No one was in the church, and Charlie's heart began at once to sink, when there was a sound behind him, and coming down two steps, from a door that he had not observed before, was his own Ernestine.
'Carl! Carl! It is thee! Thee, at last!' she exclaimed, in a piercing voice, and, with innocent self-abandonment and a tenderness that was irrepressible, but peculiarly her own, she flung herself into his arms, as on that night in the boudoir.
She was dressed as if for a ball or some great festival; but Carl remembered that this was Christmas-time, always a season of gaiety at Frankenburg as elsewhere.
Her dress was white silk, covered with waves of the finest white lace. A great veil of the latter material enveloped her head and shoulders.
She wanted but a white wreath to make her look like a lovely bride, and Charlie's heart throbbed with pride and joy to think that she was his own.
He thought she looked pale and tired. It might be—nay, doubtless, it must be—that the months of past anxiety had told upon her system as on his own.
Yet her eyes had all the tender purity of an angel's in them, though when she became excited there came over them a strange glitter, a restless flashing, a sparkling animation, that contrasted strongly with the languor of her form and actions; but happily there was no fever flush on her cheek, which was pale—paler than of old, as Charlie thought.
Long and silent was their embrace ere they spoke in broken accents of all they had mutually undergone; and, while speaking, her head nestling as it used to do on Charlie's neck, she shuddered sometimes, for she seemed to be sorely chilled by the damp cold atmosphere of the old church.
'Are all well at the Schloss?' asked Charlie suddenly, after a pause, as the last evening's conversation recurred to him.
'All! Thank Heaven!' replied Ernestine.