He walked home through the park. The feeble glimmer of the mill-lights which accompanied him for a few steps of the way vanished behind him, and he went on alone in the black darkness. It was not the keen breeze sweeping by him, nor the few snow-flakes touching his cheek like some fluttering bird of night, but the memory of the last few hours, and his excited fancy, that made him shiver as if with bitter cold. That very afternoon he had left his well-furnished table, and along this path, where now the pebbles beneath his tread grated discordantly, he had walked, secure, as he thought, in the protection of his lucky star; and now, after so short a time, it would almost seem as if he, Councillor RÖmer, whose sensitive nerves would not allow him to witness the suffering even of a brute, had been partly guilty of the death of a fellow-creature. Surely the gods, impatient of a mortal lot without a thorn, had envied him, and had thus burdened his conscience that there might be some infusion of gall in the clear stream of his prosperity,—and all for nothing. He could be reproached with nothing but silence; and whom could his silence injure? No one,—no one in the wide world! Basta! no more of this. He turned into the broad linden avenue that led directly to the villa. A brilliant stream of light was issuing from the windows and glass doors of the lower suite of rooms. A life of luxury and enjoyment reached out white, rounded arms to him from those rooms, beckoning him away from the dark night and all his anxiety. He breathed more freely, threw off the evil influence of the last hours, and let it vanish with the sound of the mill-stream that was dying away in the distance.

There, around the Frau President Urach's tea-table and card-tables a numerous evening company was assembled. The large, low panes of glass, and the bronze tracery of the balustrade of the balcony outside, permitted an excellent view from without of the interior. The bright pictures on the walls, the heavy portiÈres of violet velvet, the chandeliers of gilded bronze with their gas-lights shining through pearly glass shades, stood out in relief against the surrounding blackness of the winter night like a scene upon some fairy stage. A sudden gust of wind swept down the avenue, tossing snowflakes and dry linden-leaves madly against the balcony, but the hurly-burly had no effect upon the dignified repose reigning within: there was not even a motion of the airy lace curtains; the fire alone flickering upon the marble hearth might blaze more brightly for an instant when breathed upon by the blast down the chimney.

The man outside looked in with a sensation of trembling delight upon the group assembled there. Not that he saw there fair and dark curls, slender women and girls to enchant his eye. No; the fairy heralds of spring painted on the ceiling extended their rosy flower-filled palms above matronly caps, gray hair, and bald heads; but then the names of their owners!—officers of high rank, pensioned maids of honour, and members of the ministry sat at the card-tables, or, leaning back in the velvet lounging-chairs, chatted by the warm fireside. The arrogant old councillor of medicine, Von BÄr, was there too. As he dealt the cards, sparks of light flashed from the jewels upon his hands,—all gifts from loyal personages. And these people were in his house, Councillor RÖmer's house; the ruby wine sparkling in the goblets was from his cellar, and the fresh, fragrant strawberries which liveried footmen were handing about in crystal saucers had been bought with his money. Frau President Urach was his deceased wife's grandmother, and did the honours in the house of the widower, with unlimited command of his means.

The councillor walked around to the western side of the house. Here only two windows on the ground-floor were illuminated; a hanging lamp between the crimson curtains of one of them gleamed out into the darkness, bathing in rosy light the white limbs of a marble nymph by a fountain in the grove. Herr RÖmer shook his head as he entered; then, giving his overcoat to a servant, he opened the door of the red-curtained apartment. The room was all red,—hangings, furniture, even the carpet was of the same dark crimson hue. Beneath the hanging lamp stood a writing-table of peculiar Chinese form, with golden arabesques covering its fine black lacquer; it was made for use in the fullest sense of the word; open books, sheets of writing-paper, and newspapers were scattered over it, with a manuscript, across which a pencil was lying, beside a small silver salver holding a goblet half full of a strong, dark-red wine. It was a room where flowers would not have flourished nor birds have sung. In each of the four corners stood a black marble pedestal, each supporting a bust of the same material, which brought into harsh relief the features it portrayed; book-shelves lined the long wall, harmonizing in colour and decoration with the writing-table, and containing finely-bound modern books as well as parchment-covered folios, and piles of pamphlets. It almost seemed as if the deep uniform crimson of the hangings and carpet had been chosen as the only fitting frame for the severe style in which the room was furnished.

