24. XXIV.
The escape from his present danger was a new
life to Rodolph. In just proportion to his former
extreme apprehensions, was his feeling of security
now. He did not, for the present, trouble himself
with thoughts of the future. There was time
enough, month after month, in the long, sweet year
before him. His thoughts were all due to his wife
and child; to the beautiful boy, in whose infant
lineaments Bertha had already clearly traced out
all the features of the father's face. The days, the
weeks, flew rapidly by in the freshness of so new
and pure a pleasure. Joy vainly spread forth his
witcheries, to delay the feet of time. Months had
now elapsed, and a cloud began to gather upon
the brow of Rodolph, a cloud which even the
caresses of his wife and infant failed at all times
to disperse.
One day Bertha said to her husband — her child
being in her arms, and she being within those of
Rodolph —
“Dearest, I am sad to see you so. Wherefore
is it? Why are you gloomy? And you groan,
Rodolph, oh, so deeply in your sleep, as if you
had some secret and dreadful sorrow. Tell it me,
Rodolph. Share it with me, dear husband. If
I cannot soothe, I can better assist you to endure
it.”
How freely, how joyfully would he have revealed
to her, if he had dared, the awful secret that
was harrowing up his soul. Better if he had done
so; but he was not sufficiently assured of that
mighty strength which is in the bosom of a woman
who loves devotedly, and he doubted her ability
to bear the horrible recital of what he knew and
dreaded. She implored him in vain; he evaded
and denied, until she grew unhappy, as she saw
that he did evade.
At another time she said:
“Dear Rodolph, you do not pray with me now,
as you were wont to do. When we were first
wedded, it was so sweet to kneel with you, and
pray together, each night before we slept, and
confess to each other our mutual errors and unkindnesses.
Now, dear Rodolph, I pray alone.
Wherefore is it, Rodolph? Ah, husband, shall we
not again pray together? Shall we not kneel to-night,
and renew our former custom?”
He looked at her with the desperate fondness of
a dying man — so fondly, so earnestly, so despairingly.
He folded his arms around her; he pressed
his lips long and lovingly to hers; and he
promised her that their prayers should be once
more united.
That evening, when they had sought their
chamber, she proceeded to exact the fulfilment of
his pledge. She led him to the altar, and they
kneeled together, and the pure hearted woman
began to pray aloud. Rodolph was silent, or
strove vainly to utter a corresponding prayer. On
a sudden, he started up with a wild shriek; he
thrust his eyes in his palms, and fled from the
apartment; and that night he came not again to
the expecting arms of his wife. He had seen the
face of Conrade Weickhoff peering from behind
the altar upon him; that horrible grin upon his
lips, and a glare from his eyes that seemed satanic.
