On the afternoon of the same day, a light one-horse cabriolet sped over the common which extends across country for several miles northwards of Gromowo, and in the direction of the little town.

Dark and lowering, as if within reach of one's hand, the clouds lay over the level plain. Here and there a willow stump stretched its gnarled excrescences into the fog-laden air, all saturated with moisture and glistening with the drops which hung in long rows on its bare branches. The wheels sank deep into the boggy road, winding along between withered reed-grass, and often the water splashed up as high as the box-seat.

The man who held the reins took little heed of the surrounding landscape; quite lost in thought he sat huddled up, only occasionally starting up when the reins threatened to slip from his careless fingers. Then the herculean build of his limbs became apparent, and his broad, high-arched chest expanded as if it would burst the coarse grey cloak which stretched across it in scanty folds.

The man's stature was similar to that of old Hellinger, perhaps even superior, and the face, too, bore an undeniable family resemblance; but what had there remained pleasing and soft and undefined even in old age, had here developed into harsh, impressive lines, testifying to defiance and gloomy brooding. A curly, terribly-neglected beard in dark disorder encompassed the firm-set jaw, assumed a lighter dye near the corners of the mouth, and fell upon the breast in two fair points.

This was Robert Hellinger, the owner of Gromowo manor, Olga's betrothed. Of the happiness that had come to him yesterday there was little written in his face. His grey, half-veiled eyes stared moodily into the distance, and the wrinkles between his eyebrows never for one moment disappeared. He well knew that hard work was in store for him before he could lead home his bride--hours of bitterest struggle were imminent, and even victory would bring him nothing but care and anxiety. His thoughts travelled back over the dark times that lay in the past, and that had hardly ever been illumined by a ray of light.

It was now six years since his father had solemnly made over to him, as eldest son, the old family inheritance, the manor, and had himself retired to a comfortable quiet life in the little town. On this day his period of suffering had commenced, for he was burdened with a yoke so heavy that even his herculean shoulders threatened to break under its weight; everything he gained by the work of his sinewy hands--everything of which he positively pinched himself--melted away and was swallowed up by the claims which his family laid upon him. He had no right to complain. Was it not all according to strict law? The inheritance had been exactly divided to the very last farthing among him and his six brothers and sisters, not counting the reserve which his parents claimed for themselves.

Every brick of his house, every clod of his land, was encumbered--on every ear of corn ripening in his fields his mother's suspicious gaze was fixed, for she kept strict watch lest the interests should come in a minute late. And was she not justified in so doing? Had he a right to claim more love from her than she gave to her other children? There were brothers who wanted to make their way in the world; sisters who had only been married for the sake of their dowry: they all looked anxiously and eagerly towards him as the promoter and preserver of their happiness.

The interests! That was the dreadful word that henceforth hour by hour droned in his ears, that by night startled him from his sleep and filled his dreams with wild visions. The interests! How often on their account he had beaten his brow with clenched fists! How often he had run without sense or feeling through the loamy fields, to escape from this host of glinting, gleaming devils! How often in a blind fit of rage he had smashed to pieces some tool, a ploughshare, a waggon-pole, with his fist, as if he did not mind with what weapon he fought them! But they did not leave him. All the more tenaciously did they fasten themselves on to his heels; all the more thirstily did they suck the marrow from his young bones.

What good was it that he sometimes succeeded in mastering them? This hydra everlastingly brought forth new heads; from quarter to quarter it stood there before his terrified gaze, more and more monstrous, more and more gigantic, growing and swelling, ready to pounce upon him and crush him with the weight of its body. Thus from one reprieve to the next his life had dragged along since that day which was so merrily celebrated at the "Black Eagle" with drinking of claret and champagne.

If only his mother had exercised some leniency! But she did not even exempt him from the stipulated asparagus in spring, nor even from the loan of the carriage for drives during harvest-time when the horses were so badly wanted in the fields.

