He had really accomplished his purpose; his song had interrupted the prayer of the young wife, and she had risen from her knees.
“Midnight already!” she murmured, in a low voice. “Another day of anguish is over, and a new one is beginning. Oh, would to God I could sleep, always sleep, so as to be at least unconscious of the dangers that are menacing HIM! Oh, my God, my God! protect my poor, beloved husband, preserve the father of my children! And now I will go to bed,” she added, after a pause. “God will have mercy on me, perhaps, and grant me a few hours of rest!”
She took the brass candlestick, on which a taper was burning, and went slowly and with bowed head to the adjoining room. When she had entered it, her face became calmer and more joyful, and a gentle smile lighted up her charming features when she now approached the small bed, in which her two little girls lay arm-in-arm, sweetly slumbering with rosy cheeks and half-opened crimson lips.
“God preserve to you your peace and innocence,” whispered the young mother, after contemplating her children long and tenderly. “God, I fondly trust, will cause this cloud to glide past without your hearing the thunder roll, and being shattered by the lightning. Good-night, my children!”
She nodded smilingly to the slumbering girls, and then glided noiselessly to her couch. She commenced undressing—slowly and sighing, but when she was just about to open the silver buckle of her sash, she paused and looked anxiously toward the window.
It seemed to her as though she had heard a soft rapping at this window, which opened upon the garden in the rear of the house, and as though a low voice has uttered her name.
Sure enough, the sound was repeated, and she now heard the voice say quite distinctly: “Open the window, Anna.”
She rushed toward the window and opened it, pale, breathless, and almost out of her wits.
“Is it you, Palm?” she cried.
“It is I,” said a low, male voice; and now an arm became visible, it encircled the crosswork of the window; in the next second the whole form of a gentleman appeared, and vaulted cautiously into the room.