"Guten-tag, Signor."
Herr Ritter did not go back to his lodgings then. He went past the low house with its green verandah, blistering under the fierce noon-sun, and across the pastures to the cottage of 'Lora Delcor. She was sitting at the open door, her thin transparent palms pressed tightly together, as though she were praying, and her great fringed eyelids dark and heavy with their burden of pain. Ah! 'Lora! 'Lora! "blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted!" Not in the world that men have made, daughter of earth, ah, not in that; but in the world that God shall make hereafter!
"Herr Ritter! you have been? O tell me what she said! 'Tista is not here, he is gone into the woods to gather herbs."
"Have you told 'Tista anything?"
"About this? Nothing. I thought I would wait until I knew—"
She had risen from her seat to greet him, with painful agitation; and now she staggered, and I think would have fallen, but that the old man timely caught and held her in his gentle grasp.
"Be comforted, dear 'Lora," he whispered; " bring you good news."
She dropped into her wooden chair and covered her face with her bloodless hands, weeping and sobbing for joy, as only women can who have suffered much and long and alone.
Herr Ritter stood by, watching her kindly, and stroking his white flowing beard in silence, until she had wept her fill; and her dark blissful eyes, dreamy with the mist of fallen tears, were lifted again to his face, like caverned pools in summer refreshed with a happy rain.
"What did she say? she sent me a note? a message?"