



Produced by Charles Bowen, from page scans provided by Google Books.





Transcriber's Note:

   1. Page scan source:
      http://books.google.com/books?id=jd4BAAAAQAAJ&dq







                              RIVEN BONDS.

                                A Novel,


                            IN TWO VOLUMES.


                             TRANSLATED BY
                              BERTHA NESS,


                   _FROM THE ORIGINAL OF E. WERNER_,

                 Author of "SUCCESS AND HOW HE WON IT,"
                          "UNDER A CHARM," &c.



                           *   *   *   *   *
                                VOL. II.
                           *   *   *   *   *



                                London:
                           REMINGTON AND CO.,
                    5, Arundel Street, Strand, W.C.

                                 1877.

                        [_All Rights Reserved_.]






                              RIVEN BONDS.




                               CHAPTER I.


"No!" said Captain Almbach. "That cannot be! I have to make a
confession to you, Ella, at the risk of your showing me to the door."

"What have you to confess to me?" asked the astonished Ella.

Hugo looked down.

"That I am still the 'adventurer,' whom you once took so sternly to
task. It did not improve him certainly, but he never attempted since to
approach you with his follies, and cannot to-day either. To make my
tale short, I had no idea you were the inhabitant of this villa, when I
directed my steps here. I had myself announced to a perfectly strange
gentleman, because Marchese Tortoni had spoken of a young lady, who
lived here in complete seclusion, and yes--I knew before hand, that you
would look at me in this way--"

Her glance had indeed met him sadly and reproachfully; then she turned
silently away and looked out of the window. A pause ensued--Hugo went
to her side.

"It was chance which brought me here now, Ella. I am waiting for my
lecture."

"You are free, and have no duty to injure," said the young wife,
coldly. "Besides, my opinion in such matters can hardly have any
influence upon you, Herr Captain Almbach."

"And so Herr Captain Almbach must retire, to find the doors closed
against him next time, is it not so?" Unmistakable agitation was heard
in his voice. "You are very unjust towards me. That I, thinking to find
perfect strangers here, did undertake an adventure--well, that is
nothing new to me; but that I was guilty of the boundless folly of
confessing it to you, although I had the best excuse for deception,
that is very new, and I was only forced to it by your eyes, which
looked at me so big and enquiringly, that I became red as a schoolboy,
and could not go away with a lie. Therefore I hear Herr Captain Almbach
again, who, thank God, had disappeared from our conversation for the
last quarter of an hour."

Ella shook her head slightly.

"You have spoiled all my pleasure in our meeting now, certainly----"

"Did it please you? Did it really?" cried Hugo, interrupting her
eagerly, with sparkling eyes.

"Of course," said she, quietly. "One is always pleased, when far away,
to find greetings and remembrances from home."

"Yes," said Hugo, slowly. "I had quite forgotten that we are country
people also. Then you only recognised the German in me? I must confess
honestly that my feelings were not so purely patriotic when I saw you
again."

"Notwithstanding the unavoidable disillusion which your discovery
prepared for you?" asked Ella, somewhat sharply.

Captain Almbach looked at her unabashed for a few seconds.

"You make me suffer greatly for the imprudent confession, Ella. Be it
so! I must bear it. Only one question before I go, or one petition
rather. May I come again?"

She hesitated with her reply; he came a step nearer.

"May I come again? Ella, what have I done to you that you would banish
me also from your threshold?"

There lay a reproach in the words, which did not fail to make an
impression upon her.

"I do not do so either," replied she, gently. "If you would seek me
again, our door shall not be closed to _you_."

With quick movement, Hugo caught her hand, and carried it to his lips,
but those lips rested on it unusually long, much longer than is
customary in kissing a hand, and Ella appeared to think so, as she drew
it somewhat hastily away. Equally hastily Captain Almbach drew himself
up; the slight red tint which had before lain on his forehead was there
again, and he, who was at other times never at a loss for a civility or
suitable reply, said now merely monosyllabically--

"Thank you. Until we meet again, then!"

"Until we meet again!" replied Ella, with a confusion that contrasted
strangely with the calm and decision which she had shown throughout the
whole interview. It almost seemed as if she repented the permission
just given, and which still she could not withdraw.

