Читать книгу No Surrender - E. Werner - Страница 7

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Some weeks had passed. Baroness Harder and her daughter had made and received the necessary inauguratory visits, and the former lady had observed with much satisfaction the respect and deference everywhere shown them on the Governor's account. Still better pleased was she to discover that her brother-in-law really required nothing further from her than to play the hostess and dispense the hospitalities of the Castle; no troublesome or unpalatable duties were imposed on her, as she at first had feared might be the case. All care for, all the responsibility of, the great and strictly-ordered household devolved, now as before her coming, on an old major-domo who had filled the office for many years, and who regulated and directed everything, rendering account to his master alone. The Baron had probably had too good an insight into the management which had obtained in his sister-in-law's town establishment to grant her anything like independent action in such matters. Socially and ostensibly, she represented the mistress of the house, of which, in reality, she was but the guest. Some women might have felt the position in which she was thus placed a humiliating one, but a desire for domination was as foreign to the Baroness's mind as a sense of duties to be fulfilled. She was too superficial to understand either of these great motive-powers. Affairs were shaping themselves in a far more satisfactory manner than, after the catastrophe which followed her husband's death, she had had a right to expect. She was living with her daughter in the midst of luxury; the Baron had assigned to her a sum by no means inconsiderable for her personal expenses; Gabrielle was his acknowledged heiress. Taking all this into consideration, they might well, she argued, bear the constraint which was the unavoidable result of the situation.

Gabrielle, too, had quickly grown accustomed to her new surroundings. The grandeur and ceremony of the Government-house, the scrupulous punctuality and strict etiquette which there prevailed, the boundless respect and prompt service of the domestics, to whom the slightest gesture of the master's hand was a command--all this astonished the young lady, and impressed her with a certain awe. It certainly presented a striking contrast to the household system she had seen at work in her parents' city home, where the greatest external splendour and the greatest internal disorder reigned together, where the servants permitted to themselves all sorts of trickery and disrespectful negligence, where the claims of family life were lost sight of in the pursuit of pleasure. In later days, too, as the load of debt accumulated, and the difficulties grew more and more pressing, there had come violent scenes between Baron von Harder and his wife, scenes in which each accused the other of extravagance, while the common prodigal outlay went on unchecked. The half grown-up daughter was too often a witness of these altercations. At once spoiled and neglected by her parents, who liked to parade the pretty child, but, beyond this, concerned themselves but little about her, she lacked all serious training. Even the events of the last year, her father's death, and the subsequent collapse of their fortunes, had passed over the young girl's head, leaving scarcely a trace behind. Sorrow and pain seemed to have no hold on that sunny, volatile nature.

Sufficient judgment, however, Gabrielle did possess to see that the existent order of things in this parvenu's house was far more fitting and in better taste than that she had known at home, and she frequently tormented her mother with remarks on the subject.

The Baroness was sitting on the little sofa in her boudoir, turning over the leaves of a fashion-book. A great reception was to be held at the castle in the course of the next few days. The highly important question of what dresses should be worn was now awaiting decision, and both mother and daughter were zealously applying themselves to the study which had such attractions for at least one of them.

"Mamma," said Gabrielle, who was sitting by her mother, holding some stray leaves of the fashion-book. "Uncle Arno declared yesterday that these great parties were a troublesome duty, imposed on him by his position. He does not take the smallest pleasure in them."

The Baroness shrugged her shoulders. "He takes pleasure in nothing but work. I never met with a man who gave himself so little rest and recreation as my brother-in-law."

"Rest?" repeated Gabrielle. "As if he even knew what it meant, or could endure it if he did know! Quite early in the morning he is sitting at his writing-table, and at midnight I often see a light in his study. Now he is busy in his own bureaux, then in the other departments; after that, he drives out, surveying improvements here and there, and inspecting heaven knows what! In between these occupations he receives all sorts of people, listens to reports, issues orders.... I really believe he gets through more work himself than all his clerks put together."

"Yes, he was always a restless creature," assented the Baroness. "My sister often assured me that it made her nervous even to think of the unceasing whirl of activity in which her husband spent his days."

Gabrielle leaned her head on her hand, and mused a little thoughtfully.

"Mamma," she soon began again, "your sister's married life must have been a very dull and tiresome one."

