Mary Margaret arose to go. That moment a servant knocked at the door. All was ready for the journey, which Louis had forgotten.
The brothers looked at each other in surprise, as if the idea of separation had just arisen.
“No, I will not leave my native land till this mystery is explained,” said Louis, in answer to his brother’s anxious look.
The servant went out, Mary Margaret gathered up her basket and disappeared with him, leaving the brothers alone.
“She lives, I am certain that Catharine lives,” exclaimed George, sinking down upon the sofa, and gazing at the pale face of his brother through a mist of joyful tears.
Louis could not answer, for in his heart there was a wild struggle. Self-reproach, regret, and a thousand tender memories of his wife, struggled hard with another image that rose, spite of himself, amid these sad memories, leaving him in a state of strange excitement.
At last George became more composed.
“Now,” he said, “we have the world before us. Let there be no rest till all this strange story is put into proof.”
Louis arose.
“I am ready, brother.” Then, with a burst of natural sorrow, which was not in the least incompatible with the feelings we have just described, his eyes filled with tears, and he exclaimed, with a world of regret in his voice,—