"You are not sincere with me, Herr Freyer!" said the countess, motioning to him to sit down. "This expression of thanks does not come from your heart, for you do not care what I do for Josepha. That is merely the pretext for coming to me--because you do not wish to confess what really brought you. Am I not right?"

"Countess!" said Freyer, completely disconcerted, as he tried to rise.

She gently laid her hand on his, detaining him. "Stay! Your standard is so rigid in everything--what is your view of truth?"

Freyer fixed his eyes on the floor.

"Is it _true_, when you say that you came to thank me for Josepha? Were you not drawn hither by the feeling that, of all the thousands of souls who pa.s.s you in the course of the summer, perhaps there is not one who could understand you and your task as I do?"

Freyer clasped his hands on his knees and silently bent his head.

"Perhaps you have not thought of me as I have thought of you, all day long, since our eyes met on the mountain, as though some higher power had pointed us out to each other."

Freyer remained silent, but as the full cup overflows at the slightest movement, tears again gushed from his eyes.

"Why did you look at me so from head to foot, pouring forth in that gaze your whole soul with a world of grief and joy, as a blossoming tree showers its flowers on the pa.s.ser-by? Surely not on account of a woman's face, though it may be pa.s.sably fair, but because you felt that I perceived the Christ in you and that it was _He_ for whom I came.

Your glance meant to tell me: 'It is I whom you are seeking!' and I believe you. And when at last the promise was fulfilled and the long sought redeemer stood before me, was it by chance that his prophetic eye discovered me among the thousands of faces when he said: 'But in many hearts day will soon dawn!' Did you not seek me, as we look for a stranger to whom we must fulfill a promise given on the journey?"

Freyer now raised his dark eyes and fixed them full upon her, but made no reply.

"And is it true that you came yesterday, only because Ludwig wished it, you who, spite of all entreaties, have kept ladies who had the world at their feet waiting on your stairs for hours? Did you not come because you suspected that I might be the woman with whom, since that meeting, you had had some incomprehensible spiritual bond?"

Freyer covered his eyes with his hand, as if he was afraid more might be read in them.

"Be truthful, Herr Freyer, it is unworthy of you and of me to play a conventional farce. I am compelled to act so many in my life that I would fain for once be frank, as mortal to mortal! Tell me simply, have I judged correctly--yes or no?"

"Yes!" whispered Freyer, without looking up.

She gently drew his hand down. "And to-day--to-day--did you come merely out of grat.i.tude for your cousin?" she questioned with the archness of her increasing certainty of happiness.

He caught the little hand with which she had clasped his, and raised it ardently to his lips; then, as if startled that he had allowed himself to be carried so far, he flung back his raven locks as if they had deluded his senses, and pushed his chair farther away in order not to be again led into temptation. She did not interfere--she knew that he was in her power--struggle as he might, the dart was fixed. Yet the obstacles she had to conquer were great and powerful. Coquetry would be futile, only the moral force of a _genuine_ feeling could cope with them, and of this she was conscious, with a happiness never felt before. Again she searched her own heart, and her rapid glance wandered from the thorn-scarred brow of the wonderful figure before her, to pierce the depths of her own soul. Her love for him was genuine, she was not toying with his heart; she wished, like Mary Magdalene, to sanctify herself in his love. But she was the Magdalene in the _first_ stage. Had Christ been a _man_, and attainable like _this_ man, what transformations the Penitent's heart must have undergone, ere its fires wrought true purification.

"Herr Freyer," the countess began in a low, eager tone, "you said yesterday that it troubled you when people showed you idolatrous reverence and you felt that you thereby robbed your Master. Can we give aught to any earthly being without giving it to _G.o.d_?"

Freyer listened intently.

"Is there any soul which does not belong to G.o.d, did not emanate from _Him_, is not a part of _His_ power? And does not that which flows from one part to another stream back in a perpetual circle to the _Creator_?

We can _take_ nothing which does not come from G.o.d, _give_ nothing which does not return to Him. Do you know the principle of the preservation of power?"

"No," said Freyer, confused by his ignorance of something he was asked.

"Well, it can be explained in a very few words. Science has proved that nothing in the universe can be lost, that even a force which is apparently uselessly squandered is merely transformed into another.

Thus in G.o.d nothing can be lost, even though it has no direct relation to Him--for he is the _spiritual_ universe. True, _every_ feeling does not produce a work of G.o.d, any more than every effort of nature brings forth some positive result. But as in the latter case the force expended is not lost, because it produces other, though secondary results, so in _G.o.d_ no sentiment of love and enthusiasm is lost, even though it may relate to Him only in a secondary degree."

"Very true."

"Then if that _is_ so,--how can any one rob this G.o.d, who surrounds us like the universe, from which we come, into which we pa.s.s again, and in which our forces are constantly transformed in a perpetual round of change."

Freyer rested his head on his hand, absorbed in thought.

"And if a feeling is so deeply rooted in religion, so directly a.s.sociated with G.o.d as that which men offer to you. His representative, why should you have these scruples?"

"I have never heard any one talk in this way! Pardon my faint-heartedness, and ignorance--I am a poor, simple-hearted man--you will be indulgent, will you not?"

"Freyer!" cried the countess, deeply moved, and spite of the distance to which he had pushed his chair, held out her hand.