"Tiresome? What makes you think so?"

"Well, I only mean by what I hear in the Castle. My aunt lived in the right wing, and my uncle in the left. Sometimes he would not go near her rooms for weeks, and she never went to his. He had his own carriages and servants, and she had hers. They each went and came as they liked, without giving each other a thought. It must have been a strange sort of life."

"Oh, you are quite mistaken," replied her mother, who evidently saw nothing very shocking in such a state of things. "It was a perfectly happy marriage. My sister had never reason to complain of her husband, who fulfilled her every wish. She, fortunate being, was never subjected to the harsh words, to the scenes, which in later years, I had constantly to endure."

"Yes, you and papa were always quarrelling, that is true," said Gabrielle, naïvely. "Uncle Arno never did that, I am sure; but he took no interest in his wife, though he can take an interest in everything else, even in my schooling. It was very rude of him to say, a little while ago, in your presence, that he thought my education very deficient and neglected, and that it was easy to see at a glance I had always been left to maids and governesses."

"I am, unfortunately, accustomed to such inconsiderate, unkind speeches from him," declared the Baroness, with a sigh, which, however, did not for a moment interrupt her close examination of a pattern before her. "If I submit to them, I make the sacrifice simply and solely with a view to your future, my child."

Her daughter did not seem particularly moved by this proof of maternal solicitude.

"I was catechised like a little school-girl," she grumbled on. "He worried me so with his questions and cross-questions, that I got quite confused at last, and then he shrugged his shoulders and decreed that I should begin taking lessons again. Take lessons at seventeen! He will have masters out from the town for me, he says; but I shall just tell him pointblank that it is not necessary, and he need not trouble himself about the matter."

The mother looked up from her fashion-plates.

"For Heaven's sake, do nothing of the kind. As it is, you seem to live in a state of continual rebellion to your guardian, and I often tremble with fear lest you should rouse his anger with your pertness and obstinacy. So far, I must say, he has put up with your conduct with wonderful patience, he who could never brook a contrary word!"

"I would a great deal rather he grew angry," said Gabrielle, petulantly. "I can't endure him to smile down at me from that great height, as if I were too insignificant a child to annoy or aggravate him--he invariably does smile in that way when I attempt it--and when he is so gracious as to kiss my forehead, I feel as if I should like to run away from the place."

"Gabrielle, I do beg of you----"

"It is of no use, mamma, I can't help it. Whenever I come near Uncle Arno, I have a feeling as though I must defend myself, defend myself with all my might and main against something--something there is about him. I don't know what it is, but it worries and vexes me. I cannot behave to him as to other people. I cannot, and what is more, I will not!"

The young lady's last words were uttered in a tone of spirited defiance. She took up her hat and parasol from the table, and prepared to depart.

"Where are you going?" asked her mother.

"Only into the garden for half an hour. It is too hot here in these rooms."

The Baroness protested. She wished to have the grave question of the toilette settled first, but Gabrielle seemed to have lost all interest in it for that day, and was, besides, too much accustomed to follow the bent of her own caprices even to heed the objection. Next minute she hurried away.

The garden lay at the back of the Castle, and was bounded by its walls on one side, while on the other it stretched away to the edge of the steeply-sloping hill. The high fortification-walls, which had formerly closed it in on this side also, had been taken down, and were now replaced by a low parapet completely clothed in ivy. A full, free view could thus be had of the surrounding country. Below lay the valley, here widening to its fullest breadth, and displaying to the eye of the spectator its picturesque sites and varied beauties. The Castle-mount was famed for its prospect far and wide. The garden itself still bore traces of those long-bygone times when it had served as pleasance to the mediæval stronghold. Somewhat narrow, somewhat dusky, and very limited in space, it was neither bright with sunshine nor gay with flowers.

One rarer charm, however, it could boast. Majestic ancient limes shaded its walks, and altogether screened it from view; not even from the Castle windows could it be overlooked. Gravely the great trees stood, considering the younger generation which had sprung up on and about the former ramparts, clustering down the hill-sides, and adorning them with their slender stems and fresh tender green. Those leafy giants, the limes, had struck root in the soil more than a century before; their grand old trunks had weathered many a storm, and the mighty branches which formed their crests were interwoven in one vast thick canopy, through which but few sunbeams pierced their way.

