On the Cross Part 24

"Very well," she answered absently.

Josepha brought the lamp and enquired when the countess desired to have supper? Freyer took his hat to go.

"I shall eat nothing more to-night!" said the countess in a curt, impatient tone, and Josepha timidly withdrew.

Madeleine von Wildenau covered her face with both hands like a person who had been roused from a beautiful dream to bare reality.

"Alas--that there must be other people in the world, besides ourselves!" She sighed heavily, as if to take breath after the terrible fall. Freyer, hat in hand, approached her, calm and self-controlled.

Joseph Freyer, addressing Countess Wildenau, had no remembrance of what the penitent soul had just confided to the image of the Redeemer.

"Allow me to take my leave, your Highness," he said in a gentle, but distant tone.

The countess understood the delicate modesty of this conduct. "Did your blue gentians teach this tact? It would seem that lonely pastures, whispering hazel copses, and das.h.i.+ng mountain streams are better educators of the heart, for those who understand their mysterious language, than many of our schools."

Freyer was silent a moment, then with eyes bent on the floor, he said: "May I ask when your Highness intends to leave to-morrow?"

"_Must_ I go, Freyer?"

"Your Highness--"

"Here is a telegram which announces my arrival at home to-morrow. Tell me, Freyer, shall I send it?"

"How can _I_ decide--" stammered Freyer in confusion.

"I wish to know whether you--_you_, Freyer, would like to keep me here?"

"But Good Heavens, your Highness--is it seemly for me to express such a wish? Of course it will be a great pleasure to have you remain--but how could I seek to influence you in any way?"

"Mere phrases!" said the countess, disappointed and offended. "Then, if it is a matter of indifference to you whether I go or stay, I will send the telegram." She went to the table to add something.

Suddenly he stood close beside her, with a beseeching, tearful glance--and laid his hand upon the paper.

"No--do not send it."

"Not send it?" asked Madeleine in blissful expectation. "Not send it--then what am I to do?"

His lips moved several times, as if he could not utter the word--but at last it escaped from his closed heart, and with an indescribable smile he murmured: "Stay!"

Ah! A low cry of exultation escaped the countess, and the telegram lay torn upon the table. Then with a trembling hand she wrote the second, which she requested him to send at once. It contained only the words: "Am ill--cannot come!"

He was still standing at her side, and she gave it to him to read.

"Is it true?" he asked, after glancing at it, looking at her with timid, sportive reproach. "Are you ill?"

"Yes!" she said caressingly, laying her hand, as if she felt a pang, upon her heart. "I _am_!"

He clasped both in his own and asked softly in a tone which sent a thrill of happiness through every vein: "How shall we _cure_ this illness?"

She felt his warm breath on her waving hair--and dared not stir.

Then, with sudden resolution he shook off the thrall: "Good-night, Countess!"

The next moment he was hurrying past the window.

Ludwig, wondering at his Mend's hasty departure, entered.

"What has happened, Countess?"

"Signs and wonders have happened," she said, extending her arms as if transfigured.

CHAPTER X.

IN THE EARLY MORNING.

"Rise Mary! Night is darkening and the wintry storms are raging--but be comforted, in the early morning, in the Spring garden, you will see me again."

The countess woke from a short slumber as if some one had uttered the words aloud. She glanced around the dusky room, it was still early, scarcely a glimmer of light pierced through the c.h.i.n.ks of the shutters.

She tried to sleep again, but in vain. The words constantly rang in her ears: "In the early morning you will see me again." Now the c.h.i.n.ks in the shutters grew brighter, and one golden arrow after another darted through. The countess threw aside the coverlet and started up. Why should she torment herself with trying to court sleep? Outside a dewy garden offered its temptations.

True, it was an autumn, not a spring garden. Yet for her it was Spring--it had dawned in her heart--the first springtime of her life.

Up and away! Should she wake Josepha, who slept above her? Nay, no sound, no word must disturb this sacred morning stillness.

She dressed and, half an hour later, glided lightly, unseen, into the garden.

The clock in the church steeple was striking six. A fresh autumn breeze swept like a band of jubilant sprites through the tops of the ancient trees, then rus.h.i.+ng downward, tossed her silken hair as though it would fain bear away the filmy strands to some envious wood-nymph to weave nets from it for the poor mortals who might lose themselves in her domain.

On the ground at her feet, too, the gra.s.ses and shrubs swayed and rustled as if little gnomes were holding high revel there. A strange mood pervaded all nature.

Madeleine von Wildenau looked upward; there were huge cloud-shapes in the sky, but the sun was s.h.i.+ning brightly in a broad expanse of blue.

The bells were ringing for early ma.s.s. The countess clasped her hands.

Everything was silent and lonely, no eye beheld, no ear heard her, save the golden orb above. The birds carolling their matin songs, the flowers whose cups were filled with morning dew, the buzzing, humming bees--all were celebrating the great matins of awakening nature--and she, whose heart was full of the morning dew of the first genuine feeling of her life, was she alone not to join in the chorus of grat.i.tude of refreshed creation?

There is a language whose key we do not possess. It is the Sanscrit of Nature and of the human soul when it communes with the deity. The countess sank silently down on the dewy gra.s.s. She did not pray in set words--there was an interchange of thought, her heart spoke to G.o.d, and reason knew not what it confided to Him.

In the early morning in the spring garden "thou wilt see me again!"

There again spoke the voice which had roused her so early! The countess raised her head--but still remained kneeling as if spell-bound. Before her stood the Promised One.

She could say nothing save the word uttered by Mary Magdalene: "Master!"

A loving soul can never be surprised by the object of its love because it expects him always and everywhere, yet it appears a miracle when its expectation becomes fulfilment.

"Have I interrupted your prater? I did not see you because you were kneeling"--he said, gently.