He threw himself on the mossy ground and watched the sunbeams glint through the purple haze that hung over the surrounding thicket.
Once again he reviewed the daring enterprise of the last few hours, and the thickly curtained windows of the parsonage recurred to his memory. How careful she had been to keep herself out of his sight and reach, and how well she had succeeded! Surely she must know what had brought him into the village--must know that to-morrow he would quit it, perhaps never to return.
Had she no longing to see him just once before his departure, and to wish him God speed? The hour she had told him to wait patiently for, was it not time it came to-day? What availed the letter he wore close to his heart, if the hand that penned it was refused to him? Her image was now quite effaced from his heart; it could no longer lead him to battle, unless the impression was renewed.
"If she loves me, she will send for me. If she doesn't send for me, she must be lost to me for ever."
Having arrived at this conclusion he left the wood and bent his footsteps in the direction of the river. The park, in its new spring dress of lightest green, smiled him a welcome. A shimmering crown of silver rested on the tall poplars, and the dark masses of ivy glistened on their slender trunks.
How beautiful was this home, that had been a source of such infinite pain and sorrow! How his whole being yearned for that impoverished dwelling where he had lodged like a criminal! Was this longing owing to the woman who had voluntarily shared his loneliness and wretchedness, and who had tried to make her own misery the foundation of a new happiness for him?
But he had no reason to fear what was to come. He felt that since the Fatherland had summoned him, he was safe from all weak and vicious instincts. Even long before this he believed he had completely freed himself from her influence. Their relations now were merely those of master and servant.
One more night, and the priest's curse would be remembered only as an old man's idle babble. Yet what would become of her? She must look after herself. He had provided for her future. No one could say he was bound to do more. And to-day he would renew his bounty twofold or threefold, so that she would stand in the position of a wealthy widow. When thousands of women and children would perish of hunger in broken-hearted distress, without any one heeding their fate, why should he concern himself so much about deserting this one strange girl and leaving her in solitude?
He steeled and hardened his heart, for it had begun to beat faster....
And as he mounted the steep ascent to the Cats' Bridge, he caught sight of the familiar figure among the bushes above, illumined by the setting sun.