But there was no alternative here. Death was very sure for those who did not fear it!
Did she fear death?
She!
With this chisel, with the first tool from off her table, she would accomplish it with her own hand, if----
If within her deepest, inmost heart, where some spring that she had thought dried up must still be bubbling, a siren voice had not wailed and whispered: "Do not die! for so you would kill me, the last and mightiest of all the sisters. Only one moment is mine, and there is night before me and after me; but this one moment surpasses the bliss of eternity!"
In the next room to her had been noise and whistling and singing the whole morning, louder than usual, as the master had been absent to-day; and there had been much talk as to whether, when there was a Mrs. Sculptor--some wit had suggested this--things would be quite so lively in the studio. Now all was still, only the storm howled and raged round the silent house, and shook and rattled the tall windows.
How had he endured the disappointment of yesterday? Was he raging like the storm without? Was he the storm? Was it he who tapped at the window-pane, and knocked at the door? Good heavens! there was really a knock at the door! Was it possible! had he at last, at last broken the final fetter, and come here to carry her away?
With trembling limbs she rose, her heart beating as if it would break in joyful terror.
There again! at the closed window now! and was there not a cry, "Ferdinanda?"
With a shriek she rushed forward, tore back the bolts, flung open the door: "Bertalda! Good God! he is dead!"