The window whence she had looked so confidently to see him once more ride across the bridge was the same through which the doctor’s study-lamp threw its nightly beam. There she must have stood in her bitter despair, watching the water hurrying past from the castle resounding with the marriage revelry, and she had been mastered by a fierce desire to plunge her fair body beneath the waves, that they might bear her far, far away from the scene of her past happiness. And now after long, long years the same struggle was going on in the same spot. No, not the same struggle! Was he not a man, strong of soul? Even should the unhappy woman, who had hidden all her misery in the grave by one swift plunge, arise from the water and stretch out her white arms to lure him in, he would not heed her. Kitty shuddered. Had not Henriette said that whoever had once seen Flora love could understand that a man would die sooner than resign her? And was there now any choice for him, since she had told him that she hated him?
Kitty ran hastily back into the garden, as if the drowned woman with the long, fair braids were actually arising by the dim shore to bar her way.
It was growing dark. The forest which had been the scene of the rude attack of the afternoon looked like a black pall over the low hills, and the ploughed meadow-land lay smooth and still, giving no token that millions of living germs were there thrusting forth tiny arms beneath the thin crust, ready to issue forth into the golden sunlight a waving field of grain. Upon the roof the weathercock creaked in the moaning evening wind, which was gradually increasing and would bring torrents of spring rain during the night. The boughs of the silver poplars by the fence tossed to and fro, and the loose branches in the half-finished arbour cracked beneath its strong breath. Those branches were still bare. When they were covered with leafy greenery, how would it be with everything that lay at present unsolved in the dark lap of destiny? Would the dean’s widow ever sit there in the green retreat she so loved, peaceful and happy as in the little parsonage garden of long ago? Never, if her darling were unhappy or if she lost him.
Kitty timidly turned around the western end of the house. The softened light of a night-lamp gleamed from the windows of the sick-room: the struggle was not yet ended. The doctor stood by one of the windows, his back turned to the young girl, his right hand raised as if imposing silence. What had she just been saying,—that figure in the dim background, not tall enough to allow more of her to be seen than the defiant movement of the white lace fichu above the golden blonde curls on the forehead? Had she again impertinently alluded to his profession?