"Once more I implore you, whom chance may lead to this sanctuary, after the lapse of centuries perhaps,—honour the dead, and pray for me,
"JOST VON GNADEWITZ."
The two brothers clasped each other's hands, and, without a word, approached the coffin. In their veins flowed the blood of that strange being who had once kindled to a flame the heart of the fierce, proud lord of the castle,—of that woman whose ardent soul, thirsting for freedom, exultingly fled from the idolized body which had crumbled to a little heap of ashes here in its narrow leaden tomb. Two tall figures stood there, descendants of him who, with his dying mother's consecrating kiss upon his brow, was borne out into the forest, and laid upon the low threshold of a servant, while his nobly-born father, despair in his heart, rushed madly to death.
"She was the mother of our race," Ferber said at last, with much emotion, to Reinhard. "We are the descendants of the foundling whose parentage has been a mystery until this hour, for the papers which would have established him in his rights were destroyed when the townhouse at L—— was burned down. We must suspend work here for a few days," he said, turning to one of the masons, who, prompted by a pardonable curiosity, had descended the ladder half way, and, from this post of observation, had listened in speechless amazement to the unfolding of a tale which would afford a subject for winter evenings in the large, peasant spinning-rooms, for a long time to come.
"Instead, you must prepare a grave to-morrow in the church-yard at Lindhof," the forester called up to him; "I will speak to the pastor about it afterwards."
He went again to the press, and looked at the garments that had once enveloped the delicate limbs of the gypsy maiden, and had evidently been adjusted with great care, that they might recall the times when they had been seen upon the beautiful Lila by the enraptured eyes of her lover. Upon the floor of the press were ranged shoes. The forester took up a pair of them; they were scarcely longer than the width of his broad hand,—only Cinderella's feet could ever have worn them.
"I will take these to Elsie," he said, smiling, holding them carefully between his forefinger and thumb, "she will be surprised to find what a Liliputian her ancestress was."
Meanwhile Ferber, after brushing the dust from the mandolin, took it carefully under his arm, while Reinhard closed the jewel-box and lifted it from the table by the exquisitely wrought handle on the lid. Thus the three men ascended the ladder again. Arrived at the top, all the boards that they could procure were placed over the opening, so as to afford a temporary protection from wind and rain, and then they descended from their perilous position upon the summit of the ruin.
Below, the ladies had been awaiting them for some time, in a state of great expectation, and were not a little surprised at the strange procession that descended the ladder. But not one word did they learn of what had been seen or heard, until the whole party were once more seated beneath the linden. Then Reinhard placed the casket upon the table, described minutely the hidden apartment and its contents, and, at last producing the parchment, read again what we have already learned; of course with far greater fluency than before.
In breathless silence the ladies listened to these outpourings of a passionate, burning heart. Elizabeth sat pale and still; but when Reinhard came to the words that suddenly threw such a glare of light upon the dim past of her family, she started up, and her eyes rested in speechless surprise upon the smiling face of her uncle, who was observing her narrowly. Even Frau Ferber sat for awhile after the reader had finished, fairly dumb with amazement. To her clear, calm mind, accustomed to reason carefully, this romantic solution of family questions, which had been unanswered for centuries, was almost incomprehensible. But Miss Mertens, to whom the whole bearing of the discovery was explained by Ferber, as she did not even know the story of the foundling, clapped her hands above her head at such a revelation.