‘And now I am to die. May the Lord have mercy upon my sinful soul.’
Released from the stern command of her judge, Clara uttered a low cry and fell upon her face at his feet.
‘You have heard,’ said Rieseneck to his brother. ‘It is time.’
Greifenstein turned. He saw the tall old man’s great figure standing flat against the opposite wall, and he saw the ghastly face, half hidden by the snowy beard. He glanced down, and beheld a mass of straw-coloured silk, crumpled and disordered, and just beyond it a coil of faded hair adorned with jewelled pins that reflected the soft light. He crossed the room, and his features were ashy pale, firmly set and utterly relentless. He had heard her condemnation from her own lips, he thought of his son, nameless through this woman’s crime, and his heart was hardened.
‘It is time,’ he said. ‘Have you anything more to say?’
He waited for an answer, but none came. Clara’s hour had struck and she knew it. There was deep silence in the room. Then the stillness was broken by a gasp for breath and by a little rustling of the delicate silk. That was all.
When it was done, the two brothers stooped down again and lifted their burden and bore it silently away, till they reached the room in which they had first met. Then Greifenstein made sign that they should go further and they entered the chamber beyond, and upon the bed that was there, they laid down the dead woman, and covered her poor painted face decently with a sheet and went away, closing the door softly behind them.
For a moment they stood looking at each other earnestly. Then Rieseneck took from his pocket his brother’s gift and laid it upon the table.
‘It is time for us also,’ he said.
‘Yes. I must write to Greif first.’