART II
CHAPTER I
She was Lilly Czepanek again.
In the divorce proceedings there had been no attempt at dissimulation or concealment, and the case moved along rapidly. Lilly alone was found guilty, and, upon the colonel"s deposition, was deprived of the right to use her married name.
"There is nothing to be saved from the ruins," wrote Mr. Pieper, "except the jewels which I hope you diligently acc.u.mulated by following my advice and standing in front of fine shop-windows. The pearl necklace your ex-husband put about your neck on your wedding day--owing in part, I may now say, to my suggestion--which I will try to get back for you, is in itself sufficient to keep your head above water several years."
The result of this letter was that Lilly took the pearl necklace, which after her flight she had found in one of her trunks among the laces and evening gowns, carried it to a jeweller, had him pack it up, and addressed it to Miss von Schwertfeger.
She felt justified in considering the less valuable trinkets to be her personal property. She had already disposed of a considerable number of them, and what was left would scarcely suffice for more than half a year. Then poverty.
But her material condition gave her little concern.
Her regret for what she had lost was too profound, her consciousness of the shame she had undergone too lively, but that her future should not have been hidden from her perceptions behind a veil of tears.
Yes, tears, tears--oh, she learned to shed tears.
She learned to swallow tears like salt sea water; she sucked them into her mouth with her lower lip thrust out, she shook them from her cheeks like drops of rain. And they kept welling up again, finally without cause, even after the pain had subsided--awake or asleep, they just came.
She had gone away that grey, windy December day just before nightfall in a trembling state of stupefaction without complaint, without attempts at self-justification.
Gone away blindly--anywhere--simply gone away--in all haste.
She landed in Berlin, the haven of all the wrecked.
In that world where oblivion spreads its blessing hands alike over the righteous and unrighteous, where enticing possibilities flash and sparkle, illuminating the dark days of inertness and prostration, where regret over a lost past by and by becomes tense, desirous expectation of happiness, and where the G.o.d Chance reigns supreme--in that world of the unknown and forsaken, in which none but those who are both old and poor sink into nothingness, hopeless outlaws--into that world Lilly crept.
Many a dreary month she knocked about in lodging houses where divorcees with lost reputations huddle together, reminding one of little heaps of decaying apples; where the tone is given by Chilian attaches and agents of mysterious trades from Bucharest and Alexandria. In a friendly way she avoided the confidences of companions in misery, who lavished words of comfort, and with mute disregard repelled the advances--physical advances as well--of her enterprising, olive-complexioned neighbours.
After a while she began to look about for a position--something unique, something between a lady in waiting and a chaperon, which would not be incongruous with her former station and the quiet dignity of her bearing.
But positions of that sort seemed remarkably scarce.
And all she reaped of her endeavours were the tender attentions of a few old gentlemen who came to see her in the evening, and could not find their way out again until the door was held wide open for them.
Discouraged, she gave up going to employment bureaus and the useless ringing of front door bells. But her expectations had not yet sunk to the level of those of a shop-girl or model in a dressmaking establishment. And they never would sink so low, because "general"s wife," as she was branded, no matter where she went, was written all over her.
In that seething sea of humanity she tossed about without so much as a straw to clutch at; except, indeed, Walter"s letter, which Miss von Schwertfeger forwarded to her two months after her expulsion. The poor boy was now completely ruined. Nevertheless, his letter gave proof of a modest attempt to offer her some support.
"Dearest Friend:--
I"m done for. I"ve been shot. A mere trifle when it happens to others; but when it happens to oneself, the consequence is, it considerably lessens one"s hopes of entering upon a glorious career as head waiter on the other side of the Atlantic.
Nevertheless I thank fate for having been gracious enough to lead across my path so good, so touching a lamb, one so filled with the desire to redeem, as my baronissima.
You will readily understand, O dearest, supergracious woman, that I in turn also feel a slight obligation to play the redeemer, if only to preserve our souls for each other.
But "the how" presents some difficulties, to be sure. If I were to recommend you to the care of my former friends, your future would be settled. For in blissful hours leaves and virtues still fall.
Therefore I descend a step to those regions in which a st.u.r.dy Philistinism creeps on its belly before our coronets, even when those coronets lie shattered on the ground.
In Alte Jakobstra.s.se in Berlin there dwells a respectable manufacturer of bronze ware, a comrade of the reserves, etc., by name Richard Dehnicke, who feels he is indebted to me because I pumped him for coin.