As the councillor entered, a lady who had evidently been walking to and fro stood still. One might have thought that she too had just come in covered with snow from the flurry without, so dazzlingly white did she look upon the crimson carpet. It would have been difficult to say whether the soft folds of her long cashmere robe were draped so loosely about her waist and hips for the sake of convenience, or whether this strange and becoming toilette were the result of careful study; certainly the figure that stood out upon the crimson background was noble in outline, and as purely white as an Iphigenia. The lady was very beautiful, although no longer freshly young. She had a fine Roman profile, and a delicate, supple frame, but her light hair was wanting in thickness; it was cut short, and, smoothed away from the brow, curled in soft, flimsy curls about the head and neck. She was Flora Mangold, a sister-in-law of Councillor RÖmer, the twin-sister of his deceased wife. Her arms were lightly folded across her bosom, and she greeted her brother-in-law with evident eagerness.

"Well, Flora, have you left the drawing-room?" he asked.

"Do you suppose I could stay beside grandmamma's tea-table, in the midst of stockings and swaddling-clothes for poor children, and all that old woman's gossip?" she replied, in a tone of irritation.

"But there are gentlemen there, too, Floss——"

"Greater gossips than the rest, in spite of their orders and epaulettes!"

He laughed. "You are out of humour, ma chÈre," he said, sinking into an arm-chair.

She threw back her head and pressed her folded hands to her breast. "Moritz," she said, breathing hard, as if after a momentary struggle with herself, "tell me the truth; did the castle miller die beneath Bruck's knife?"

He started. "What an idea! No misfortune can be so black but that you women——"

"I pray you make me an exception there, Moritz," she interrupted him, haughtily.

"Well, with all due respect for your talent and remarkable powers of mind, are you in fact any better than the rest?" He got up and paced the room in great annoyance; this new view of the matter was startling indeed. "Beneath Bruck's knife!" he repeated, in an agitated voice. "I tell you the operation was performed before two o'clock, and the man died scarcely two hours ago. Besides, I cannot imagine how you if all others can venture to give utterance to such a thought so curtly and coldly,—I might almost say, so pitilessly."

"I of all others," she said, with emphasis, as she pressed the carpet with her foot; "I of all others, because I cannot endure to keep anything hidden in the depths of my soul. I am too proud, too unbending, to share and conceal the knowledge of wrong done by another, let that other be whom he will. Do not think that I do not suffer! It cuts me to the heart like a knife. But you have used the word 'pitilessly'; you could not better have confirmed my suspicions. Pity for bungling in science is absurd, impossible; and you as well as I are perfectly aware that Bruck's reputation as a physician has already suffered from his entire failure in the case of Countess Wallendorf."

"Oh, of course nothing could induce that worthy lady to moderate her appetite for pÂtÉ de foie gras and champagne."

"That is what Bruck says; her relatives tell another story." She pressed her palms upon her temples, as if her head ached violently. "Do you know, Moritz, when the news of the miller's death arrived, I went out of the house and ran hither and thither like one insane? Old Sommer was well known to high and low: everybody was interested in the success of the operation. Even if, as you say, he did not die immediately beneath Bruck's knife, every one of medical knowledge will maintain, and justly, that the further struggle with death was due to his strong constitution. Can you, who have no medical knowledge, be better informed? Rather do not deny that you are impressed with the same conviction! You have no idea how pale you are with agitation."

At this moment a side-door opened, and Frau President Urach appeared upon the threshold. In spite of her seventy years, she entered with an elastic step; in spite of her seventy years, she looked a wonderfully youthful grandmamma. She was not apparelled in the dress of old age; a fichu of white lace was crossed upon her breast and knotted behind at the waist. The overskirt of her pearl-gray silk gown was richly trimmed. Her gray hair, still streaked here and there with its original hue of shining gold, was puffed thickly above her brow, and above these puffs she wore a veil-like scarf of white tulle, the long ends of which concealed the throat and the neck just below the chin, where age so surely sets its seal.

