“You will be better here, Fräulein,” said he, respectfully; “the air is fresh and balmy.”
“He sat beside me on this bench three nights ago,” said she, as if talking to herself, “and said how he wished I could be with Kate, but that he could not part with me; and see,—we are parted, and for a longer separation! Oh, Hanserl! what we would give to recall some of the past, when death has closed it forever against us!”
“Remember Wieland, Fräulein; he tells us that 'the Impossible is a tree without fruit or flowers.'”
“And yet my mind will dwell on nothing else. The little thwartings of his will, the cold compliance which should have been yielded in a better spirit, the counsels that often only irritated,—how they rise up now, like stern accusers, before me, and tell me that I failed in my duty.”
“Not so, Fräulein, not so,” said Hans, reverently.
“But there is worse than that, Hanserl, far worse,” said she, trembling. “To smooth the rough path of life, I descended to deception. I told him the best when my heart felt the worst. Had he known of Kate's real life, and had he sorrowed over her fortunes, might not such grief have been hallowed to him! To have wept over Frank—the poor boy in prison—might have raised his thoughts to other themes than the dissipation that surrounded him. All this was my fault I would have his love, and see the price it has cost me!” She hid her face between her hands, and never spoke for a long time. And at length she lifted up her eyes, red as they were with weeping, and with a heavy sigh said, “How far is it to Vienna, Hanserl?”
“To Vienna, Fräulein! It is a long journey,——more than four hundred miles. But why do you ask?”
“I was thinking that if I saw Count Stephen—if I could but tell him our sad story myself—he might intercede for poor Frank, and perhaps obtain his freedom. His crime can scarcely be beyond the reach of mercy, and his youth will plead for him. And is it so far away, Hanserl?”
“At the very least; and a costly journey, too.”
“But I would go on foot, Hans. Lame as I am, I can walk for miles without fatigue, and I feel as if the exertion would be a solace to me, and that my mind, bent upon a good object, could the more easily turn away from my own desolation. Oh, Hans, think me not selfish that I speak thus; but thoughts of my own loneliness are so linked with all I have lost, I cannot separate them. Even the humble duty that I filled gave a value to my life, without which my worthlessness would have crushed me; for what could poor lame Nelly be,—I, that had no buoyancy for the young, no ripe judgment for the old? And yet, in caring for him that is gone, I found a taste of love and happiness.”