"In spite of everything, you have worked hard," he said, striving to retain his tone of condescending patronage, and he pointed to the neat borders in which auriculas and primroses were planted.
She gave a proud little laugh. "I thought to myself you should find everything in order if you did come back, Herr."
"But you have neglected yourself, Regina. How is that?"
She turned her face away, blushing hotly.
"Shall I tell the truth, Herr?" she stammered.
"Of course," he said.
"I thought ... I ... was ... going to die ... and so ... it wouldn't matter."
He was silent. It was as if she poured forth an ocean of infinite love with every word, and that its waves rolled over him.
The lawn on the farther side of the Castle, sloping gently down to the park, now opened before his gaze. There stood the weather-beaten socket of the Goddess Diana's pedestal. Regina had collected the pieces and put them together again, but the torso had been beyond her strength to lift, and it lay in the grass, while the head, with its blank white eyes, looked down on it. A few steps farther on, a dark four-cornered patch stood out in relief from the emerald turf. That was the spot where he had first seen her busily employed in digging a grave for her seducer, whom every one else refused to bury.
"I left it as it was--in memory of me," she said apologetically, pointing to the turned-up clods that, now overgrown with grass, had joined and formed a bank.