Clear the Track! Part 48

"I could not unveil that past to your pure child-eyes," continued Wildenrod, his voice sinking into a whisper; "and cannot to-day either, but there is a shadow in it-----"

"A misfortune--was it not?" The question had a dispirited sound.

"Yes--a misfortune, that deprived me of my profession, and enticed me into evil and guilt. I had cast all this from me and wanted to begin a new life, here at your side. But again the old shadow looms up, and threatens me again--yes, threatens to s.n.a.t.c.h you from me, Maia."

"No, no, I am not going to leave you, whatever has happened, or may happen!" cried Maia, vehemently, clinging to him. "My father is lord of Odensburg, he will protect you."

"No, your father will dissolve our engagement, and part us irrevocably.

Stern man that he is, with his rigid principles, he would rather see you dead than at the side of a husband whose past is not what it should he. There is only one way for you to be preserved to me, one single one--but you must have courage."

"What--what am I to do?" she stammered, powerless under the ban of his eyes and his voice. He stooped lower down to her and these words streamed hotly and pa.s.sionately over his lips: "You are my betrothed--I have the right to claim you as my wife! Let us fly from Odensburg, and just as soon as we cross the German boundary line, I shall lead you to the altar. Then n.o.body, not even your father, will have the right to take you from me--no power can stand against our marriage. And you will be mine indissolubly."

Oscar von Wildenrod knew very well that a marriage of this kind was null and void in the eyes of the law; but what cared he for that, if it only satisfied Maia and made her believe herself to be his wife? Then Dernburg would have to consent; for the sake of the honor of his name, he could not admit that his daughter had lived for a while in a foreign land with a man who was not her husband, and the legal forms could be gone through with hereafter. After all, his claim to Odensburg might yet be made good. Was not Maia still her father's heir? Hence upon her hand depended freedom and wealth.

It was a wild, crazy scheme, suggested to the Baron by despair.

Meanwhile it was practicable, if Maia only gave her consent. But now, in horror, she started back, releasing herself from his arms.

"Oscar! What is it that you ask of me?"

"My salvation!" he exclaimed, vehemently. "I am lost if I stay--you alone can save me. Go with me, Maia; be my wife, my s.h.i.+eld, and I shall thank you for it on my knees. Only two paths are left to me now--the one with you leads to life, the other without you----"

"To death!" shrieked Maia. "Oh, how dreadful! Oh! no, no, Oscar, you are not to die. I am going with you, wherever you choose."

A cry of joy escaped his lips; he overwhelmed his betrothed with pa.s.sionate caresses. "My Maia! I knew it. You would not forsake me, even though all others forsook me. And now, come! we have no time to lose."

"Now? This very hour?" asked Maia, shuddering. "Am I to see my father no more?"

"Impossible! You would betray yourself! We must leave on the spot. The carriage is in waiting to carry us to the station, at the gate in the rear of the park; I have with me my papers and a sum of money. In the excitement prevailing to-day at Odensburg, our departure will not be noticed. I shall see to it that they find not a trace of us, until I can announce our union to your father."

Maia's eyes were fixedly riveted upon the speaker, but hers were no longer glad, innocent child-eyes; there was an expression in them that Oscar could not fathom.

"Not say farewell to my father?" repeated she, mechanically. "Not even that, when I am giving him up forever?"

"Not forever," said Wildenrod, soothingly. "Your father will be reconciled to us. I shall take upon myself alone all the blame and responsibility of this step. We shall come back."

"Not I!" said the young girl, softly. "I shall die of that life in a foreign land, of separation from my father, of that--that dreadful thing, which you will not name before me. Oh, your love will be my death!"

"Maia!" cried he, interrupting her in angry surprise, but she would not be diverted, and continued:

"Somehow, I have always known it. When you first entered our house, and I looked into your eyes for the first time, a sense of distress came over me, as though I were standing on the edge of a precipice and must fall down. And this sense of distress has come ever again, even in that hour when you told me that you loved me, even in the midst of the happiness of these last weeks. I did not want to know the meaning of it, have struggled against it and clung to my supposed happiness. Now you point me to the abyss, and I--I must plunge down."

"And still you are willing to go with me?" asked Oscar, slowly: it was as though breath failed him.

"Yes, Oscar! You say that I can save you, how dare I hesitate?"

