"George Moosbach! Have you got safe back from Krivoscia? After all it isn't quite so bad as you represented it, for I see you wear the medal for courage. Listen, George, you make a great impression upon me as a returning conqueror! What of the offer with which you once honored me? I am now free again, and should not be wholly disinclined to become the mistress of the Moosbach Farm."
"I thank you very kindly," stammered George, intensely confused. "I'm very sorry, but--I'm already engaged."
With these words he pulled Jovica forward and presented her; but Edith now burst into a merry laugh.
"Another Krivoscian? For Heaven's sake, did all the Imperial Chasseurs get betrothed and married there? There will be a rebellion among the Tyrolese girls. I think you are very inconsistent, George. You protested that day, by everything you held dear, that you would marry nobody but a Tyrolese, and made the sign of the cross as if you saw Satan himself when I suggested the daughters of that country, whom you preferred to dub 'savages.'"
"Fräulein," replied George, solemnly, "there is nothing, not even in this world, so bad that it has not one good thing. The only good thing Krivoscia had was Jovica--and that I brought away with me."
"Well, I wish you and your Jovica every possible happiness. But now come, Danira, that we may have at least half an hour's chat. Gerald must give you up for that time. Come, we shall not be interrupted in the waiting-room to-day."
She drew Danira away, while Gerald, who saw Father Leonhard coming hastily went to him to tell him his unexpected and joyful news.
The little waiting-room was, in truth, perfectly empty; every one was pressing toward the door of the station.
The two young ladies sat close together. Edith had put her arm around her adopted sister in the old familiar way, and was laughing and chatting continuously; but Danira could not be so easily deceived in this respect as Gerald.
She herself loved, and knew that a love which had once taken root in the heart cannot be so speedily forgotten. She said little, but her eyes rested steadily on Edith's features.