"I have done all that is possible to human art and knowledge, let us hope God's hand will shed a blessing upon my work. Pray to God, countess, fervently and with all your soul, that He may give my remedy strength to overcome the poison."
"Yes, yes," said the young girl ardently, and her eyes sought her lover; "come to me, my beloved friend!"
Herr von Stielow hastened to the bed and sank down before it with folded hands.
"I cannot put my hands together," she said in a low voice, looking at him affectionately, "so let me lay my hand in yours, and our united prayer shall ascend to heaven, that eternal mercy may permit us to remain together."
And she began whisperingly to pray, whilst the young officer's eyes were raised upwards with a look of the deepest devotion.
Suddenly a shudder passed through the form of the young countess, she withdrew her hand with a look of pain, and gazed with horror at her lover.
"Oh!" she cried in a trembling voice, "our prayers cannot really be united; what a dreadful thought, we do not pray to the same God!"
"Clara!" cried the young man, "what an idea! there is but one God in heaven, and He will hear us!"
"Ah!" she cried, without heeding his words, "there is but one God in heaven, but you do not walk in the paths that lead to Him, you are not in the bosom of the Church! Oh! I often thought of it amidst the pleasures and distractions of life; but now in this dire necessity, at the very gate of eternity, the thought fills me with horror! God cannot hear us, and," she added, with a bewildered look, "if I must die, if no help is possible, I must pass into eternity, knowing that his soul is lost! Horrible! oh, horrible!"
"Clara! Clara!" cried von Stielow in a tone of the greatest anguish, gazing in despair upon her painfully excited face, "God is the same for all those who worship Him with a pure heart, and no prayer can be more pure, more earnest than mine is now!"