The whole space beneath lay in broad, deep shade. Hardly a flower throve in this dim retreat, but under foot was a pleasant stretch of lawn dotted here and there by clumps of bushes, from the midst of which came the low plash and murmur of a fountain. This fountain was in the taste of the last century, and ornamented with old weather-beaten statues, representing, in fantastic fashion, sprites and water-nymphs. Dark, damp moss covered their stony heads and arms supporting shells, from each of which a bright jet of water shot aloft, to fall in a million diamond-drops into the great basin below. Here, too, the grey stones were carpeted with a close mossy velvet which gave a singularly deep colouring to the crystal-clear water. The Nixies' Well, as it was called from the figures which adorned it, dated from the Castle's earliest times, and still played a certain rôle in the traditions of the country-side.

An old legend had attributed some healing power to the spring, and, notwithstanding the fact that the old mountain-fortress had been transformed into a most prosaic official residence, a superstitious belief in that legend was still firmly rooted in the mind of the people. Water was fetched thence on certain days of the year, and employed as a preventive against sickness and as a remedy in various ailments, to the supreme disgust of the Governor, who had done his best on several occasions to put an end to the folly. He had even ordered the Castle-garden, which had hitherto been accessible to the public, to be closed, and forbidden the admittance to it of any stranger. This prohibition, however, had a contrary effect to that desired. The people adhered obstinately to their superstition, and clung more tenaciously than ever to the object of it. The servants of the household were moved by prayers, or bribed by presents, to tolerate in secret that which they dared not openly allow. The Castle-fountain retained its old reputation, and its waters were venerated as almost holy, though, to be sure, the divinities to whom it had been consecrated were pagan enough in their outward semblance.

Gabrielle too had heard of these things, had heard of them from the Baron himself, who frequently alluded to the subject with angry ridicule; and it might possibly be that lurking spirit of rebellion against her guardian, so dreaded by her mother, which led the young lady to select this as her favourite spot. To-day again she sought it, but neither the Nixies' Well nor the noble prospect spreading out yonder on the unenclosed side of the garden had power to chain her attention. Gabrielle was out of humour, and she had some cause for discontent. After the boundless liberty she had enjoyed at Z----, the strict formal etiquette of the Government-house galled and irritated her. She could not reconcile herself to it; the less that this etiquette was an insuperable obstacle to the frequent meetings with George Winterfeld on which she had counted.

Here in R----, the young people were completely separated. With the exception of a chance encounter now and again, always in the presence of witnesses, they were fain to content themselves with a casual glimpse of each other at a distance, with some little secret signal, as when George would pass beneath the window and furtively wave his hand to a slender, white-robed figure above. He had attempted to approach her. His previous acquaintance with them justifying the step, he had paid a visit to the ladies. The Baroness would have had no objection to receive the agreeable young man, as she had received him previously, but Raven gave her very decidedly to understand that he did not desire anything like intimacy between the ladies of his family and one of his young clerks who could have no claim to such a distinction. So the visit was accepted, but no invitation to repeat it was given, and thus the attempt proved abortive.

True, it was impatience, rather than actual trouble of mind, which made Gabrielle rebel against the restraint everywhere surrounding her. Since the Baron had so calmly deposed her to the rank of a child, she had missed George's tender and yet passionate homage, which formerly she had accepted as a thing of course. He never thought her education deficient and neglected, he never catechised her, or expected her to take wearisome lessons, as did her guardian, who clearly did not know how young ladies of her age ought to be treated. In George's estimation she was faultless; the one woman to be adored; he was happy when she just blew a kiss to him from afar.... And yet she was angry with George too. Why did he not try more to break through the barriers which separated them? Why did he remain at so respectful a distance? Why, at least, did he not write to her? The young girl was too childish and inexperienced to do justice to that feeling of delicate consideration which made her lover shrink from anything likely to cast the least shadow on her, which made him endure silence and separation rather than venture on any step that might imperil her good name.

"Well, Gabrielle, are you trying to fathom the secrets of the Nixies' Well?" said a voice, suddenly.