She was not alone. At her side there entered a creature most strange in appearance, evidently stunted in growth, not ill proportioned in figure, but extremely small, and very thin. This insignificant body was crowned by the strongly-developed head of a young lady of perhaps twenty-four years of age. The three women now in the room had a strong family resemblance in their features; the close relationship between grandmother and grandchildren was evident, but the noble, regular profile of the youngest of the three was too long for perfect beauty, and the chin was too broad and decisively prominent. She had a sickly complexion, and her lips were bluish in hue. In her fair hair was twisted a flame-coloured velvet ribbon, and she was in very elegant full dress, save that by her side, where other ladies wear a chatelaine, she carried a small oval osier basket lined with little cushions of blue satin, among which sat a canary-bird.

"No, Henriette!" cried Flora, impatiently, as the little bird left his nest and flew about her head, "that I will not have. You must leave your menagerie outside."

"Pray now, Flora,—Jack has neither elephants' feet nor horns on his head; he cannot harm you," the little lady replied, indifferently. "Come, Jacky, come!" she called; and the bird, after flying around the ceiling, dutifully came and perched upon the forefinger she held out for him.

Flora turned away with a shrug. "I cannot understand you or your guests, grandmamma," she said, sharply. "How can you tolerate Henriette's childish nonsense? Before long she will set up her pigeon-cote and daws'-nests in your drawing-room."

"And why not, Flora?" laughed the little lady, showing a row of small, sharp teeth. "They all tolerate you, going about everywhere with a pen behind your ear, your pockets crammed with bookish stuff, and——"

"Henriette!" the Frau President sternly interrupted her. In her bearing there was great dignity, and as she graciously gave her hand in greeting to the councillor, an unmistakable air of condescension mingled with the kindliness of her manner.

"I have just heard of your return, my dear Moritz; must we wait any longer for you?" she asked, in a gentle voice that was still musical.

Ten minutes previously he had come home, resolved to don his evening dress immediately. Now he replied, with hesitation, "Dearest grandmamma, I must beg you to excuse me this evening. The event at the mill——"

"True, it is very sad; but how can it affect us? I really cannot see how to excuse you to my friends."

"They can hardly be so dull of comprehension, those worthy people, as not to understand that Kitty's grand-papa has died?" Henriette remarked, looking back over her shoulder from where she was standing in front of the book-shelves, apparently reading assiduously the titles of the books.

"Henriette, I pray you spare me your pert observations," the Frau President said. "You can, if you choose, tone down your flame-coloured head-dress, for Kitty is your step-sister; but with regard to Moritz and myself, the connection is so slight that we need take no conventional notice of the death, deplore it as we may. And, for Bruck's sake, the less said about it the better."

"Good heavens, are you all determined to be so unjust to the doctor?" cried the councillor, in despair. "No blame—not the smallest—can be attached to him; he brought all his skill, all his scientific knowledge, to bear——"

"My dear Moritz, you should hear what my old friend Doctor von BÄr has to say upon that point," the Frau President said, in interruption, lightly tapping him upon the shoulder and making a significant motion of her head towards Flora, who had gone to her writing-table.

"Oh, do not mind me, grandmamma! Do you think me so blind and deaf as not to know what BÄr's opinion is?" the beautiful girl exclaimed, with bitterness. "Bruck has, besides, condemned himself: he has not ventured to come near me this evening."

Hitherto Henriette had been standing with her back towards the rest. Now she turned round; a burning blush suddenly coloured her sallow cheek and as quickly faded. Her eyes were wonderfully fine, revealing depths of passionate feeling. They glowed like stars as she turned them, with a mixture of shy terror and positive hatred, upon her sister's countenance.

"Your last accusation he will refute in person; he will shortly be here, Flora," said the councillor, evidently relieved. "He will tell you himself that he has been driven hard indeed, to-day. You know how many patients he has seriously ill in town,—among them the poor little Lenz girl, who cannot live until morning."

