CHAPTER XVI.

“IS THERE NO HOPE?”

The surgeon rose as Dasipodius entered, and bade him a kindly welcome, though, perhaps, a thought less hearty than usual. There had of late come into their friendship—one which hitherto that of Damon and Pylades would not have shamed—the little rift, for each fancied he had a grievance against the other.

In his heart of hearts, Dasipodius could not refrain from blaming Bruno for his breach of confidence; and Bruno would not have been human, had he not nursed a faint suspicion of jealousy against his friend. Could these two have mutually spoken out their grudges, things might have been righted, but apart from his promise to Radegund, the mathematician’s innate generosity constrained him from reproaching Bruno, while the surgeon’s delicacy told him that it would be an insult to Conrad’s honour to hint at a thought of jealousy on Radegund’s account, because he was perfectly acquainted with all the story of his friend’s wooing of the Burgomaster’s daughter, and so there the rift remained; not, however, widening, after the manner of rifts, but only jarring the once perfect harmony, and no ordinary ear would have detected any want of heartiness in Wolkenberg’s welcome, as he took his friend by the hand to lead him to a seat.

“Nay. No, come now, Bruno!” laughed Dasipodius, withdrawing his hand; “if I had need of that, I should be undone indeed.”

“True,” replied Bruno; “but you are a marvel, Conrad; and I’d give something to change bodies—and souls too, I expect, with you, for a while, just to find out what that new sense of yours is like. We ordinary mortals certainly know nothing about it.”

“Don’t wish to know it, Bruno,” said Dasipodius, in low sad tones.

“Forgive me, Conrad. I have recalled the memory of your affliction, when you are for ever striving to hush it to sleep.”

“No—it never sleeps.”

“Conrad!” bitterly cried the surgeon. “They speak falsely who say God is always just!”

“Hush! Bruno—dear old friend——”

“Well, well, but what would I not give to win you back your sight.”

“Everything,” said Dasipodius, resigning his wet cloak, and the stout stick, without which he never ventured abroad now. “Everything, I know—short only of that honest love of yours.”

The surgeon gazed keenly at his visitor’s face; but saw only that its ordinary calm, almost sad gravity had yielded to a quiet smile.

“It might be worth letting even that go in so good a cause,” muttered Wolkenberg.

“No, no. You would do no such thing. Why, I hate to hear you talk even in jest of throwing away such a possession when once it is yours.”

“How do I know that it is mine?” growled Bruno, with his hands in his pockets, kicking over the three-legged stool. “How do I know——”

“Nonsense, man, nonsense! Where’s your patience?”

“Gone. I’ve had a good three years’ stock of it, and it’s all gone—every jot.”

“Then lay in another supply. Mistress Radegund will capitulate one of these days. A woman, if she’s worth the name, must bestow her love somewhere, God bless her! And Radegund makes no secret about confessing you to be her best and dearest friend, you ungrateful Bruno—you.”

“Friend! I loathe that word. It maddens me.”

“But do not let it. Women like Radegund von Steinbach glory in not owning to such soft passions. But him she acknowledges to so great a friendship for, as Radegund acknowledges for you, then, let her call him by what name she will, that is the man she loves in her heart.”

“Did Sabina von Steinbach call you friend?” asked Bruno.

“Nay, but then Radegund is not Sabina,” replied Conrad.

“Truly, Sabina is not Radegund,” said Bruno musingly.

Then each lover, falling to picturing to himself the incomparably superior charms of his own mistress, there was silence for some time in the old laboratory.

“It is so good of you, Conrad,” said the surgeon, breaking it at last, and, picking up his stool, he seated himself at Dasipodius’ feet, while he began to rake absently among the embers with an old divining rod. “It is so good of you to talk to me like this. Not a soul besides you, excepting perhaps poor old Trudel, cares a fig whether I am wretched or happy, or here, or in my grave.”

“You heretical, growling old Bear! Tell me now,” said Dasipodius, feeling for Bruno’s curly locks, and laying his hand caressingly there—“let your mind’s eye travel round this great city of ours, and then count to me, if you can, the homes where your wondrous skill has chased away death and pain; and then—pretending to think none would weep for loss of you.”

