The paper on which Palm had written was no longer on the table; it reposed now on Anna’s heart; the golden wedding-ring which Palm had worn on his finger had disappeared, and glittered now on Anna’s hand near her own wedding-ring.
“The priest is there,” said the jailer, “and the soldiers, too, are already in the corridor. It is high time.”
“Go, then, Anna,” said Palm, withdrawing his arm from her neck.
But she clung with a long scream of despair to his breast. “You want me to live, then?” she exclaimed, reproachfully. “You want to sever our paths? Oh, be merciful, my beloved; remember that we have sworn at the altar to share life and death with each other! Let me die with you, therefore!”
“No,” he said, tenderly and firmly. “No, Anna, you shall live with me! My children are my life and my heart; they will live with you. Every morning I shall greet you from the eyes of our children, and when they embrace you, think it were my arms encircling you. Live for our children, Anna; teach them to love their father who, it is true, will be no longer with them, but whose soul will ever surround you and them! Swear to me that you will live and bear your fate firmly and courageously!”
“I swear it,” she said in a low voice.
“And now, beloved Anna, leave me! My last moments belong to God!”
He kissed her lips, which were as cold as marble, and led her gently to the door.
Anna now raised her head in order to fix a long, last look on him.
“You want me to live,” she said; “I shall do so long as it pleases God. I bid you, therefore, farewell, but not forever, nor even for a very long while. All of us are nothing but poor wanderers whom God has sent on earth to perform their pilgrimage. But at length He opens to us again the doors of our paternal house and calls us home! I long for my return home, my beloved! Farewell, then, until we meet again!”