Yesterday evening would have proved that, had proof been needed.

How she had debated whether she would accept that girl's invitation, and see him again whom she had solemnly sworn never more to see! She had kept her oath, and had fled at the last moment.

But was such a flight to be called a victory? Had she not been conquered--did she not lie here helpless, shattered, bleeding? Her deadly wound had never been healed, only insufficiently and with difficulty bound up; and now she had torn off the bandages, and might bleed to death! There was no more hope for her.

All else within was dull, dead, and insensible. She had fancied that she felt a kind of respect for Philip's activity and daring--that she was bound to him by at least a feeble bond of fraternal love. And yet this morning, when Aunt Rikchen had brought the terrible news, and had wept and lamented so that it might have moved a heart of stone, she had not even been touched. She had received it like any other piece of sensational intelligence which her aunt was in the habit of reading out of the newspaper and making remarks upon. She seemed turned to stone in the selfishness of her pa.s.sion, so that it had not even occurred to her to go to her father and say to him, "You have still one child, father."

But could she have said that without lying--was she still at heart the child of the man who, in an hour of madness, had obtained from her that letter of renunciation, every syllable of which had been like a poisoned arrow in her heart? Had he attempted to compensate her, in some measure at least, for so enormous, so unsurpa.s.sable a sacrifice, by multiplying his own love to her a hundredfold? Perhaps his pride forbade him that, or he shrank from hers, which he knew so well. Well, then, she was well acquainted with his pride too. She could see his expression if she went to him in his room; she could hear his voice saying, "You have come to me about that wretched man; I wish to hear nothing more about the matter than is, unfortunately, necessary for me to hear. In my house at least I may be spared; so as you have come to see me at last, talk of something else."

No, no, her father did not need her; and for herself! others might importune him with their troubles, and humble themselves before him--her proud father's prouder daughter would sooner die a martyr at the stake!

Cilli was better off. She was sitting now beside her father's sick-bed, and listening patiently to his childish complaints of how foolish he had been to believe in Philip, and how just was the punishment that the savings of many years, so carefully acc.u.mulated in a thousand frugal ways, and by unceasing self-denial through so many long years, should have been lost in one night, with the millions of the gambler on whose cards he had staked his little fortune! Then she would comfort the old man, and believe every word that came from her pure lips. And in secret she had another comfort, at which she only hinted sometimes in mysterious words, as if she were ashamed of such divine help--the comfort of believing that, as one consecrated to early death, she needed no earthly consolation.

She might well be secure of that consolation! How transparent her white skin had grown in the last few weeks; how spiritually beautiful the expression of her pure features; how unearthly the look of her great, blind eyes!

Oh, how happy she was! To die so young, before the faintest stain had marred even the hem of her white robes! To find above, if there was anything above--and for her there must surely be--a heaven which she had already created for herself on earth in her pure, humble heart! To rise from joy to bliss--from light into glory! Oh, how happy she was!

And she herself, most miserable! That world above was only a beautiful fable to her ever since her restless brain had begun to work behind her burning brow. Her pa.s.sionate heart had once desired to possess all earthly joy as the sea receives into its bosom the streams which roll gleefully and exultingly into it, and now it was pining away like the barren desert under a sky of bra.s.s; and her vigorous form seemed made to drag the weary burden of life through the never-ending years to a far-distant, desolate grave, like some captive hero who, bending under the heavy load bound upon his strong shoulders, may not hope to break down or fall beneath the lash of his driver like his weaker companion, but must throw away his load, and turn upon his tormentors, crying, "You or I!"

But there was no alternative here. Death was very sure for those who did not fear it!

Did she fear death?

She!

With this chisel, with the first tool from off her table, she would accomplish it with her own hand, if----

If within her deepest, inmost heart, where some spring that she had thought dried up must still be bubbling, a siren voice had not wailed and whispered: "Do not die! for so you would kill me, the last and mightiest of all the sisters. Only one moment is mine, and there is night before me and after me; but this one moment surpa.s.ses the bliss of eternity!"

In the next room to her had been noise and whistling and singing the whole morning, louder than usual, as the master had been absent to-day; and there had been much talk as to whether, when there was a Mrs.

Sculptor--some wit had suggested this--things would be quite so lively in the studio. Now all was still, only the storm howled and raged round the silent house, and shook and rattled the tall windows.

How had he endured the disappointment of yesterday? Was he raging like the storm without? Was he the storm? Was it he who tapped at the window-pane, and knocked at the door? Good heavens! there was really a knock at the door! Was it possible! had he at last, at last broken the final fetter, and come here to carry her away?

With trembling limbs she rose, her heart beating as if it would break in joyful terror.

There again! at the closed window now! and was there not a cry, "Ferdinanda?"