A few minutes later, Captain Almbach found himself in the open air, and
slowly he began his return to Mirando. He had again carried out his
will, and fulfilled the promise made so confidently that morning. But
he seemed little inclined to make much of his triumph. Looking back to
the villa, he passed his hand across his forehead, like some one
awaking from a dream.

"I believe that the elegiac atmosphere of Mirando has infected me," he
muttered, angrily. "I begin to look upon the simplest things from the
most fantastically, romantic point of view. What is there, then, in
this meeting that I cannot get over it? The Erlau drawing-rooms have
been a good school to be sure, and the pupil has learned unexpectedly,
quickly, and easily. I suspected something of that for long, and
yet--folly! What is it to me if Reinhold learn at last to repent his
blindness! And she does not even know how near he is, so near that a
meeting cannot be avoided much longer. I fear any attempt at
approaching her would cost Reinhold much dearer than that first one.
What a singularly icy expression there was in her face when I hinted at
the possibility of a reconciliation! That;" here Hugo breathed more
freely, perhaps, in unacknowledged but great satisfaction--"that said,
No! to all eternity. And if chance or fate lead them together, now, it
is too late--now _he_ has lost her."

On the mirror-like blue sea a boat glided, which, coming from S----,
bore in the direction of Mirando. The bark's elegant exterior showed
that it was the property of some rich family, and the two rowers wore
the livery of the Tortonis. Nevertheless, for the gentleman, who
besides these two was the sole occupant of the boat, neither the rapid
motion nor the magnificent panorama all around appeared to possess the
slightest interest. He leant back in his seat, with closed eyes, as if
asleep, and only looked up at last when the boat lay to at the marble
steps, which led directly down from the villa's terrace to the sea. He
stepped out. A sign dismissed the two men, who, like all the Marchese's
servants, were accustomed to pay to their master's celebrated guest,
the same respect as to himself. A few strokes of the oars carried the
boat to one side, and immediately after it was anchored in the little
harbour away by the park.

Reinhold stepped on to the steps, and ascended them slowly. He came
from S----, where Beatrice had, in the meantime, arrived. As usual, the
actress here, also, where all foreigners and inhabitants of position
assembled for their _villegiatura_, was surrounded by acquaintances and
admirers, and Reinhold no sooner found himself at her side than the
same fate, and, indeed, to a greater extent, became his. In Beatrice's
vicinity there was no rest and no relaxation for him; she dragged him
at once into the vortex with her. The hours, which he intended to spend
with her, had become days, which in excitement and distraction did not
yield the palm to the last weeks in town, and after having accompanied
her yester evening to a large fete, which had continued the whole night
until morning's dawn, he had torn himself away at day-break, and thrown
himself into the boat in order to return to Mirando.

He drew a deep breath at the quiet and loneliness around him,
undisturbed even by a word of greeting or welcome. Cesario, as he knew,
had early this morning undertaken an expedition to the neighbouring
island, in Hugo's company, from which both were only expected back
towards evening, and for strangers the villa was not yet accessible.
The young Marchese did not like to be disturbed in the seclusion of his
_villegiatura_, and his steward had received orders not to allow any
strange visitors to enter during his residence, an order which was
carried out most strictly, to the great dissatisfaction of travellers,
by whom Mirando was considered a favourite goal for excursions. The
estate, with its extensive gardens, and magnificent buildings, which in
the north would certainly have been called a castle, and here merely
bore the modest name of a villa, was celebrated far and near, not only
on account of its paradise-like situation and the boundless view over
the sea, but also because of the rich art-treasures which it concealed
inside, and which now merely charmed the eyes of the few who had the
good fortune of being permitted to call themselves the Marchese's
guests.

Short of rest, tired, and yet unable to seek repose and sleep, Reinhold
threw himself on to one of the marble benches in the shade of the
colonnade; he felt strained to the utmost exhaustion. Yes, these sultry
Italian nights, with their intoxicating perfume of flowers, and their
moonlight quiet, or the noisy clamour of a feast, these sunshiny days,
with the ever-blue sky, and the glowing splendour of the earth's
colours, they had given him everything of which he had ever dreamed in
the cold, dreary north; but they had also cost him the best part of his
life's strength. The time was long since passed when all existence
appeared to be only one course of glowing intoxication and of