His face betrayed the untruth! He had incidentally heard at the house that Jane was not at the festival, and it was not without good reasons that he had undertaken this walk so immediately after his arrival. It had perhaps been more presentiment than accident which had led him here. Jane might have felt this, the flush upon her face deepened, and the dark lashes sank slowly, while her trembling hands sought a point of support in the wall. Walter hesitatingly approached.
"I have frightened you!" he said in a subdued voice. "It was not my intention to return so suddenly; I felt that I could not for the present come to B.; but a meeting I had with Mr. Alison–"
"With Henry!" cried Jane in painful apprehension. "Did you speak with him?"
"No, I only saw him! He arrived last night at the hotel in K., where I had taken lodgings; we met upon the stairs, but he passed me silently and morosely, without greeting, and as if he did not know me. This morning a note was brought me with tidings that the gentleman who had left it had already gone; it explains the reason of my being here so soon."
He handed her the note; it contained only a few lines.
"I release you from your promise to meet me after the close of the war; there is need of no such meeting. In future, the ocean will lie between us, that secures to you the fruit of your victory. I do not hinder your return to B. There you can demand an explanation of what has happened. In a few days, I leave Europe forever.
"Henry Alison."
CHAPTER XXXIV.
The Riddle Solved
Jane held the sheet silently in her hand; her eyes were veiled as if by starting tears. It is never a matter of unconcern to a woman to see a heart bleeding for her sake, least of all if she is the first and the only one who has taught this proud, cold heart to feel.
Walter's glance rested searchingly upon her face; it was sad, and painfully intent, as if from torturing unrest.
"I must now entreat the explanation, and yet, I do not know whether Miss Forest will be inclined to give it. When we met for the last time, on that day of my return from L. with Frederic's corpse, Mr. Alison stood between us, and held your hand in his, firmly, as if by this one act he would assert his right to all the world, He need not have thought it necessary to deprive us in so decided a manner of all opportunity to be alone; the moment forbade any word but of sorrow for the dead; we both alike lost much in him."
Gently but excitedly Jane shook her head. "You lost only a servant, Professor Fernow," she said. "The lot of my brother was one of cruel servitude from his earliest youth, and destiny would have been still more cruel to him had he not found in you a good master. I–did not make things easier for him while it lay in my power, and later, I could give him nothing–nothing but the cold marble above his grave!"
Walter now stood close to her; gently he took her trembling right hand in his. "And the last embrace of a sister!" he said softly.
Jane's lips quivered in bitterest sorrow. "He paid dearly enough for it," she said; "he had to buy it with his life-blood. If I had not been near him in that hour he might have come back healthy and merry with the others; my rescue was his destruction. I bring only sorrow to all that love me; I had to give death to my brother; I had to make Henry wretched–keep far from me, Professor Fernow, I can give you no happiness!"
With a convulsive movement she stepped to the edge of the balustrade, and with averted face gazed out into the distance. Frederic's death still threw its shadow over her life; the shadow would not lift, she could not overcome her remorseful sorrow. Something of the old hardness and bitterness again lay upon her features, and the anguish which thrilled through them and would scarce yield to control, only too well betrayed how serious she had been in those gloomy words before which at this moment, all hope, every dream of the future, sank into nothingness.
"Johanna!"
It was again that tone which once before in S. had wrought so mightily upon her heart, lifting it above all sorrow and all conflict; it compelled her now to turn round, to glance up to him; and when she met his eyes, hardness and bitterness could no longer hold their ground before these blue depths which once more spoke to her in that language of dreamy tenderness now as then holding her spell-bound.
"You have also caused me sorrow, Johanna, fearful sorrow; it was upon that autumn night when I implored you to make yourself free, and was ready the dare the utmost to win you. At that time, you flung back at me, this hard, 'Never! Even if Alison should release me and every other barrier should fall, NEVER, Walter!' Those words have ever since stood threateningly between us both; they have intimidated me up to this moment. Will you now at last, solve for me the riddle?"
Jane bowed her head. For some moments she was silent, then she said in a hollow voice: "I had found a clue to my brother, I knew that he had been reared by pastor Hartwig, and I heard the name from your lips as that of your foster-father."
"For God's sake, you did not believe–?"
"Yes! Do not chide me, Walter, that I deemed it possible. I suffered fearfully from that possibility, I almost died from that unhappy error."
Jane Forest's proud lips had at last humbled themselves to this confession, and there was a moist glimmer in her eyes, their "boreal glow" had vanished and the ice with it, and from those eyes beamed forth as it were, a radiant, glowing spring–life. That glance which Alison yesterday had seen but for a moment, when she had fallen on her knees before him in agonized entreaty–that glance through which she had forced him to a renunciation which without it she would never have attained, now fell, ardent yet tender, upon him who had known how to awaken it. He felt the whole spell of this nature, a nature which could irresistibly attract, indissolubly fetter, and infinitely bless. He knew the worth of the being who now, for the first time, gave herself fully and unreservedly to him.
There was no wooing, no proposal, not even a declaration, between these two; but there was much, inconceivably much that had been wanting at that first betrothal where all had been so formally arranged, glowing blushes, tears of happiness, and a betrothed bride, tender, joyous yielding up of life and future into the hands of him she loved. And here was the deep, glowing, inspired passion of a man over whom cold calculation and interest could have no sway. In his arms, Jane felt that this dreamer who had known how to throw aside the pen and wield the sword, knew also how to love with all the fervor of a deep, unselfish nature.
There was a rustle in the shrubbery at the foot of the ruin, and Mr. Atkins, who again had been playing the spy, came to light. But this time, he neither disturbed the pair of lovers, nor brought them his congratulations.
His face expressed anything but good wishes as hastily and unremarked, he took the homeward way.
"A most preposterous, sentimental thing, love is here in Germany!" he growled. "Jane Forest was lost us to the moment she set foot on this poetic soil. It is shameful! And that accursed Rhine over yonder, with its romance, is answerable for all!"
He threw a glance of deepest resentment upon the hated river, and then, muttering, turned his back upon it. But the Rhine did no seem to take the discourtesy at all to heart. All through its waves there was a sparkle and a glitter as if the old Niebelungen horde had mounted up from those deep recesses, making those waters one tide of liquid gold, that overflowed even the environing shores. And the old river rolled on mightily and triumphantly, as if upon it swelling current, it were bearing the spring and peace far into the land.