The Undying Past Part 91

And then he confessed all, beginning with the first great lie which had been the root of all the evil. He kept back nothing and softened nothing in the rapid brief words which the stress of the moment necessitated his using. It was as if his heart opened and his soul poured out through his veins in streams of blood.

Silent and motionless, with his eyes raised to the ceiling of the temple, Ulrich listened.

Then he seemed to be losing consciousness again, for he became wandering and unintelligible in his speech, and his eyelids dropped.

But he had clearly comprehended as far as the intended double suicide.

And he had grasped its deepest motive. For, with a mild, melancholy smile, he murmured, "Poor boy." After that he was silent, and lay there with feverish cheeks and dry lips gazing into vacancy from beneath his drooping lids.

Ulrich's only sign of forgiveness was in those two words, "Poor boy."

And to these Leo had to cling desperately, now and later in many an hour of suspense, till he could be certain what Fate had in store for him.

With merciless calm the flakes whirled down. There was a cruel and restful peace in their endless descent--a sort of eternal repose, like a silent burying of countless races.

Leo s.h.i.+vered. His s.h.i.+rt was wet through, and a feeling of numbness crept over his stiff arms.

Where should he take the sick man?

Uhlenfelde was nearest, but he recoiled with horror from the idea of delivering him into the woman's hands again. He had him, and he would keep him in defiance of her and the whole world.

A warm glow of new-born energy suffused his limbs. He laid the head of his unconscious friend against the pedestal and sprang to his feet.

And as he looked round him into the white, dripping duskiness, in which everything seemed indistinct and shapeless, the knowledge grew on him, "You live--and you may live."

He put both hands to his brow and staggered above the prostrate form.

It was a happiness that pained. And then he ran off straight to Halewitz to fetch help.

XL

A time of heavy trial followed. Ulrich must have carried the germs of typhoid about with him since he left his stepson's sick-bed, and the excitement of that memorable night had developed them into activity. He lay in Leo's study hovering between life and death.

In the first hours after conveying him there, Leo half feared that Felicitas might dispute his right to nursing the patient. But his anxiety on this account proved quite superfluous. The messenger whom he had despatched to Uhlenfelde brought back word that the "gnadiger Frau"

had driven to the station early that morning with luggage, and had left no address behind her.

It was with a feeling of release that he threw himself on his knees by the sick-bed, and swore over his friend's thin burning hand a thousand oaths to which he could not give words, but which all meant the same thing: "See, I am my old self again, and so I shall always be!"

His one plan for the future now was to live with him if he lived, and to die with him if he died.

He never left Ulrich's bed. His rest was taken on the floor at its foot, and with cognac and champagne he kept at bay the sleep that was so necessary to his powerful physique, which he would not allow to feel the strain of watching.

He had been morally so cast down and broken by the events of the last few weeks that even now he could hardly believe in reawakened expectations of happiness or hopes for Ulrich's recovery, except by a miracle.

An extra anxiety was added to his burden, when Johanna appeared one evening at the door of the sick-room, and declared that the time had come for her to see Ulrich; G.o.d had directed that she should speak with him before he died.

Leo's a.s.surances that the patient would not be able to recognise or understand her were in vain, and as in desperation he tried to remove her from the corridor by force, she began to rave.

The next morning, at her own express wish, she was taken to an asylum.

In these days of trouble and sorrow, when even grandmamma had lost her old nerve and presence of mind, and ran hither and thither, crying and wringing her hands, Hertha was a never-failing prop to lean upon, and an indefatigable helper. She kept the household going in its customary routine, and carried the master's orders to the steward and bailiffs.

Even to desolate Uhlenfelde she stretched out a helping hand.

A silent understanding had come about between her and Leo, which was regarded by every one as perfectly natural, for it was an accepted thing that they belonged to each other.

When he met the glance of her bright eyes, hanging questioningly on his lips, he thought, "She has suffered, so she will be able to forgive."

But first Ulrich's recovery, and the rest would come right of itself.

The recovery came.

In the middle of February Ulrich awoke to new consciousness, though for weeks afterwards he was too weak to follow any consecutive train of thought. He seemed to have lost in a great measure his grasp on the past, and he was as grateful as a child when he was helped out in remembering things.

With the return of his mental powers a certain restlessness was apparent in him, of a purely physical character, but which evidently led his mind back to the contemplation of the gaps in a psychic puzzle.

He appeared anxious to ask questions, to probe and search into matters, but, not having the courage, lapsed into prolonged and silent brooding.

Leo watched the process with growing uneasiness. An explanation was out of the question, yet every day it became more and more imperative.

Early in March the doctor, after a private talk with the convalescent, urged the necessity of a change of six or eight weeks to a Southern climate. He also insisted that it was most important that this change should precede the return to Uhlenfelde.

Who should accompany him? Certainly not Herr von Sellenthin. Such a thing was not to be thought of. The poor, overtaxed brain must rest, and that was only possible with strangers. Friends in such cases were poison.

Leo said no more.

The next day, a young doctor without a practice arrived from Konigsberg, who was delighted to undertake the case and travel with Ulrich, which, as he freely confessed, would be a lift to him financially.

The parting between the friends was gentle and affectionate, and, on the surface, without significance. In it, there was on one side the dumb appeal, "Forgive me" and on the other the unspoken a.s.surance, "I have forgiven you."

Week after week went by. Leo worked with almost superhuman zeal, for now the supervision of the Uhlenfelde estate, as well as his own, was on his shoulders.

He thought of his former mistress without bitterness or self-reproach, though he was sometimes exercised to know what had become of her. One day, scanty news of her reached him in an unexpected and indirect way.

He called on Pastor Brenckenberg with the object of asking his pardon for his roughness to him at their last interview, and then the old man, who had gradually got over his rancour, told him that his son, "the rascal," had met the Baroness von Kletzingk in Berlin. She had looked the same as usual, had not been in the least embarra.s.sed, and had overwhelmed him with questions.

"And there's something else to tell you," continued the pastor. "You really did my boy a good turn, after all. It is true that he has been expelled from his Corps, but that won't do him much harm. He has been a different creature since that correction you administered to him. He has given up loafing and getting into debt, and he is now earning his bread and working steadily for his exam. So pardon me, Fritzchen, and let me thank you. I behaved like an old a.s.s!"

Leo shook his hand laughingly. Then he pondered on what he had heard about Felicitas, and hoped that she was not playing the adventuress in Berlin.

A report of Ulrich came every week. At first the young doctor wrote, and then he wrote himself, a few, faint, hurried lines, and on these his friend was obliged to build his hopes.

Slowly Leo's soul was purged of its gnawing suspicions and its anxious presentiments of evil which had been so habitual to it of late. He regained his self-confidence, and at the same time spurts of the quaint cynicism and noisy gaiety which so well become those doughty giants on the east of the Elbe. This showed that his wounds were healing, and his temperament recovering its normal healthiness.

It was on a grey, still morning in the second week of May that Leo came in ravenous from his early ride to join the others at breakfast. The gla.s.s doors stood wide open, letting in draughts of the soft rainy air.

He fancied that he detected in the three pairs of eyes raised to his an unwonted flash of excitement.

"Why are you all making such mysterious faces?" he asked.