She laid her head upon his breast, with a low, heart-rending sob, in which the young creature buried her happiness. Wildenrod stood there, motionless, and looked down upon her: from the beech-tree withered leaves rained slowly down upon the pair.

At last Maia straightened herself up and dried her tears. "Let us go--I am ready!"

"No!" said Oscar, almost rudely, while he let her out of his arms.

The young girl looked at him in surprise.

"What did you say?"

He took off his hat and stroked his forehead, as though he would wipe something away. Suddenly his features appeared to be strangely altered: a few minutes before they had portrayed all the fierce pa.s.sionateness of his nature, now they were cold and stolid in their calmness.

"I perceive that you are right," said he, and his voice sounded unnaturally composed. "It would be cruel to hinder you from taking leave of your father. Go to him and tell him--what you choose."

"And you?" asked Maia, astonished at this sudden change of mind.

"I shall wait for you here. It is better, perhaps, that you should speak to him once more, ere we venture upon that last desperate measure. Perhaps you will succeed in changing his mind."

It was only a faint glimmer of light that he showed her, but no more was needed for the rekindling of bright hopes in Maia's heart.

"Yes, I shall go to papa!" she cried. "I shall implore him on my knees not to part us. You cannot have done anything so dreadful, so unpardonable, and he will and shall hear me. But--would it not be better for you to go with me?"

"No, it would be in vain! But now go! go!--time is precious."

He urged her almost anxiously to leave, and yet when she actually did turn to go, he suddenly stretched out to her both arms.

"Come to me, Maia! Tell me once more that you love me, that you wanted to go with me, in spite of everything?"

The young girl flew back to him again and nestled up to him.

"You dread lest I should not stand firm? I'll share everything with you, Oscar, though it were the worst. Nothing can separate us. I love you beyond everything."

"Thank you!" said he, fervently. Suppressed feeling quivered in his voice; from his eyes, too, that sinister glare had departed, and they now beamed with unutterable tenderness. "Thank you, my Maia! You have no idea what a freeing, absolving influence that speech has had upon me, what a boon you bestow upon me in its utterance. Perhaps you are about to learn from your father's lips what I cannot tell you. If all of you, then, condemn and cast me from you forever, then remember that I loved you, loved you devotedly. How much I never realized until this moment--and I shall prove it to you."

"Oscar, you stay here?" asked Maia, agonized by a dark foreboding.

"I stay at Odensburg, my word for it--and now, go, my dear!"

He kissed his betrothed once more and then released her. She walked slowly away: on the edge of the thicket, she turned around. Wildenrod was still standing there motionless gazing after her; but he smiled, and that quieted the anxiety of the young girl, who now moved briskly forward into the fog, where she was soon lost in the gathering mist.

Oscar followed the slender form with his eyes until she had vanished, then he went slowly back to the bench and tentatively laid his hand upon his breast-pocket. There rested his papers, the sum of money he carried on his person, and--something else, that he had provided for all emergencies. Now, here it was safe ... but no, not here, not so near to the house! Then what mattered one hour the more or the less--night suited his purpose better.

"Poor Maia!" said he, softly. "You will weep bitterly, but your father will fold you in his arms. You are right: such a life and my guilt would kill you.--You shall be saved. I am going alone--to destruction!"

The Dernburg family burying-ground lay in the rear of the park. It was no showy mausoleum, but merely a peaceful spot, encircled by dark fir-trees. Plain marble memorial stones adorned the green hillocks that were mantled in ivy. Here rested Dernburg's father and wife, and here his son Eric had also found a resting-place.

The young widow still lingered alone at the grave, but the ever-increasing violence of the wind warned her that it was time for her, too, to be going. She had just stooped down to readjust the fresh wreath that she had laid on the grave, and was now rising, when all of a sudden she gave a start. Egbert Runeck had emerged from the fir-trees and stood opposite to her. He had evidently had no idea of meeting her here, but quickly composed himself, and said, with a bow: "I beg your pardon, lady, if I disturb you. I expected to find the place solitary!"

"Are you at Odensburg, Herr Runeck?" asked Cecilia, without concealing her surprise.

"I was calling upon Herr Dernburg, and could not let the opportunity pa.s.s by without visiting the burial-place of the friend of my youth. It is the first, and probably will be the last, time that I see it."

As he spoke his eye scanned furtively the young widow's figure that was draped in black: then he drew near the grave and looked down upon it long and silently.