"He that will not hearken to advice must suffer," she was wont to say, and he would not hearken; no, indeed not! With one short, simple "yes" he might have put a stop to all his misery, might have lived in the lap of luxury to the end of his days; and because he would not do it, out of sheer, inconceivable stubbornness, because all her wife-hunting had been to no purpose--that was why his mother could not forgive him.

Thus two years passed away. Then he began to feel that such a life must sooner or later make a wreck of him. This anxiety and worry was exhausting him more and more; he decided to put an end to it all and to demand of fate that modest share of happiness which was pledged and promised to him by a pair of faithful blue eyes, and a pale, gentle mouth. Then came a day when he brought home, as wife to his hearth, the love of his youth, who had shortly become orphaned and homeless.

It was a dreary, sad November day, and dark clouds sped like birds of ill omen across the sky. Trembling and pale, in her black mourning dress, the frail, delicate creature hung on his arm and quaked beneath every half-compassionate, half-contemptuous glance with which the strange people examined her.

As for his mother, she had received her with reproaches and maledictions, and a year had elapsed before tolerable relations were established between the two.

Martha had kept up bravely, and in spite of her delicate health, had worked from morn to night in order to set to rights what had all gone topsy-turvy during the master's long bachelorhood.

And when, after three years of quiet, cheering companionship. Heaven was about to bless their union, she had--even when her condition already required the greatest care--always been up and doing, working and ordering in kitchen, attic, and cellar.

It almost seemed as if thus by labour she wanted to give an equivalent for her missing dowry.

Then--two days after the birth of a child--Olga had suddenly arrived in Gromowo. He had not seen her since his marriage. At first sight of her he was almost startled. She came towards him with an expression of such proud reserve and bitterness; she had blossomed forth to such regal beauty.

And this woman he was to-day to call his own! Yet what a world of suffering, how many days of gloomiest brooding and despair, how many nights full of horrible visions lay between now and then!

He shuddered; he did not like to recall it any more. To-day everything seemed to have turned out well; Martha's glorified image smiled down in peace and benediction, and, like a flower sprung from her grave, happiness was blooming anew for him.

Nearer and nearer came the turrets of the little town; higher and higher they stretched up behind the alder thickets. And a quarter of an hour later the carriage drove into the roughly-paved street.

Soon after entering the gates Robert made the discovery that people who met him to-day behaved towards him in the most peculiar manner. Some avoided him, others in evident confusion doffed their caps and then as quickly as possible fled from his presence. On the other hand, the windows of every house past which the carriage drove, filled with heads that stared at him gravely and disappeared hurriedly behind the curtains at his greeting.

He shook his head doubtfully. But as his mind was so full of the approaching struggle, he took not much notice, and henceforth looked neither to the right nor to the left. At the corner of the marketplace, where there used to be the little excise-office, stood his uncle's, the doctor's, old housekeeper, holding her hands hidden under her blue apron, and with an expression on her face like that of an undertaker.

As the carriage approached, she signed to him to stop.

"Well, Mrs. Liebetreu," he said, amused, "you at least do not take to your heels at my approach to-day."

The old woman gazed up at the sky, so that she might not have to look him in the face.

"Oh! young master," said she--he was always called "young master," to distinguish him from his father, though he was long past thirty--"the doctor wishes me to ask if you will kindly just step round there first; he has something to say to you."

"Is what he has to say to me very pressing?"

The woman was very much terrified, for she thought the unhappy intelligence would now fall to her lot to tell.

"Oh, gracious me!" she said; "he only put it like that."

"Well, then, give my kindest regards to my uncle the doctor, and the message, that I only just wanted first to have a little talk with my parents--he knows what about--and will then come round to him at once."

The old woman muttered something, but the words stuck in her throat. The carriage rolled on in the direction of old Hellinger's villa, that lay there under mighty old lime-trees, as if resting beneath a canopy. The bright plate-glass windows greeted him cheerily, the shining tiled roof gleamed in the light, the tranquillity of a well-provisioned old age rested, as usual, over all. He tied his horse to the garden-railings, and strode with heavy, noisy tread up the small flight of steps, on the parapet of which, in wide-bellied urns, half-faded aster plants mournfully drooped their heads.