She looked quickly round. Baron von Raven stood before her--he must just have stepped out from among the bushes. It was a most unusual thing for him to set foot in the garden--he had neither time nor inclination for solitary walks. Some special motive must have brought him here to-day, for he went straight up to the fountain, and began to examine it carefully on every side.

"Well, Uncle Arno, I should think you ought to be better acquainted with the secrets than I am," retorted Gabrielle, laughing. "I am still a stranger in the land, and you have lived at the Castle ever so long."

"Do you think I have had time to listen to these nursery-tales?"

The contemptuous tone in which he spoke jarred on the girl, she hardly knew why. "Did you never care for such nursery-tales, not even as a boy?"

"Not even as a boy. I had something better to think of even then."

Gabrielle looked up at him. That proud, stern face, with its expression of sombre earnest, certainly did not give the idea that its owner could ever have known or cared for the fairy world of youth.

"Nevertheless, my visit to-day is to the Nixies' Well," he went on. "I have given orders to have the fountain pulled down and the spring stopped; but I wanted to see first how it was likely to affect the ground, and what precautions should be taken."

Gabrielle turned upon him in alarm and indignation.

"The fountain is to be destroyed? Why?"

"Because I am tired at length of all the folly connected with it. The absurd superstition is not to be uprooted. In spite of my strict orders to the contrary, water is constantly being fetched from the well, and thus the preposterous delusion is kept alive. It is high time to put an end to it, and that can only be accomplished by doing away with the object to which the superstition clings. I am sorry that one of the Castle's notable old curiosities should have to fall a sacrifice--but no matter, the sacrifice must be made."

"But you will be robbing the garden of its chief ornament," cried Gabrielle. "It is the sparkle and murmur of the fountain which gives to the place its greatest charm. And that silver-clear water is to be driven down into the earth? It is a shame, Uncle Arno, and I won't see it done."

Raven, who was still busy closely inspecting the fountain, turned his head slowly towards her.

"You won't see it done?" he asked, looking at her sharply, but not with the threatening imperious frown wherewith he was accustomed to crush contradiction in the bud; there was even the faintest flicker of a smile about his lips. "Then, of course, I shall have no alternative but to recall the order I have given ... it would be the first time such a thing ever happened to me! Do you really suppose, child, that I shall give up a resolve of mine in deference to your romantic fancies?"

Again there came that superior, half-derisive, half-pitying smile which Gabrielle hated, and the word 'child' which was equally abhorrent to her. Deeply wounded in her dignity as a maiden of seventeen, she preferred to make no answer, but contented herself with casting at her guardian a look eloquent with indignation.

"You are behaving as though the demolition of the fountain were a personal affront to yourself," said the Baron. "I see you still preserve your childish respect for the old hobgoblin stories, and are in right earnest afraid of the nixies and the phantom-folk."

"I wish the nixies would avenge the contempt now shown them and the intended destruction of their home," said Gabrielle, in a tone which was meant to be playful, but which vibrated with real anger. "The chastisement would not fall on me."

"But on me, you think," said Raven, sarcastically. "No, no; make your mind easy, child. It is only your poetic, moonlight natures which are exposed to these things. The nixies' charm would utterly fail if tried on me."

They were standing close to the fountain's edge. The water fell with a soft monotonous plash and ripple out of the stone shells down into the basin below. Suddenly a breezy gust diverted the course of the jet, dashing its spray in a sparkling shower at once over the Baron and Gabrielle. The girl sprang back with a cry. Raven stood quietly where he was.

"That caught us both," said he. "The nixies seem to be impartial in their favours. They stretch forth their dripping arms to friend and foe alike."

Gabrielle had retreated to the garden-seat, and was busy wiping the glittering drops from her dress with her handkerchief. His raillery irritated her beyond all telling, and yet she hardly knew what answer to make. Had any one else so spoken to her, she would have found some gay repartee, would have turned the accident into a joke, and made it a pretext for merry banter. But now she could not do this. The Baron's jests were always caustic. It was irony at most which now and then gleamed in his face, and caused the wonted gravity of his features to relax.

With a rapid movement he shook off the drops wherewith he too was plentifully besprinkled, and drew near the garden-seat in his turn, adding:

"I am sorry to have to spoil your favourite spot, but, as regards the fountain, the edict has gone forth. You will have to make the best of it."

