About this time he read in the newspaper that Elsbeth was betrothed. The name of Elsbeth Douglas and Leo Heller stood side by side in letters full of beautiful flourishes.
He did not feel any sharp pain, he was not even startled; only a smile of melancholy satisfaction played round his mouth, as if he were murmuring to himself, “I always said so!”
And then he remembered the document which had once been circulated in church by the younger Erdmann to vex him, and which sounded just the same, only that his own name had stood there instead of the strange one. And that certainly made a difference.
He had not seen her for years. Although their properties lay so close together there had been no meeting between them. The White House still gleamed just as brightly over the heath and overlooked his window as at the time when the longing to wander thither had arisen in his childish heart, but the magic glitter which surrounded it then, and for fifteen years after, had now vanished, extinguished by the deepening shadows of every-day life.
“May she be happy!” he said, and considered himself comforted by this wish.
Next Sunday the harvest festival was celebrated in the church. Paul sat in his corner, and listened to the tones of the organ and the vicar sending up praise and thanksgiving to Heaven. The sun shone through the painted windows in a thousand bright colors, just as it did on the day when he and Elsbeth were confirmed; but there, too, sad and sombre in her ash-colored garments, stood the gray woman, still gazing down upon him with her big, hollow eyes.
“I, too, am celebrating a harvest festival to-day, the harvest festival of my youth,” he thought, “but mine is scarcely a too happy one.”
The service was at an end. With a triumphant song the organ dismissed the joyful worshippers, who crowded together under the yews in the shady church-yard to shake hands and congratulate each other.
As Paul came down the steps he saw Elsbeth only a few paces before him, on the arm of her betrothed.
She seemed older, and looked pale and delicate. When her look met his she turned a shade paler still.