With a shriek she rushed forward, tore back the bolts, flung open the door: "Bertalda! Good G.o.d! he is dead!"

"Not yet," said Bertalda, "but he is not far off it."

The girl's usually laughing rosy face was pale and changed; she was breathless from the haste she had made, and could hardly bring out her words, as with trembling knees she sank into the nearest chair.

"He is ill! where? in your house? for G.o.d's sake, Bertalda, speak!"

Ferdinanda stood before the girl, pressing her hands in hers, and putting back the ruffled hair from her brow.

"Speak! speak!"

"There is not much to say," said Bertalda, raising herself up, "only you must come with me at once, or he will shoot himself. He wanted to do it before, and now his own father sends him a pistol to do it with!

There is an officer--Schonau is his name--with him now; but those sort of people talk such nonsense--America! I dare say! He will never leave my room if you do not come to him and tell him that you would remain with him if he had forged his father's name for a hundred thousand instead of this miserable twenty thousand. Why, my goodness! an Englishman once offered me forty thousand, but I didn't like him, so there was an end of it; but these men are all like children with their foolish ideas of honour. I only tell you that you may not be startled by anything, because you, too, are so absurd about such things, and if you only look-- There! you are just like the others; you are heartless, the whole lot of you."

Bertalda said all this behind Ferdinanda's back, as the latter after her first words was moving wildly about the studio, looking for her things, and now stood still with her hand pressed to her forehead.

"If only I were you," said Bertalda, "I would go with him to the devil if he would take me. He is not wise, he would get more from me than from you. Why did I sit with him and comfort him all night long, when I was dead tired and might have been sleeping in my comfortable bed--or on the sofa even, or the carpet?--it would be all the same to me, if only the poor boy were at ease. And this morning again! I should like to see the woman who would go through it for her husband! That would be a fine fuss! and I, like a good-humoured fool, agree to everything, and persuade him instead of shooting himself to go to Sundin, and farther on--I don't know the name of the place--and shoot Count Golm, merely to change the current of his thoughts, for he does not care one bit about his so-called betrothed--and then I rush headlong here, and--well, what do you want?"

Ferdinanda had hardly heard or understood a word of Bertalda's rambling speech. She had been pulling out and ransacking drawers from the desk which stood in a corner of her studio near the window, and now sitting down opened her blotting-book.

"What are you about?" repeated Bertalda.

"I have enough to begin with," said Ferdinanda, still writing; "a thousand thalers! There! take up the packet--thank G.o.d! I only received it yesterday."

"That is always something to begin with," said Bertalda; "I had already offered him what I had, but of course he would not take it from me. But do let that scribbling alone. What are you doing now?"

"Here!" cried Ferdinanda.

She folded the paper on which she had been writing, and held it out to Bertalda.

"What am I to do with it?"

"Take it to my father, whilst I go to Ottomar."

"Oh! I dare say!" said Bertalda. "I am not generally afraid of people, but I won't have anything to do with your father. Just leave it there.

Some one will find it and give it to him, and if not it can't be helped."

"I will give it to him," said a gentle voice.

Ferdinanda started up with a cry, as she saw Cilli, who had entered as usual by the door which led from the studio into the narrow pa.s.sage between the house and garden, and unnoticed by the others had been present for some minutes, and had heard with her quick ears every word of the latter part of their conversation.

"Oh! my better self, my good angel," cried Ferdinanda; "you are come to tell me that I am doing right, that I may, that I ought to follow him as my heart tells me, through shame and grief, through misery and death!"

"And may G.o.d be with you!" said Cilli, laying her hands on Ferdinanda's head, who had thrown herself on her knees before her;--"with you both!

He only asks for love, and yet again for love, the love that beareth all things. You can now--you can both now prove that your love is true love! Give me the letter to your father! and farewell!"

She bent down and kissed Ferdinanda on the forehead, as the other rose sobbing and gave the letter into her hand.

"You look so pale, Cilli, and your dear hands are cold as ice. Is your father very ill?"

"He is very ill; but the doctor says he will get over it. He is asleep now--Aunt Rikchen is with him, so I have plenty of time."

She smiled her own sad sweet smile.

"And now, farewell! for the last time!"

"Come," cried Bertalda impatiently; "come, we have lost only too much time already! Whatever you want besides I can supply you with."

Ferdinanda was forced to tear herself away from Cilli. In her own pa.s.sionate way she had learned within the last few weeks to love, and honour, and even worship the fair being who had come to her, as the good Samaritan came to the wounded man in the burning desert sand. An inward foreboding warned her that this was a farewell for ever, that she should never again behold these angelic features. And to-day the face in its transparent clearness seemed hardly that of an earthborn creature.