Gabrielle cast a sorrowful look at the shining, falling water. Its dreamy murmur had possessed a mysterious attraction for her from the very first day. She was almost ready to cry, as she answered:

"I know you do not care how your orders vex and distress other people, and that it is quite useless for me to ask a favour of you. You never listen to petitions of any sort."

Raven crossed his arms quietly and looked down at her.

"Ah! you have found that out already?"

"Yes; and nobody ever thinks of coming to you with one. They are all afraid of you--the servants, your clerks, mamma even--every one but me."

"You are not afraid?"

"No!"

The answer came boldly and resolutely from the young lady's lips. She seemed to have reassumed her warlike attitude, and to have determined this time on exasperating the dreaded guardian--but in vain. He remained perfectly calm, and appeared rather amused than offended at his ward's spirit of contradiction.

"It is fortunate your mother is not here," he remarked. "She would be a prey to the keenest anxiety, and quite despair of the perverse young head which will not bend to necessity, as she herself does with admirable self-abnegation. You should take example by her."

"Oh, yes! mamma is docility itself where you are concerned," cried Gabrielle, growing more and more excited; "and she expects the same from me. But I will not play the hypocrite, and I cannot like you. Uncle Arno, for you are not good to us, and never have been good to us. Your very reception of us when we came was so humiliating that I should have been glad to go away again at once; and since then you have daily and hourly let us feel that we are dependent on you. You treat my mother with a disrespect which often makes me go hot with indignation. You speak in a slighting way of my papa, who is dead and cannot defend himself, and you behave to me as though I were a sort of toy not to be thought of seriously. You have taken us in, and we live in your Castle, where everything is much grander and finer than in my own home, but I would far rather be away in our Swiss exile, as mamma calls it--in our little house by the lake, which was so simple and modest, where we had barely what was necessary, but where, at least, we were free from you and your tyranny. Mamma insists on it I must bear it, because you are rich, and because my future depends on your favour. But I do not want your money; I do not care about being your heiress. I should like to go away from here; the sooner the better!"

She had sprung up from her seat and stood facing him, glowing with passionate excitement, one little foot firmly planted in advance, her head thrown back, her eyes brimming with tears of anger and of mortification; but there was more in this stormy outbreak than the mere defiance of a wayward child. Every word betrayed intense and deeply-wounded feelings; and there was, indeed, but too much truth in the accusation she thus boldly launched at her guardian.

Raven had uttered no syllable of interruption. He had stood immovable, his gaze riveted on her face; but now, as she ceased speaking, and, drawing a long breath, pressed her hands on her bosom, while a torrent of hot tears burst from her eyes, he stooped down suddenly and said, with great earnestness:

"Do not cry, Gabrielle. To you, at least, I have been unjust. I own it."

Gabrielle's tears were stayed. Now only, as reflection succeeded to excitement, did she realise all the imprudence of her words. She had surely counted on an outbreak of swift, fierce wrath; and, in its stead, there met her this inexplicable calm. She stood, mute and almost abashed, looking to the ground.

"So you do not want my money?" went on the Baron. "How do you know what my intention may be with regard to it? I have never made any communication to you on the subject, to my knowledge; yet the topic would appear to have been well discussed between you and your mother."

The young girl flushed crimson.

"I do not know ... we never----"

"Do not attempt to deny it, child. You are as little versed in falsehood as in mercenary calculation, or you would never have adopted such an attitude towards me, I am not angry with you for it. I can forgive open defiance. Hypocrisy and systematic scheming I could not have forgiven you at your age. Thank God, the faulty education has not done so much harm as I feared."

He took her hand quietly, as though nothing unusual had happened, drew her down on to the bench, and seated himself by her.

Gabrielle made a little attempt to move away from him.

"Stay! you must allow me to meet your declaration of war with an answer in due form," said the Baron. "Your mother will not share in the hostilities; at least, not openly. I am sure she has enjoined it on you as a duty to be amiable and gracious in your manner towards the parvenu."

"What do you mean?" asked the girl, in confusion.

"Well, the term cannot be unfamiliar to you. It was, I believe, the special designation accorded to me in your father's house."

This time Gabrielle bravely met the look which rested on her face.