"You see, I had no opportunity to attend a higher school, I was so poor. I lost my parents when a lad of twelve and received only the most necessary instruction. All my knowledge I obtained afterwards by reading, and it is of course defective and insufficient. On our mountains, beside our rushing streams, among the hazel bushes whose nuts were often my only food, I grew up, watching the horses sent to pasture with their colts. Up by St. Gregory's chapel, where the Leine falls over the cliffs, I left the animals grazing in the wide meadows, flung myself down in a field of gentian and, lying on my back, gazed upward into the blue sky and thought it must surely open, the transparent atmosphere _must_ at last be pierced--as the bird imagines, when it dashes its head against a pane of gla.s.s--so I learned to think of G.o.d! And when my brain and heart grew giddy, as if I were destined for something better, when a longing overwhelmed me which my simple meditations could not quell, I caught one of my young horses by the mane, swung myself on its bare back, and swept over the broad plain, feeling myself a king."

He extended his arms, and now his face was suddenly transformed--laughing, bright, joyous as the Swedes imagine their Neck, the kind, friendly water sprite who still retains some of the mythical blood of the Northern G.o.d of Spring, Freyer's namesake. "Ah, Countess--that was poetry! Who could restore _those_ days; that childish ignorance, that happy hope, that freedom of innocence!"

Again, like the pictures in a kaleidoscope, his expression changed and a gloomy melancholy spread its veil over his brow. "Alas!--that is all over! My light-footed colts have become weary, clumsy animals, dragging loaded wains, and I--I drag no less wearily the burden of life."

"How can you speak so at the moment when, yourself a miracle, you are revealing to men the miracles of G.o.d? Is it not ungrateful!"

"Oh, no, Countess, I am grateful! But I do not so separate myself from my part that I could be happy while portraying the sufferings of my Redeemer! Do you imagine that I have merely learned the words by heart?

With His form, I have also taken His cross upon me! Since that time all my youth has fled and a touch of pain pervades my whole life."

"Then you are His true follower--then you are doing what Simon of Cyrene did! And do _you_ believe that you ought not to accept even the smallest portion of the grat.i.tude which men owe to the Crucified One?

Must you share only His sufferings, not His joys, the joys bestowed by the love and faith of moved and converted souls? Surely if you are so narrow-minded, you understand neither yourself nor the love of G.o.d, Who has chosen and favored you from among millions to renew to the world the forgotten message of salvation."

"Oh G.o.d, oh G.o.d!--help me to keep my humility--this is too much."

Freyer started up and pressed his hand upon his brow as if to ward off an invisible crown which was descending upon it.

The countess also rose and approached him. "Freyer, the suffering you endure for Christ's sake, I share with you! It is the mystery in which our souls found each other. Pain is eternal, Freyer, and that to which it gives birth is imperishable! What do we feel when we stand before a painted or sculptured image of the Crucified One? Pity, the most agonizing pity! I have never been willing to believe it--but since yesterday I have known that it is a solace to the believing soul to bestow a tender embrace upon the lifeless image and to touch the artificial wounds with ardent lips. What must it be when that image loves, feels, and suffers! When it speaks to us in tones that thrill the inmost heart? When we see it quiver and bleed under the lashes of the executioner--when the sweat of agony trickles from the brow and _real_ tears flow from the eyes? I ask, _what_ must this be to us?

Imagine yourself for once the person who _sees this_--and then judge whether it is not overpowering? If faith in the _stone_ Christ works miracles--why should not belief in the _living_ one do far more? The pious delusion is so much the greater, and _faith_ brings blessing."

She clasped her hands upon his breast

"Come, image of mercy, bend down to me. Let me clasp your beloved head and press upon your tortured brow the kiss of reconciliation for all penitent humanity!" Then, taking his face between her hands, she lightly pressed a fervent kiss upon the brow gently inclined toward her. "Now go and lament that you have robbed your Master of this kiss. He will ask, with a smile: 'Do you know for whom that kiss was meant--_thee_ or _me_?' And you will be spared an answer, for when you raise your eyes to Him, you will find it imprinted on _His_ brow."

She paused, overpowered by the sacredness of the moment. There are times when our own words influence us like some unknown force, because they express something which has been so deeply concealed in our hearts that we ourselves were ignorant of its existence. This was the case now with the countess. Freyer stood silently with clasped hands, as if in church.

It seemed as though some third person was addressing them--an invisible person whom they must hold their very breath to understand.

It had grown late. The waning moon floated high above the low window and brightened the little room with its cheering rays. The countess nodded. "It is fulfilled!" Then she laid her hands in Freyer's: "For the first time since my childhood I place my soul in the keeping of a human being! For the first time since my childhood, I strip off all the arrogance of reason, for a higher perception is hovering above me, drawing nearer and nearer with blissful certainty! Is it love, is it faith? Whichever it may be--G.o.d dwells in _both_. And--if philosophy says: 'I _think_, therefore I _am_,' I say: 'I _love_, therefore I _believe_!'"

She humbly bowed her head. "And therefore I beseech you. Bless me, you who are so divinely endowed, with the blessing which is shed upon and emanates from you!"

Freyer raised his eyes to Heaven as if to call down the benediction she implored, and there was such power in the fervid gaze that Madeleine von Wildenau experienced a thrill almost of fear, as if in the presence of some supernatural being. Then he made the sign of the cross over her: "In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost."

A tremor of foreboding ran through her limbs as if the finger of G.o.d had marked her for some mysterious destination and, with this rune, she had been enrolled in the pallid host of those consecrated by sorrow as followers of the deity.

With sweet submission she clasped the hand which had just imprinted the mournful sign on brow and breast: "In the name of G.o.d, if only _you_ are near me!" Her head drooped on her bosom. Some one knocked at the door, the countess' brain reeled so much that she was forced to cling to Freyer for support.

Josepha timidly asked if she wanted a light.

"Light! Was it _dark_?"