“They would weep for loss of the good I can bring them—not for me. I desire to be loved for myself.”

“And what is yourself but your skill, and your skill but yourself? you dear, grumbling, illogical, profitable servant. For what is it but your own heart, goodness, and compassion, and sympathy, working hand-in-hand with your intellectual gifts, which makes you what you are? How can you sever one from the other, without marring the whole—what God has so welded together? and that makes you what you are, our good Dr. Bruno Wolkenberg, our dear Saint Bruno.”

“Nay,” said the surgeon, with a grim smile, “I should make but a poor saint enough!”

“You would have no vote in the matter. It is the voice of the consistory which canonizes; not the catechumen himself,” laughed Dasipodius; “and at all events it’s no flattery to say there’s many a worse saint in the calendar than you would make.”

“Well,” and Bruno laughed quite merrily, “it does need reforming. But it’s all of no use, Conrad; you are very good to try and cheer me with your gentle philosophy, and I like to ferret your thoughts out of you if I can. But look now, it is so easy for you to preach content, you who have but to desire a woman’s love, and it is yours, while I——” Wolkenberg paused and sighed heavily, absently fixing his eyes on his crucible simmering softly over the lamp flame. “What ever does go right with me? When now and again, perhaps, I flatter myself I have lighted on a discovery which might bring renewed health and life to thousands of one’s fellow-creatures, why, there my alembic cracks and bursts, and the labour of days—of weeks and months even—is all lost—all lost! No, everything fails, withers at my touch. While you, whether it be Sabina’s love, or whether it be the Cathedral Horologe—all succeed with you.”

“That reminds me,” said Dasipodius gravely, “I came to ask you once more, Bruno, if indeed there is no hope for my lost sight?”

The surgeon coloured deep with crimson shame. The tacit rebuke in the blind man’s words pierced him to the heart, and a tear of regret for his thoughtless ebullition travelled slowly down to his tawny beard; and to the mathematician’s quick ear it seemed as though his friend’s breath came and went louder and faster than its wont, until through the prolonged silence there came a sound like an ill-suppressed sob.

“There, only think now,” went on Dasipodius quickly. “Should not I of all others have to give a suffrage for your sainting? What should I do without you, my Bruno?”

“Alas! what have I done? What can I do for you?” sighed Bruno.

“Be a good fellow; and tell me if these eyes of mine will ever be worth anything again, for it is all black enough about me now. So take your lamp, and put me out of my misery at once.”

The mathematician spoke cheerily, for him almost lightly; but his clear olive cheek was deeply flushed, and the nails of his supple slender fingers were clenched into the very flesh, as the surgeon rose, and fetching his lamp from a distant table, returned to Conrad’s side with slow, unhopeful tread. He knew there was no more forlorn hope than this his friend had come in quest of. Again and again Dasipodius had submitted himself to these painful testings at Bruno’s hands, which the surgeon had deemed might in the end lead to the restoring of the lost sense, but each successive examination had but confirmed his worst forebodings week by week; the dim sight had grown dimmer, the film which at first had seemed like a thin veil to render surrounding objects more beautiful, grew into a haze which gradually blackened to a cruel mist, until the mist itself grew dense, and then denser, and midnight darkness supervened. Whether in these days of continuous progress in surgical science there might have been a chance for Dasipodius, avails nothing to enquire. Certain it is, that out of his soul’s deep affection, amounting to a sort of veneration, Wolkenberg did what he could for his friend, but all his efforts had been fruitless; and now he prepared for what he felt must be a mere empty ceremony.

The last time it had been gone through with, the surgeon had darkened his dark old laboratory to utter midnight obscurity, then lighting a lamp he had flashed it in front of Conrad’s eyes, which had blinked at the sudden rush of light, but this night Bruno, trying his experiment again, could see that not a quiver disturbed those well-shapen, heavily-fringed lids shading the grand sightless eyes, which seemed to be gazing far away through the dreary smoke-dried walls into some pure illimitable distance.

“You sigh, Bruno?” said Dasipodius, as the surgeon set down his lamp.

“Did I?” said Bruno.

