“Oh, God!” cried Vavel, in a tone so full of anguish that every one who heard it, man, woman, and child, burst into tears. The invalid among the pillows alone laughed—laughed aloud for joy.
And had she not cause to rejoice? Ludwig—her Ludwig—did not hasten first to embrace and kiss his betrothed wife. No, she, his little Marie, was the first!
He flung himself on his knees by the bed and covered the pale face with kisses and tears.
“Oh, my dearest! My adored saint! My idol!” he sobbed, while Marie’s face glowed with the purest earthly happiness.
She pressed Ludwig’s head to her breast and whispered soothingly:
“Don’t grieve, Ludwig; I am not going to die. I have not got that horrid influenza poor papa Cambray brought with him from Paris. I took a little cold the night we ran away from the bombs; but I shall soon be well again, now that you are come. I want to live, Ludwig, and you, who rescued me from death once before, will know how to do it again.”
Katharina laid her hand tenderly on the maid’s head, and said gently:
“Don’t talk any more now, dearest; you know you must not excite yourself.”
Marie grasped the white hand and drew it down to Ludwig’s lips.
“Kiss it, Liadwig; kiss this dear, good hand. Oh, she has been a good little mother to me! She has wept so much because of me. If only you knew what she had planned to do when they were going to tear me away from her! But that danger is past, and now that you are come everything will be well. We have been reading about you, Ludwig. What a hero you are—our knight, St. George! I haven’t been really ill, you know, Ludwig; it was only anxiety about you. I shall soon be well again. Please tell the doctor I don’t need any more medicine. I want to get up—I feel strong already. I want to put on my gown; then I will take your arm and Katharina’s, and we three will promenade to the window. I want to see the evening star. Please send Frau Satan to me; she can lift me more easily than Katharina, for I am very heavy. Ludwig, take Katharina into the next room while I am dressing. I know you have much to say to each other.”
Frau Satan now entered in answer to the summons. The doctor had ordered that the invalid’s wishes must be obeyed.
Ludwig and Katharina went into the next room. They looked long into each other’s eyes, and in the gaze lay many of the thoughts which, if they cannot be told to the one person on earth, are never heard by any one else. Suddenly Katharina, without word of warning, dropped on her knees at her lover’s feet, seized his hand, and laid her face against it.
“You are my guardian angel,” she whispered (the invalid in the next room must not be disturbed by the sound of voices); “you have rescued that saint from her enemies and saved me from perdition. Oh, Ludwig, if only you knew what I have suffered! Marie’s every sigh, the feverish words uttered in her delirium, have been so many accusations oppressing my heart. These have been terrible days! To be compelled hourly to dread either of two horrible blows, and to have to pray to God that, if both could not be averted, to let the milder one fall! Death would have been welcome, indeed, compared to the other one. To listen tremblingly, hour after hour, for the knock at the door which would announce the messenger sent to bear Marie to Paris, or death with his scythe to bear her to the grave! And then to have to look on her sufferings, and hear her pray for her betrayer! Oh, it was terrible, terrible! Ludwig, you are just—as God is just. I have suffered as any woman in the Bible suffered. You have taken my load of sorrow from me, have released my heart from the tortures of perdition. All the evil I have done, you have made good. Therefore, do you pronounce judgment on me. Condemn me or forgive me. I deserve both; I will accept either at your hands.”
Without a word Ludwig Vavel raised the woman to her feet, clasped her in his arms, and pressed his lips to hers in a long, long kiss. In it were forgiveness, love, union.
From the adjoining room came the sounds of a piano. Some one was playing the hymn of the Hungarian militia.
Ludwig and Katharina hurried into the room. Marie was seated at the piano, arrayed in her favorite blue gown. Her transparent hands hovered over the ivory keys, and lured from them the melancholy air, to which she sang, in a voice that seemed to come from the distant clouds:
At the last word her arms sank to her sides; the exertion had completely exhausted her. But she struggled bravely to overcome her weakness. She smiled brightly at Ludwig and Katharina, and said:
“This melancholy song was not intended for you two. It was only to show Ludwig how I have improved. You two will love each other very dearly, won’t you? And you will go far, far away from here, and leave ‘Marie’ buried in her tomb. I don’t mean myself; I mean the troublesome girl who has made so much ill feeling in the world, because of whom so many people have suffered; the girl whose ashes rest there in the steel casket, and whose life was so sad that she had no desire to live longer. But ‘Sophie’ is going with you out into the world. She will see how happy you two can be. And now, help me to the window; I want to look at the evening star,”
They rolled her arm-chair to the window, and Vavel opened the sash to admit the fresh air from the garden.
Marie clasped Ludwig’s and Katharina’s hands in both her own, and whispered in a faint voice:
“You will forget the past, will you not? or think of it only as a dream—a disagreeable dream. And don’t go back to the Nameless Castle. The veiled woman, the locked doors, the silent man, the telescope, the lonely promenades in the garden—all, all were dreams. Don’t think of them! Forget them all! The clanking swords, the thunder of cannons—all these were not. We only dreamed it. We never lived under the shadow of a throne. Who was Marie? A sovereign of cats, and crown princess in the realm of little dogs and birds—a nursery tale to tell naughty little children who will not go to sleep! But Sophie Botta will be here tomorrow, and the next day, and always; she will be with you, the silly, stupid little maid, who can do nothing but obey those whom she loves with all her heart.”
Vavel with difficulty refrained from giving voice to his overwhelming grief.
“Just see,” Marie continued in a gay tone, “how much better I am! Heretofore, when the hour came for the evening star to appear, the fever would come too, and to-day it has failed to come with the star. Joy has cured me. Don’t take your hands away from me, Ludwig—Katharina. They will—hold me—hold me—fast.”
But they did not “hold her fast.”
And why should such a being remain on this earth—a being that could do naught else but love and renounce, adoring her nation even when it persecuted her?
A dark thunder-cloud rose above the horizon out over the Hansag. The sky looked like a vaulted ceiling hung with mourning draperies. From time to time a distant flash of lightning illumined the cloud-curtain, then would be heard the rumbling of thunder, like the deep tones of a distant organ.
Under the threatening sky lay the glittering lake. Its surface of quicksilver was streaked here and there with black shadows—the track of the wind-gusts racing across it. The trees were rustling in the wind, making a sound like a distant choral.
On the shore of Lake Neusiedl stood the Volons in rank and file. They were waiting for something that was coming from the farther shore of the little cove.
Presently the glistening surface of the water was ruffled by a black object that pushed out from the shore. It was a boat. Six men were rowing, a seventh held the rudder. There was a coffin in the boat, covered with a simple pall. No ostentatious trappings ornamented the coffin; only a myrtle wreath lay on it. A woman, sat at the head of it, another at the foot—the former a lady, the latter a peasant wife.