"I know my parents had no love for you," she answered. "How could they? You had never been anything but hostile to them."

"I to them, or they to me? but no matter, it comes to the same. These are things whereof you, Gabrielle, are not yet qualified to judge. You have no notion what it is for a man holding an inferior position, such as mine then was, to enter an eminently aristocratic family and the high social sphere in which that family moved. In those circles I had then, and have had since, but one friend, your grandfather. With every one else I had to win my place by force of conquest; and there are but two ways to this end. Either the aspirant must bow his head and meekly submit to all such humiliations as are showered on a parvenu--he must either show himself deeply sensible of the honour conferred on him, and content himself with being tolerated--and to this my nature was not suited--or he must boldly usurp the master's place, assert an authority over the whole clique, show them there is a power mightier than that of their genealogies, and set his heel on all their prejudices and arrogant pretensions. Then they learn to bow before him. As a rule, it is far easier to govern and keep men under than is generally supposed. You must know how to overawe them. Therein lies the whole secret of success."

Gabrielle shook her head slightly.

"These are hard principles."

"They result from my experience of the world, and I have thirty years' advantage over you in this respect. Do you think I never had my grand ideals, my dreams, and my enthusiasm? Do you think my heart was never fired with all the ardent imaginings of youth? But these things die out as we advance in life. I could not carry my dreams with me into such a career as mine. They hold you to the ground; it was my wish to mount, and I have mounted. Truly, I had to pay a high price for my chance--too high a price, perhaps; but no matter, I have attained my end."

"And has it made you happy?" The question came almost involuntarily from the young girl's lips.

Raven shrugged his shoulders.

"Happy? Life is a struggle, not a state of beatitude. One must throw one's adversary, or be thrown--there is no third issue. You, indeed, look on all this with other eyes as yet. To you, life is still one long summer day, bright as the light shining out yonder. You still believe that far away in the glistening distance, over those blue mountains, there lies a paradise of joy and content. You are mistaken, child. The golden sun shines down on endless sorrow and misery, and over beyond the blue mountains is nothing but the toilsome road from the cradle to the grave, the long route we diversify with so much strife and hatred. Life is only one great battle to be fought every day afresh: men are but puppets to be governed--and despised."

There was an indescribable hardness and harshness is his words, but there was in them also all the decision and energy proper to the man. He was enouncing a dogma which had become to him indisputable. The bitterness of spirit pervading his profession of faith escaped, indeed, in a great measure his girlish hearer, who listened half amazed, half indignant--listened and wondered.

"But, finally, there comes a time when the everlasting combat sickens," Raven went on; "when a man comes to ask himself whether, after all, the once dreamed-of greatness were worth the stake of all he possessed, when he counts the sum of victories achieved by constant wrestling and unremitting exertions, and, counting them, grows heartily weary of the game he has played so long. I am weary of it often--very weary!"

He leaned back, and gazed out into the distance. There was gloomy care in his look, and the deep weariness of which he spoke re-echoed in his voice. Gabrielle was silent, greatly embarrassed by the serious turn the conversation had taken, and feeling herself led away into quite unknown paths. Hitherto she had seen in her guardian the master only--the master, iron of will and inaccessible to sentiment. His behaviour towards herself had been marked by the mere indulgent condescension with which a man stoops to a child's range of ideas. He had never spoken to her in any but the half-kindly, half-jesting manner he had assumed to-day on first meeting her.

For the first time this taciturn, rigidly reserved nature expanded in a moment of self-forgetfulness. Gabrielle looked down into a depth whereof she had not dreamed; but instinctively she felt that she must not move, must not conjure up the strong emotions stirring below the surface.

A long pause followed. The two looked out silently at the broad landscape lying before them in the warm light of a mellow August day. The month had nearly run its course, and summer seemed before her departure to be shedding all her bountiful stores of loveliness over the earth. Resplendent sunshine steamed over the ancient city spread at the foot of the Castle-hill, flooded the pasture-lands and fields, gleamed on the hamlets which dotted the country far and near, and sparkled in the ripples of the river winding its way majestically through the valley.