The lady laughed a low, bitter laugh. "Is she going to die? Really, Moritz? Well, BÄr, too, came here to me before going to grandmamma; he spoke of the child, whom he saw yesterday, and thought not very ill; he feared, however, that Bruck was upon a false track. BÄr is an authority——"

"Yes, an authority filled with envy," said Henriette, in a clear, ringing voice. She had hastily approached, and laid her hand upon her brother-in-law's arm. "Give up trying to convince Flora, Moritz. You must see that she is determined to find her lover guilty."

"Determined? 'Tis false! I would give half that I possess to regard Bruck as I did in the beginning of our engagement,—with the same proud trust and confidence," Flora exclaimed, passionately. "But since the death of the Countess Wallendorf I have been a silent prey to doubt and mistrust; now I doubt no more: I am convinced. I know nothing, it is true, of that feminine weakness that loves without ever asking, 'Is he whom I love worthy my devotion?' I am ambitious, wildly ambitious; I care not who knows it. Without that mainspring I too might saunter along the broad highway of the commonplace like the weak and indolent of my sex. God forbid such a fate for me! How an aspiring and intellectual woman can pass her life quietly and composedly, linked to an insignificant husband, has always been incomprehensible to me; I should writhe beneath the shame of such a position."

"Oh, indeed! would it so shame you? Well, well, I suppose it would require more courage than is needed to hold forth to a roomful of students upon Æsthetics and what not," Henriette said, with a smile full of malice.

Flora cast a contemptuous glance at her sister. "Hiss, little viper, if you will. What can you know of my ideal?" she said, with a shrug. "But you are right in thinking I should be more at home in the lecture-room than by the side of a man who has stamped himself a bungler in his profession; I could not endure such chains."

"That is your affair, my child," the Frau President coolly remarked, while the councillor looked up in dismay. "You must remember that no one forced you to fetter yourself thus."

"I know that perfectly well, grandmamma; I know, too, that you would greatly have preferred that I should become the wife of the Chamberlain von Stetten, physical and financial bankrupt though he be. I grant you, also, that I refuse to allow myself to be influenced or led by others, since I know best what best beseems me.

"There, too, you are your own mistress," her grandmother rejoined, with frigid dignity; "only remember one thing,—you will find in me a determined opponent to anything like a public scandal. You surely know me well enough to be aware that I would far rather endure great personal annoyance than give any occasion for gossip. I reside here with you, and take upon myself the duties of mistress of the house with pleasure, but I must in return exact an unconditional respect for my name and position; I will not have society whispering and tattling about our affairs."

The councillor turned hastily away. He went to a window, pulled aside the curtain, and gazed out into the night. The wind, which had gradually risen to a tempest, rattled at the window-frame, and in the red light cast upon the bare, tossing branches outside, by the lamp hanging in the other window, the crimsoned snow-flakes whirled madly hither and thither like the tormenting thoughts in his own brain. He had a short time before debated in his mind whether he should not explain matters fully, at least to Flora; now he knew that she was the last person to whom he could speak upon the subject, if he did not wish that the whisper and tattle of society should drive the Frau President from his house. No; he saw clearly that his ambitious sister-in-law would publish his confession far and wide, less from solicitude for her lover than from a desire to prove that her heart, or rather her head, could not have been mistaken in its choice.

Meanwhile, Henriette turned a face of anger and scorn towards her grandmother. "It is solely to avoid furnishing gossip for society, then, that you would have my sister bear herself blameless? She can easily satisfy you. You will instantly acquit her if she can cover her breach of faith with a silken mantle. But indeed you need not be so sensitive upon the subject of scandal, grandmamma: those living in the world as we do, soon find out that society regards many a sinner of rank and wealth much as it does an old piece of valuable porcelain,—the more patched the more precious."

"I must request you to pass the remainder of the evening in your own room, Henriette," the Frau President said, now seriously angry. "In your present mood, I cannot permit you to return to the drawing-room."

