CHAPTER VII.

“THE BEST OF ALL WORDS.”

A secret! Radegund was after all but a daughter of Eve; and Bruno was utterly undone. If this honest surgeon had a secret, why did he say so?

“A secret?” echoed Radegund; “you are a brave one to keep a secret! Why, you have told it already.”

“Surely no,” said Bruno, in a startled voice. “What did I say? Tell me, Radegund—in pity tell me what I said?”

“I understood you,” she answered, in calm even tones, “that Conrad Dasipodius was blind.”

“No—by Heaven! I did not say that. I swear I did not,” said the distracted surgeon.

“Now, Bruno Wolkenberg,” and Radegund’s tones were still calm and measured, “it is so useless quibbling with me.”

“But,”—said Bruno.

“There is no _but_. You have merely confirmed my suspicions. It is not news to me; I have watched Conrad Dasipodius at his work again and again.”

“And a marvellously interesting subject he appears to be to you,” said Bruno stiffly.

“I have already told you so,” answered the artist.

“Farewell—good-night, Radegund,” said Bruno, making a wretched imitation of Radegund’s tones and manner. “I have an appointment. I must go. Success to your picture.”

Wolkenberg was distressed and annoyed; in the first place, this woman had stolen from him a secret which he would rather have cut his own skilful right hand off, than have let slip; and then, moreover, he felt very jealous and angry. “It was all true, doubtless, that Dasipodius had centred his affections elsewhere; but what, forsooth, was that pretty little lily of a Sabina beside this glowing rose of a Radegund? What Ulysses could withstand such a syren, let Penelope be ever so fair?” And then Bruno, turning to take, what he fondly persuaded himself was to be a farewell glance, again encountered the glamour of those eyes, and the dangerous witchery of that voice.

“Bruno,” she murmured. “Leaving me like this?”

“You have stolen my honour, Radegund,” said Bruno, striving to hold his own.

“Ah,” said she lightly, “still harping on that nonsense about your friend Dasipodius? Why, you foolish Bruno, did not I tell you I had already guessed the mighty secret long ago?”

“That is all very well,” grumbled Bruno, in slightly mollified tones, “but you were not sure. Now it is utterly in your hands; and if it were known, it might be Conrad’s ruin. Swear to me, Radegund, that you will keep this secret.”

“There, there—why should I not,” she said. “What should I do with it? Am I a gossip?”

Wolkenberg consoled himself with the reflection that she was not. In all Strassburg there was not a woman whom the artist could call friend. Those of the gentler half of the community who were not jealous of her, feared her; while one and all pronounced her “peculiar”; and Radegund, always frankly declaring that masculine society was pleasanter to her than all the female acquaintance in Strassburg, did not in the least put herself out of the way to remove any impressions of her it pleased her compeers to form.

“Am I a scandal-loving old wife, or a chattering schoolmaiden?” she went on. “Do you really think so poorly of me as that? And I have so often told myself that I might call you friend—perhaps my only friend—Bruno,” and Radegund gently laid her hand on the surgeon’s sleeve.

“My life—Radegund, would it were something dearer than friend.”

“Nay,” answered Radegund, “it is the best of all words; there is no other so true, so honest, believe me, Bruno. Your friendship is very dear to me,” and Radegund’s eyes glistened truthfully and frankly up into Bruno’s, but the surgeon sighed.

“You put me off like this,” he said.

“Ah, true,” answered the wily Radegund. “Yes, we have strayed from our subject. Well, Master Wolkenberg, I will keep your secret if——”

“No,” said Bruno stoutly, “there must be no conditions.”

“Yes—yes—listen now, Bruno; tell me this one thing, only this:—how has it come about, this blindness of your friend’s? What is the cause of it?”

“Oh,” said the surgeon, with a relieved air, “that is easily answered—overwork and anxiety. Such things will kill a man sometimes.”

“But anxiety about what? About the Horologe?”

“Yes, yes; and if I’m not mistaken, there’s something of the woman in it as well. Folks like to blame this cause, and that cause, when things go wrong with a fellow, but there’s generally a woman at the bottom of it, Radegund, let the top be what it may.”

“But Conrad Dasipodius has such a superior mind,” argued Radegund.

“Precisely why it’s all the worse with him. Extremes meet, and the more superior-minded a man is, the more heaven, or purgatory, or—somewhere, seems to let a woman make a fool of him.”

“Then you think it is this affair with my cousin Sabina that worries him?”

“Yes I do. If a man loves a girl, and things go against his marrying her, isn’t that a worry? And there’s nothing in the world like worry for setting nerves wrong.”

“But still, it is so curious—do explain to me, dear Bruno——”

“No,” said Bruno resolutely; “if I were to explain all night, I should not be able to make it clear to you, Radegund, nor for the matter of that, to myself. We surgeons can only say this is the effect of that, which is the cause of this and the other, and so we go on travelling in our circle. It is true, that years make this circle a little larger, and a little larger, but God only sees outside it. Maybe hundreds of years hence, when we are all dead and gone, He may let those who come after us, see outside it too.”

“But in this case—Conrad’s I mean—everything may all be the other way. It is just possible he may not think the game worth the candle,” said Radegund.

“Nay,” said Bruno; “if a man find his happiness in his game, the candle may cost what it will.”

“But then he may not find happiness in it,” she insisted.

“Who can tell?” said Bruno, beginning to grow provokingly vague again. “Sabina von Steinbach is pretty and winsome, as so many of our German maidens are, but——”

“But what?” asked Radegund, with ill-repressed excitement.

“Well, she is not my style,” he said, gazing rapturously on the dark-haired beauty before him. “If I had lived in the old hero-days, Radegund, I believe I should have admired Brunhilde far more than Kriemhilde. One always fancies Kriemhilde fair, you know.”

“And you would have been wise, Bruno,” said Radegund, laughing harshly, “for all the world knows Kriemhilde grew into a vixen, despite her golden hair and heaven-blue eyes.”

“Was there not a cause, Radegund?” asked Bruno, in a grave voice.

“Oh, there! do leave those old-world queens and heroes alone,” she said testily; “I was speaking of——”

“Yes, I know,” said Bruno; “and I—nay, Radegund, do not tempt me to forswear myself. We have discussed the subject far too long already. Bury it now, let it be as though we had never spoken of it.” But Radegund did not answer. “Let me kiss those lips, Radegund, once—this once, and it shall be a token between us that you and I have plotted together to smooth by our silence this path of Conrad’s, which is so rough and hard. By heaven! but he is brave: there is not a nobler heart living! We will stand by him and help him—shall it be so, Radegund?”

“Ay,” said Radegund, with her gaze transfixed on the canvas, and then Bruno tore himself away, but his heart was brimming over with a new hopefulness; Radegund had never before been to him, as she had been to-night, so gentle, so womanly and tender, almost caressing. Did she then love him after all? and was the day at last coming when—— “Oh, Radegund!” murmured the surgeon again and again to himself, as he threaded his way through the dark, narrow streets, ankle-deep in the wet slush of a temporary thaw, “Oh, Radegund, my queen! my queen! Radegund!”

And that night it seemed to Bruno Wolkenberg as though the slippery old pavement were of shining gold. But Radegund von Steinbach sat in the lonely studio, before the Saint Laurence, until twilight became pitchy darkness; and still, when the curfew rang out, she had not stirred, but with her face buried in her folded arms, sat brooding—brooding.