Enclosing this valley stood the circling hills, some with softly modulated lines, some rising boldly, jagged and rugged, with their stretches of green meadow and dark patches of forest, out from which, here and there, a pilgrim's shrine shone whitely, or a ruined fortress, grey with age, reared its crumbling walls. In the far distance, half veiled in blue mist, rose the grander mountains, a noble background bounding the horizon, and over all the azure sky smiled serene and gracious, and the great sea of ether was filled with a golden haze. It was one of those days when the earth lies bathed in light, so saturated with warmth and brilliant in beauty, that it would seem as though the world's wide compass held naught else than sunshine, glorious sunshine.

No stronger contrast could have been found than this beaming landscape without, and the deep cool shade of the Castle-garden, buried in its sombre quiet. The mighty crests of the limes, with their closely-woven boughs, shed a sort of mild green twilight on the space below, and from beneath the tall trees came the monotonous plash of the fountain. In unvarying alternation the crystal column rose on high, splintered into a thousand fragments, and sank to earth again. Occasionally a ray of light, straying into this retired nook, would strike the falling spray, transforming it into a shower of diamonds, but next moment the glory was gone. All lay in cool shadow again, and through the misty veil of water the grey figures of the sirens, with their long serpent hair and stony features, looked spectrally forth.

The still, sultry noon seemed to have hushed all Nature into dreamy repose. Not a bird fluttered, not a leaf stirred; from the Nixies' Well alone came a mysterious murmur, breaking the deep stillness. Thus from time immemorial had the spring rippled and babbled here on the Castle-hill; for more than a century now, clad in the stone vesture into which it had been forced, had this faithful companion fulfilled its duty, quickening the solitude, enlivening the sequestered retreat of the Castle-garden. Over its head had swept all the hurricanes which the old fortress had braved of yore--the hurricanes of war, the stormy, violent times of battle and strife, of victory and defeat. Following on these had come a period of splendour and greatness, during which the ancient stronghold had disappeared, and in its place a princely mansion had arisen. All this the ever-flowing fount had witnessed. Historic events had befallen; generations had come and gone, until, at length, a new era had dawned--the era of modern progress, changing, modifying, ordering all afresh. To this puissant influence everything had yielded--save only and except the sacred spring, fenced around by a rampart of legend and superstition. But now its turn, too, had come. The old statues, which had so long protectingly surrounded it, were to fall, and the bubbling water was to be driven from the cheery light of day down into the dark earth beneath, there to be held captive for evermore.

Were its import a complaint, or a tale of whispered memories, that dreamy murmur exercised a strange fascination over the grave, unbending man, who had never known the musings of solitude or its poetic inspirations, and over the youthful blooming maiden at his side, who, with laughing lips and a merry heart, had hitherto fluttered joyously on her course, unheeding, ignorant of life's earnest. All the fierce wrestling and striving on the one hand, all the happy childish fancies on the other, were resolved, as it were, into some nameless strange sensation, half sweet, half troubled, which held the two in thraldom. So, as they sat listening to the ripple and purl of the water, unvarying, and yet so melodious, the outer world with its shining vistas and wealth of golden warmth receded farther and farther from view, until at length it vanished altogether. Then dim shadows grew up round the pair, a cool watery film gathered round them, and they were drawn down, down into vague mysterious depths, where no sound of life penetrated, where all battling and fierce longing, all happiness and sorrow, died away into one deep, deep dream; and through their dreaming, as from some immeasurable distance, they could still hear the faint spirit-singing of the spring.

In the city below, the bells rang out the noonday hour. The clear resonant chimes were borne up to the Castle-hill, and at their sound all the strange fantasies evoked by the eerie murmur of the water melted away. Raven looked up as though he had been suddenly, roughly awakened, and Gabrielle rose quickly, and, with a movement almost akin to flight, hurried to the ivy-kirtled parapet, where, bending forwards, she stood listening to the distant carillon. The sound came distinctly to her through the still air, as on that day by the lake-shore when she and George ... Gabrielle did not follow out the thought. Why did George's name force itself all at once on her memory, striking her as with a reproach? Why did his image suddenly appear before her--that resolute face which seemed to say it would guard and maintain his rights? On that last occasion, when, in a laughing, jesting humour, she had taken leave of him, the bells had said nothing to her. To-day, at the remembrance of them, a quick sharp pang shot through her, a warning, as it were, not again to let herself be enticed out of the bright familiar sunshine into unknown depths, a hint of some dimly-foreseen danger, now weaving its meshes round her. She was seized by a vague, unaccountable alarm. The Baron had risen too. He came up to where she stood.