“Yes. Now, Bruno, tell me, did you pass that lamp before my eyes again, as you did last time?”

“Yes,” reluctantly acknowledged Wolkenberg; then he added, still more slowly: “but you did not know it.”

“I did not see the faintest glimmer of it. Many thanks, Bruno, though after all, it was very childish of me to come teazing you again. But we poor mortals are so fond of hoping against hope, are not we?” and Conrad’s voice faltered slightly. “What is this? Another tear? and not mine! By our Lady! No, come now, Bruno, old friend, I’ll not have you fretting your heart out so.”

“Oh, Conrad! And they say God is good.”

“Well, yes, indeed. How can I complain. I who, as you say, have so much—all that is best, which cannot be taken away from me. Hark!” he cried, as some distant clock struck eight. “What an idler I am! There is a friend reminding me of my own ewe lamb, waiting for me at home. Do you know, my Bear, I am beginning to care for that Horologe as if it were some living human thing. I begrudge every moment I am away from it.”

“It will be making Mistress Sabina quite jealous,” suggested Wolkenberg.

“Not at all,” returned the hard-headed, calculating lover, “for it is to give her to me. No Horologe—no Sabina.”

“I’m not so sure of that,” returned Bruno.

Dasipodius contented himself with a smiling “She is a dear, good little girl. Now, sleep well, old friend, and may all bright angels keep Mephisto from cheating you into any more miserable moods.”

So, with step surer and firmer than many a man’s whose sight is clear as day, the blind mathematician, accompanied by Bruno, made his way out into the corridor. They had barely reached the door before a fresh summons was heard upon its massive oaken panels. Bruno proceeded to undo the bolts.

“There is to be no peace for you to-night,” smiled Dasipodius, stepping aside to make room for the new-comer. “What fresh trouble is abroad, I wonder?”

A rush of north-east wind forced the door wide open, nearly extinguishing the lamp, and literally blowing over the threshold, from the dark street, a little figure muffled in a voluminous mantle. Rude Boreas had played such tricks with this cloak that its folds had become twisted round and round, so as completely to conceal the small person’s head and face; and only a long tress or two of golden hair straying and clinging outside, hinted at what manner of creature might in time be revealed; but the surgeon’s surmises were confirmed, when a little white hand stole forth, and began to unswathe the embarrassing drapery, until at last Bruno recognised Sabina von Steinbach.

“Mistress Sa——” began he, but before so much was well out of his lips, the Burgomaster’s daughter had hurriedly lifted a silencing finger to her lips, glancing at the same time to where Dasipodius stood back in the shadows, barely a yard from her. Half-blinded by the sleet and wind, the girl had still caught sight of her lover’s figure. Wolkenberg stood, sorely bewildered, but Sabina’s little warning gesture quite sufficed for his doctor’s second nature; and he only gazed in silence from Sabina to where Dasipodius stood all unconscious of that dear presence. Bruno saw that the girl’s eyes were riveted on the mathematician’s face, half puzzled, half scrutinizingly, while her hands were clenched with agonised intentness.

Dasipodius was the first to speak. “Farewell then, Dr. Bruno,” he said, and so passed out into the night, brushing, as he went, the skirt of Sabina’s mantle with his own long scholar’s cloak.

In breathless, statue-like stillness, Sabina watched her lover bend his stately neck under the low-arched doorway, and disappear in the darkness; and still when he was gone, she stood as though transfixed by some terrible nightmare dream, till suddenly, with a cry like that of a poor, tender, wounded animal, she sprang to the door. “Conrad!” she wailed. “Come back, darling—come back to me—Conrad!” But there was no answer, save the wind-gusts howling up the deserted street, and the chill sleet driving in on her death-pale face, and she sank despairingly on the threshold. Then the pitying-hearted surgeon approached and lifting in his arms the poor lily, all drooping and shattered, bore her to the warmth and shelter of his own hearthstone, and there tended her, as he would have tended some dear little sister of his own, back to consciousness, and back too, as he sighingly thought, to the remembrance of some grief, whose nature puzzled him every whit as greatly as it had puzzled her father, no longer ago than last night.