Yet all the while the miserable conviction was being borne in on him that what he thought was anger was nothing but a longing pa.s.sionate desire.
As he pa.s.sed the parsonage at Wengern dull resentment took possession of him.
"There the old rascal and prophet sleeps the sleep of the just,"
thought he, "while poor King David is wandering alone through the night."
He turned down the slope to the ferry. Here he could wait for Felicitas without exciting notice, for it was only natural, the ferry station being on his estate, that he should linger to see all was in order there. The black surface of the river was shot with silver, and the ripples broke with a crunching grinding sound on the frozen banks.
His sleigh-bells brought old Jurgens out of his bunk half asleep, holding a lantern in a tremulous hand.
"Who the devil is it?" he inquired, not recognising Leo in his modest turn out.
"Don"t swear, Jurgens," Leo answered, feeling compa.s.sion for the old man on account of his disturbed slumbers.
"Lord! it"s never the gnadiger master?" and he came and kissed his coat-sleeve, and would have taken hold of the horse"s bridle to lead it down to the ferry-side when Leo stopped him.
He had only come, he explained, to ascertain the condition of the ice.
The music of a three-toned sleigh-bells faint and distant, fell on his ear. Leo"s heart bounded. She was coming; coming alone. He wrenched off his fur coverings and, jumping out, tied the horse"s reins to the palings that surrounded the ferry-house.
Jurgens chattered on with toothless garrulity, as is the way of old servitors. The thickness of the ice on the river was nothing to speak of to-day, but to-morrow it would be another inch or so, and by Christmas it would bear cannons pa.s.sing over it. This was the best day of all the year for him, he had sometimes taken as much as seven marks in tips. So generous were the friends of Herr von Stolt.
Now she must be driving through the village, the sound was deadened by the walls of the houses. Suddenly it broke forth clearly again, and a shadow was cast on the churchyard wall. The sleigh curved down towards the stream.
Hers was the m.u.f.fled figure leaning back wearily in a corner. He approached the side of the sleigh as the driver brought the horses to a standstill.
She had been asleep, and did not stir till the jerk of the sleigh halting roused her.
"Good morning, Felicitas."
She gave a low cry and stretched out her hands to him, half in fear, half in joy, like a child who is not sure whether it is going to be scolded or caressed.
"Don"t be alarmed," he said, giving a significant glance at the coachman. "I got out here to see if the ferry was all right. The river is full of ice-floes, and I am responsible for the Stoltenhof guests."
She smiled her thanks, for she understood his meaning.
"I will accompany you to the other side," he said. "If you get out we shall be able to talk better."
Obediently she let him help her out of the sleigh. For a moment he felt his soft burden cling to him, and light as she was she seemed to weigh him to the earth.
The sleigh pounded down to the ferry, and the pair followed it in silence.
"Leo!" she whispered entreatingly.
"Hush! and keep close to me!" he replied, forcing himself to speak severely, and he lifted the bar.
They stepped together on to the shaky companion ladder, jutting, narrow and slippery, into the water. They were hardly separated from its black depths by a foot. The rope, covered with icicles, shone like metal, and its frozen crust crunched against the wheels of the pulley.
"Leo!" she whispered again, and pressed her head against his sleeve.
"Now, what have you to say for yourself? You----" An ugly word, which was suppressed with difficulty, was on the tip of his tongue.
"Leo, I am desperate without you," she complained, in a subdued tone.
"Why have you forsaken me?"
"How can you talk of forsaking?" he muttered. "While Ulrich is away, I can"t come. That is all."
"Why not?"
"How can you ask?"
"But I do ask. We have repented and confessed. We have expiated our sin before G.o.d and man. We know that we are on the right footing now."
"Indeed! That is how you feel about it?"
"Yes; and don"t you feel the same?" she asked, looking up at him innocently.
His answer stuck in his throat. Was it he alone, then, who was d.a.m.ned?
Had G.o.d accepted her oblation and rejected his?
"We went to the Sacrament together," she continued, "and thereby gained our souls" salvation. We ought now to be quite sure of ourselves."
"We ought to be; certainly we ought to be," he sneered.
"Leo, please don"t be so mistrustful. How can any evil befall us if we are sincere in following the path of penitence. We must hold together.
If you leave me to fight alone, I am powerless. Day after day I have been expecting and waiting for you. Every morning I have got up with the question on my lips, "Will he come?" And then I have hoped for the morrow, and again for the morrow, and so I have gone on. Oh, how long the time has seemed! My life has been sad and monotonous, and finally I was driven to despair and said to myself, "If he gives you up you must give yourself up." And so I began the old nonsense again with those boys. I have turned their heads and let them pay me attentions. And to-day a devil possessed me, and I thought, "I"ll just show him that I can do without him." But all the time my heart was heavy, and I was crying out to you in my soul. But you were so hard and cruel, that I was forced to go on playing my part."
A strange sensation of content suffused his limbs. He felt as if a dead weight had fallen from them. He felt wholesomely tired, and could have stretched himself out on the spot and fallen asleep.
"And now you"ll send those youths to the right about?" he asked.
"Leo!"
"Yes or no?"
"With the greatest pleasure in the world if you will come and see me again."
"But if I don"t come?"
She hung her head in utter discouragement. "Then I can"t say what I shall do," she stammered.
"When do you expect Ulrich home?" he asked, to divert her.
"Ah, Ulrich!" she exclaimed quickly. "In every one of his letters he has inquired after you and sent messages. Some he has addressed to us both. But I haven"t dared write to him, because I haven"t seen you. And what would he think if he knew you hadn"t been once?"
"That"s true enough," he said, and thought to himself that even the most trustful person would be struck by such extraordinary conduct.
Then he repeated his question as to when Ulrich was coming back.
"The Reichstag separates for the recess either to-morrow or the day after," she answered, "but it is very uncertain whether he will be here by Christmas. He has been chosen president of a committee--for some agricultural exhibition, I believe--and he will be obliged to give up part of the parliamentary recess to arrange matters. He told me to ask you if he should reserve a place for you on the committee, and thinks, for the sake of your reputation, you should accept."