This time, in consideration of the broom and the old woman, I had despatched a full-grown messenger, desiring him on no account to presume to return without the key; but the answer he brought, though polite, was yet more hopeless, and he, too, had come back empty-handed. “Have you been to the sacristan?” I sternly inquired. He had, as he humbly informed me, and not only to him, but likewise to the next priest in rank, as well as to the sister and nephew of the deceased, and to his best friend.
“The gentlemen were all very polite, and much regretted not being able to oblige me,” he said; “but the garden gate had been closed with the official seal immediately after the death, and this key, along with all others, deposited at the gericht (court of justice) till a successor should be elected.”
“And when will that be?”
“In about six months probably.”
In six months! They dared talk to me of six months, when I should be gone before as many days! And what cared I for their hypocritical expressions of regret, now that I knew them to be dragons in disguise? Hope was now dead within me, for even British pertinacity cannot cope with supernatural agency, and expect to penetrate realms defended by witches and dragons.
Driving to the station, we passed for the last time by the impenetrable stone-wall which masked the object of all this useless longing and effort, and which, like all unattainable things, looked more than ever desirable on the balmy May evening we turned our backs upon Hermanstadt. In vain my eyesight strove to penetrate the dense screen of flowery shrubs hiding from my view—I know not what. Perhaps an old temple with shattered columns, or a fountain which has ceased to play? Maybe an ancient statue draped in ivy, or a tombstone bearing some long-forgotten name?
Naught could I see but the dense-grown tops of gelder-rose and bird-cherry pressed tightly together, and one clustering branch of overblown laburnum dropping its petals in amber showers on to the road.
Were you mocking me, or weeping for me, enigmatical golden flower? Shall I ever return to gather you?
THE END.