The Return of Peter Grimm Part 27

"Yes, he must," contradicted the Dead Man. "Go on, James. Stronger!"

"But I _must_ speak so!" declared Hartmann, swept on by a power he could not understand. "I'll speak my mind. I don't care how fond you were of your uncle or how much he did for you. It was not right for him to ask this sacrifice of you. The whole thing was the blunder of an obstinate old man!"

"No! You mustn't!"

"I loved him, too," said Hartmann. "As much in my own way, perhaps, as you did. Though he and I never agreed on any subject under the sun. But, in spite of all my affection for him, I know and always knew he _was_ an obstinate old man. Obstinate as a mule. It was the Dutch in him, I suppose."

Peter Grimm nodded emphatic approval.

"Do you know why I was sent away?" rushed on Hartmann, still upheld and goaded along by that incomprehensible impulse. "Do you know why I quarrelled with your uncle?"

"No."

"Because I told him I loved you. He asked me. I didn't tell him because I had any hopes. I hadn't. I haven't now. Oh, girl, I don't know why I'm talking to you like this. I love you. And my arms are aching for you."

He stepped toward her, arms out as he spoke. She retreated, frightened, to where Peter Grimm stood surveying the lover with keen approbation.

"No, no!" she warned. "You mustn't, James. It isn't right--don't."

Her next backward step brought her close to Peter Grimm. And the Dead Man, with a swift motion of his hand, waved her forward into her lover's outstretched arms.

Through no conscious volition of her own, Kathrien sped straight onward, unswerving, unfaltering into the strong circle of those arms for whose warm refuge she had so guiltily felt herself longing.

"No!" she panted, in dutiful resistance.

But the negation was lost against Hartmann's broad breast as he pressed her closely to him.

"I love you!" he repeated over and over in a daze of rapture.

Then in awed wonder:

"And you love _me_, Kathrien!"

"No, no--don't make me say it, dear heart!"

"I _shall_ make you say it. It is true. You do love me!"

"What matter if I do?" wailed the girl. "It wouldn't change matters."

"Kathrien!"

"Please don't say anything more. I can't bear it."

Gently, reluctantly, she sought to release herself from that wonderful embrace. But Hartmann now needed no Spirit Guest to urge him to hold his own.

"I'm not going to let you go," he cried, kissing her white, upturned face till the red glowed back into it. "I won't give you up, Kathrien. I _won't_ give you up!"

"You must," she insisted, struggling more fiercely against herself than against him. "You must, dear. I can't break my promise to Oom Peter.

I----"

The front door opened. The lovers sprang apart. Frederik entered, glancing quickly from one to the other of them.

"Oh!" he observed. "You in here, Hartmann? I thought I'd find you in the office. I've some unopened mail of my uncle's to glance over. Then I'll join you there."

Hartmann took the broad hint, nodded, and left the room. Frederik's eyes followed him steadily until the door closed behind the young intruder.

Then he turned to where Kathrien crouched, panting, bewildered, trembling. Frederik abruptly went over to her, and, before she could guess his purpose, kissed her full on the lips.

Involuntarily the girl recoiled as from some loathly thing.

"Don't!" she exclaimed, fighting for her shaken self-control. "Please don't!"

"Why not?" he snapped.

She did not answer.

"Has Hartmann been talking to you?"

She moved toward the stair-foot.

"Just a moment, please," Frederik interposed, hurrying forward to catch up with her before she could gain the safety of the stairway.

"Hartmann _has_ been talking to you. What has he been saying?"

He had seized her hand as she made to mount the stairway. As she did not reply to his question, he repeated it, adding:

"Do you really imagine, Kathrien, that you care for that--fellow?"

"I'd rather not talk about it, please, Frederik," she pleaded.

"No? But it is necessary. Do you----"

She broke away from his suddenly rough grip and fled up the stairway to her own room. As the door shut behind her, Frederik, with clouded face and working lips, strode over to the desk. He pa.s.sed close by Peter Grimm. But the Dead Man was still staring blankly after Kathrien.

"Oh, Katje," he muttered, "even Love could not get my message to you!

Less influence would be needed to change the fate of a nation than the mind of one good woman. I think a good woman--a _good_ woman,--is more stubborn than anything else in the Universe. Not excepting myself. When she has made up her mind to do _right_,--which invariably means to sacrifice herself and thereby make as many other people wretched as possible--not even a Spirit from the Other World can influence her."

With a despairing shrug of the shoulders he turned toward his nephew, and his face hardened. Frederik had seated himself at the desk. He had drawn out the little handful of personal letters that had arrived that afternoon for Peter Grimm and those that Mrs. Batholommey had put into the drawer for safe keeping.

One letter after another Frederik cut open, glanced over, and either put back into the drawer or laid under a paperweight on the desk. Peter Grimm crossed to the opposite side of the desk and stood looking down at him with set face and sad, reproving gaze.

"Frederik Grimm," said the Dead Man at last, his voice low but infinitely impressive, "my beloved nephew! You sit there opening my mail with the heart of a stone. You are saying to yourself: 'He is gone; there will be fine times ahead.' But there is one thing you have forgotten, Frederik: The Law of Reward and Punishment. Your hour has come--_to think_!"

Frederik, unheeding, continued to open, read, and sort the letters before him.

At the Dead Man's last words, his nephew picked from the heap a blue envelope, ripped it open, and pulled out the enclosures:--a single sheet of blue paper and a cheap photograph.

"Oh, my G.o.d! Oh, my _G.o.d_!" he babbled over and over, foolishly, staring from letter to photograph. "Here's luck! What luck it is! Anne Marie to my uncle! Lord! If he'd lived to read it! If he had read it! Out I'd have been kicked! One--two--three--_Augenblick_! Out into the street!

Oh, what unbelievable luck! If she'd written to him ten days earlier!