The hall-bell sounded in shrill tones through the house, but no one put in an appearance to receive him. He threw down his rain-soaked cloak on one of the oak chests in which his mother's linen treasures were hidden away. Then he stepped into the sitting-room--it was empty.

"The old people are probably taking their afternoon nap," he muttered; "and I think it will be advisable to let them have their sleep out to-day."

He flung himself into a corner of the sofa, and gazed towards the door; for he privately hoped that Olga might have noticed his conveyance in front of the house, and would come down to shake hands with him.

He began to get impatient. "Can she have gone out to the manor?" he asked himself But, no--she would not do that; for she knew he would come to speak to his parents.

"I will knock at her door," he decided, and got up.

He smiled anxiously, and stretched his mighty limbs. After having longed for her incessantly since yesterday evening, now, at the moment of beholding her again, he was filled with a peculiar fear of facing her. The feeling of humble reverence, which always took possession of him in her presence, now again made itself evident. Was it possible that this woman had yesterday hung upon his neck? And what if she regretted it to-day--if she went back from her word?

But at this moment all his defiance awoke within him. He opened his arms wide, and with a smile which reflected the memory of happy hours recently lived through, he cried:

"Let her but dare such a thing! With these hands of mine I will lift her up and carry her to my home! If Martha gives her consent, I wonder who should object."

On tip-toe, so as not to wake his parents, he climbed up the stairs, which nevertheless creaked and groaned under the weight of his body.

Before Olga's door he started back, for he saw the gleam of light which fell through the broken panel on to the corridor.

No one answered to his knocking. Nevertheless, he entered.

* * * * *

A moment later the whole house trembled in its foundations, as if the roof had fallen in.

The two old people, who had retired to their bedroom to recuperate their strength after those trying hours of the forenoon, started up in terror. They called the maids. But these had run off, so that the town should no longer be kept in ignorance of the newest details about the sad occurrence.

"You go up," said the energetic woman to her husband, and tremblingly put out her hand for the little bottle of sulphuric ether which she always kept at hand. It was the first time in her life that she felt frightened.

When old Hellinger entered the gable-room, he saw a sight which froze the blood in his veins.

His son's body lay stretched on the ground. As he fell he must have clutched the supports of the bier on which the dead girl had been placed, and dragged down the whole erection with him; for on the top of him, between the broken planks, lay the corpse, in its long white shroud, its motionless face upon his face, its bared arms thrown over his head.

At this moment he regained consciousness, and started up. The dead girl's head sank down from his, and bumped on to the floor.

"Robert, my boy!" cried the old man, and rushed towards him.

With wide-open, glassy eyes, Robert stared about him. He seemed not yet to have recovered his senses. Then he perceived one of the arms, which, as the body dropped sidewards, had fallen right across his chest. His gaze travelled along it up to the shoulder, as far as the neck--as far as the white rigidly-smiling face.

Supported by the old man's two arms, he raised himself up. He tottered on his legs like a bull that has received a blow from an axe.

"Good God, boy, do come to your senses!" cried his father, taking him by his shoulders. "The misfortune has taken place; we are men, we must keep our composure."

His son looked at him vacantly, helplessly as a child. Then he bent over the dead body, lifted it up, and laid it across the bed, pushing the fragments of the bier to one side with his foot.

Then he seated himself close to her on the pillow, and mechanically wound a coil of her flowing hair round his finger.

The old man began to entertain fears of his son's sanity.

"Robert," he said, coming close up to him again, "pull yourself together. Come away from here; you cannot bring her back to life again."

Then he broke into a laugh so shrill and horrible, that it froze the very marrow in his father's bones.

All of a sudden his stupor left him; he jumped up, his eyes glowed, and on his temples the veins swelled up.