"You have taken flight?" he said slowly. "From what? From me, perhaps?"

Gabrielle tried to smile, and to master the uneasiness which possessed her, as she replied:

"From the murmur of the Nixies' Well. It has such a weird, ghostly sound at this noontide hour."

"And yet you have chosen this spot as your favourite haunt?"

"Well, the fountain has now lived its life. Tomorrow, perhaps, by your command, the garden will have been turned into a wilderness, a chaos of stones and earth, and ..."

"Little do I care whether my orders distress other people or not?" completed Raven, as she paused. "It may be so--but, Gabrielle, are you really so fond of this spring? Would it positively distress you to see it stopped?"

"Yes," said Gabrielle, in a low voice, looking up at him. Her lips uttered no word of entreaty; but her eyes besought him earnestly, pleading for the doomed fountain.

Raven was silent. For some minutes he stood by her without speaking. Then he began again:

"I frightened you just now with my harsh views of life, but no one says you must share them. I forgot for a moment that youth has a right to dream, and that it would be cruel to rob you of the privilege. Keep your faith still in the golden far-off future, in the promise of the blue mountains. You may yet put gentle confidence in the world and in mankind; it is little likely you will ever incur their hostility and hatred."

His voice was veiled and wonderfully soft, and all austerity had vanished from his look, as it rested half sadly on the young girl's countenance; but Arno Raven was not one to be long influenced by such emotions; and, indeed, it seemed that no chance of yielding to them was to be afforded him, for at this moment steps were heard approaching, and, as they turned, the lodge-keeper, accompanied by an elderly man--a mechanic, apparently--entered the garden. They stopped on perceiving the Governor, and uncovered respectfully.

Raven's mildness had already vanished. He had quickly shaken off the unwonted mood.

"What is it?" he asked, in the curt, authoritative tone habitual to him.

"Your Excellency has given orders that the Nixies' Well should be broken up, and the spring stopped," answered the master-mason. "It was to be done today, and my men will be here in half an hour or so. I only wanted to see beforehand whether there would be any difficulty, and if the work was likely to take up much time."

The Baron glanced at the fountain, and then at Gabrielle standing by his side. There was the hardly perceptible delay of a second, and then he pronounced his decree:

"Send your people away. The work is not to be done."

"What! your Excellency?" asked the mason, in astonishment.

"The demolition of the fountain would injure the garden. It is to remain. I will take other measures."

A wave of the hand dismissed the two men. They, of course, ventured on no reply, but surprise was plainly written on their countenances as they left the garden. It was the first time an order so circumstantially given by the Governor himself had ever been withdrawn.

Raven had stepped to the edge of the basin, and was watching the constant falling shower. Gabrielle had remained in her place by the parapet, but now she drew near slowly, hesitatingly--presently, with a sudden movement, she held out both hands to him.

"Thank you--oh, thank you!"

He smiled, not with his usual sardonic smile. A ray of sunshine seemed to flit across his face, as he took the offered hands, and, gently raising Gabrielle's head, stooped to kiss her brow.

There was nothing unusual in this. He was in the habit of thus saluting her when she appeared at breakfast and wished him "Good-morning," and hitherto she had received his caress most unconcernedly; while he, her guardian, had but in cool, grave fashion made use of his 'fatherly rights.'

To-day, for the first time, the young girl involuntarily sought to evade it; and Raven felt that the hand he held in his own trembled a little. He drew himself up suddenly, without having touched her forehead with his lips, and dropped her hand.

"You are right," he said, in a troubled voice. "There is a magic in the Nixies' Well. Let us go."

They turned away. Behind them the spring babbled and murmured, the fountain plashed, throwing its white veil of spray ever on high. That cruel doom of destruction was averted now. The beseeching prayer of those brown eyes, and the glittering tears which stood in them, had saved the well.

Perhaps at this moment the cold, stern man, who had long passed the prime of life, may have felt that his boast had been premature, that not even he in his strength was entirely proof against "the nixies' charm."