"As you please, grandmamma. Come, Jack, we will go with the greatest pleasure," she said, smiling, smoothing with her cheek the bird's plumage as it sat on her forefinger. "You hate those old court-ladies, too; and you regularly peck at the great medical authority, Herr von BÄr, and nip his finger, you good little fellow, when he tries to coax you with sugar. Good-night, grandmamma; good-night, Moritz." She paused in her hasty departure, and turned back. "That strong-minded lady there," she said, with cutting emphasis, "will probably pursue the path which her dead father would have inexorably forbidden to her; while he lived there was no chance for her boasted exercise of her own will. He would never have allowed her to break her troth with an honourable man."

She left the room with her head proudly erect, but, even as she crossed the threshold, the tears which had been plainly audible in her voice as she spoke the last words gushed from her eyes.

"Thank God, she has gone!" cried Flora. "What an amount of self-control is required not to lose one's patience with her!"

"I never forget her invalid condition," the Frau President remarked, in a reproving tone.

"And she is right, in a certain sense, Flora," the councillor ventured to interpose.

"You may think as you choose upon that point, Moritz," the young lady rejoined, coldly; "but I must earnestly entreat you not to make my task more difficult by your interference. I am used, as I said just now, to judge for myself in what concerns me, and I shall do so in this case. And you may be perfectly easy,—you and grandmamma. I excessively dislike any sudden and harsh measure, and I have a noiseless ally,—time."

She took the goblet from the writing-table and moistened her pale lips with a few drops of its contents, while the Frau President, without further remonstrance, prepared to leave the room.

"Apropos, Moritz," she said, with her hand upon the knob of the door, "what is to be done with Kitty now?"

"We must leave it to the will to decide all that," he replied, drawing a long breath of relief. "I have no idea how the castle miller has arranged matters. Kitty is his natural heir, but it is doubtful whether he has left all his property to her; he always resented the fact that her birth cost his daughter her life. In any case she must come here for a while."

"Do not trouble yourself about that; she will not come; she is tied as securely to-day to the apron-string of her detestable old governess as she was during papa's lifetime," said Flora. "That is easy to see from her letters."

"Well, perhaps it is better that she should stay where she is," the Frau President remarked, with a shade of eagerness. "To be candid, I have no great desire to shelter her beneath my wing and waste my time in schooling her; it is very tiresome. I never really liked her; not because she was the child of my daughter's successor,—that I have always declared,—but she was altogether too much at home in the mill, getting her clothes and hair covered with meal; and then she was a self-willed little thing."

"A genuine 'child of the people,' and yet—papa's darling," Flora added, with a bitter smile.

"Apparently, my dear, because she was his youngest child," said the Frau President, who never permitted a suspicion, either in herself or in others, that any one belonging to her could be slighted. "You were just as much his darling at one time. Well, Moritz, are you coming?"

He hastily complied. As they left the room, Flora rang for her maid. "I wish to retire to my dressing-room to write; take my writing-materials and these papers there for me," she ordered. "Of course I can see no one this evening."

The red glow was no longer seen outside the windows, but the brilliant light from the drawing-room gleamed over the tempest-swept avenue until long past midnight. The councillor was at one of the card-tables. Upon his entrance every one received him with a kindly greeting or a warm pressure of the hand, that fell like sunshine on his anxious, troubled heart. Here, among these faces, stamped with the pride of noble birth or official arrogance, his line of conduct seemed so perfectly justifiable that he could hardly understand the tormenting scruples that assailed him. Why expose one's self to hostile criticism when one is conscious of entire innocence even in thought? And then such a low affair altogether! All this delightful scandal which was now whispered about, these stories over which each noble guest was glad to throw "a silken mantle," concerned high-born errors; but what mercy could these people show to one among them, not legitimately of them, accused of a vulgar attempt to rob the castle miller's safe? He could, however, no longer console himself with the idea that his silence harmed no one: it threatened to sever two human souls united by a betrothal ring. Pshaw! Flora was an eccentric creature. The next time some special distinction was awarded to Bruck, which his great learning and ability made certain, matters would be all right again. And with a glass of delicious punch he drained down his last scruple.