"'At that time, then--you had such brave and generous thoughts--when you spoke on Martha's behalf,' I cried out to her, 'and now--when they apply to yourself----' I look into her face, which is trying to smile and ever smiling; but this smile grew rigid, and in the midst of it she closed her eyes and fell down fainting, like a log of wood.
"It was trouble enough to bring her back to life; for I did not care to call in any help. Quite a quarter of an hour she lay there--not much otherwise than she is lying now--then she opened her eyes, and for a long time gazed silently into my face--so sorrowfully, so wearily and hopelessly, that I quite trembled for her. And thereupon she folded her hands and spoke up to me softly and imploringly:
"'Give me time, Robert; I have overtaxed my strength. I must first grow accustomed to it----'
"I, however, was so filled with the exuberance of my new happiness that I believed I could by force compel her too to be happy. 'If we love each other, Olga,' I cried, 'and the deceased says "Yes" and "Amen" to our union, I should like to see who could object! Therefore be brave and cheerful, my child!' But she was anything but brave or cheerful. And not till now--when she is dead--have I realised how utterly miserable and broken down she was as she lay there on the cushions--she who as a rule was so proud and severe in her behaviour to herself and others. It was as if some intense sorrow had cut the innermost nerve of her life in twain. That is all clear to me now, but then I did not see it--I would not see it; and I went on remonstrating with her, comforting her as I thought. She listened to me, but said nothing; only now and then she nodded her head, and a smile of unutterable sadness and weariness played about her lips.
"I put it all down to the excitement of the moment and to the sadness of the last few years, which must rise up once more all the mightier within her, now that, for her too, a new happiness was dawning to supplant it.
"'And the first thing we do,' said I, 'Olga, shall be to visit the churchyard. When we have stood at Martha's grave, my mother's resistance and the ill-will of the whole world need no longer affect us.'
"Then she let her hands drop from her face, looked at me with great terror-stricken eyes, and asked in a perfectly toneless voice: 'You want to go to the churchyard with me?'
"'Yes, with you,' I answered; 'and now, at once, if you are willing.'
"'Then a shudder ran through her frame, and in a strangely hoarse tone she said: 'Have patience till to-morrow; to-morrow I will do what you wish.'
"'Yes, my dear, good child,' I then said; 'put all foolish fancies out of your head by tomorrow, and think to yourself that she is not angry with us. We shall certainly not forget her! And must not our mutual grief for her bind us all the more closely together for the whole of our lives? Her memory will always be with us; and do you not also believe that from her whole heart she would bless our union if she could look down upon us from heaven? Has she not left us her child as a legacy, that we might watch over it together, and not surrender it to any stranger?'