"Where is mother?" he screamed, advancing towards the old man.

He sought to pacify him.

"Good heavens! do have patience! We will tell you all."

The old lady, who had already been standing for a long time listening on the stairs, at this moment put in her head at the door.

He rushed past his father and at her as if about to strangle her; but he had at least so much reason left as to be sensible of the monstrousness of his proceeding. His arms fell down limp at his sides--he set his teeth as if to choke down his pent-up rage. "Mother," said he, "you shall account to me for this. I demand an explanation of you. Why did she die?"

The old woman came towards him with tender compassion, and made as if she would burst into tears upon his neck.

With a rough movement he shook her off.

"Leave that, mother," he said, "I claim her from you!"

"But, Robert," whined the old woman, "is this the way for a son to treat his mother? Adalbert, just tell him how he ought to treat his mother!"

He took hold of the old man's hands. "You keep out of the game, father," he said. "The account which I have to settle to-day with my mother concerns us two alone. Mother, I ask you once more: why did she die?" He was leaning against the wall and stared at her with half-closed, blood-shot eyes.

Mrs. Hellinger had meanwhile commenced to cry.

"Do you suppose I know?" she sobbed; "do you suppose anybody at all knows? We found her in her bed, that is all. She has brought disgrace upon our house, the miserable creature, in return for----"

"Do not abuse her, mother," he said, wildly, speaking in an angry undertone; "you know very well that she was my bride!"

His mother gave vent to a cry of astonishment, and her husband too made a movement of surprise.

"What! you do not know that? Mother," he cried, and pressed both his fists to his temples, "did she say nothing to you? Did she not come to you last night, and tell you what had taken place between her and me during the day?"

"Heaven forbid!" groaned the old woman. "Scarce a syllable did she speak to me, but went and locked herself up in her room."

"Mother," he said, and stepped close up to her. "When she had confessed all to you, did you not work upon her conscience? Did you not impress it upon her that if she truly loved me she must give me up, that she would bring misfortune upon me, and Heaven knows what besides! Mother, did you not do this?"

"My own son does not believe me! My own son gives me the lie," whimpered the old woman. "These are the thanks that I get from my children to-day."

He grasped her right hand. "Mother," he said, "you have done me many a wrong in all these years. The worst and bitterest I ever experienced came to me through you."

"Merciful Heavens," shrieked the old woman, "these are the thanks--these are the thanks!"

"But all the evil you did to me and Martha I will forgive you, mother," he continued, "nay, more even! On my bended knees I will ask your forgiveness for ever having harboured a bitter thought against you; but one thing you must do for me--here by her dead body you must swear that you knew of nothing, that in all things you were speaking the truth." And he dragged her to the corpse that stared up at him with its ecstatic smile--a bride's smile to her bridegroom.

"That such a thing should be necessary between us," complained the old woman, and cast a glance of bitter hatred at him out of her swollen eyes. But she suffered him to lay her right hand on the dead girl's forehead; she stroked it and sobbed, "I swear it, my sweet one, you know best that I knew nothing and never required anything wrong of you." Thereupon she gave a sigh of relief, as if she had suddenly come to understand what a gain this tragic deed would mean for her and her family. Sincere gratitude lay in the tender caress with which she fondled the dead face.

At this moment the old physician came rushing into the room. He had hoped to overtake Robert and prepare him for the worst, and saw in terror that he had come too late.

Old Hellinger hurried towards him and whispered in his ear: "Take him away, he is out of his senses! We can do nothing with him here!"

Robert stood there clutching at the bed-posts, his chest heaving, his face as if turned to stone with gloomy, tearless misery.

The old doctor rubbed his stubbly grey beard against his shoulder, and growled in that roughly compassionate way which goes quickest to the hearts of strong men.

"Come away, my boy; don't do anything foolish; do not disturb her rest."

Robert started and nodded several times.

Then suddenly--as if overpowered by his misery--he fell down in front of the bed and cried out, "Wherefore didst thou die?"