"Then you will perform it alone. Alive I shall never enter the family vault. You know why."
Both were silent. Then Theudelinde burst out:
"Why was I not left in my castle? Why was I undeceived when I imagined that my ancestors visited me? If I had not been shaken in my delusions I should still have been happy. I should never have gone into the world, where I have only found misery; Angela would not have come to me; my brother Theobald would not have been ruined; hell would not have been let loose in the Bondavara mines; I should have never known you; all—all would have been different!" Then, after a pause, she went on: "There is no need of a clergyman; there is no need of any ceremony. You can say some prayers. You are a Protestant—so was Angela. She became one that she might get a separation from her unworthy husband. Let them carry the coffin quietly and reverently to the family vault. There I shall leave you and it, for I shall not go inside—never, until I am dead. You will put the coffin in its place, and then I return whence I came, where I am wanted by no one."
Ivan called the miners to take the coffin again upon their shoulders, and told them to carry it through the vestibule to the private door which led into the park. The park separated the director's house from the castle.
As they walked through the winding paths of the park the trees shed their golden leaves upon the coffin and the titmice in the brushwood chanted the dirge.
Ivan walked bareheaded behind the coffin, and behind him came Countess Theudelinde.
When they reached the entrance of the vault Ivan told the bearers to put the coffin down, and, kneeling down beside it, he remained for a long time praying. God hears us if we speak to Him in a whisper; nay, He hears us, even although we do not speak, but feel.
Theudelinde bent over Ivan and kissed his forehead.
"I thank you. You walked behind her with your head uncovered. Now she is all yours." Then she returned by the winding path, as if she were afraid that Ivan would make her take away what she had brought.
Ivan placed the coffin in its resting-place and sent away the bearers; then he remained for many hours beside it. By the light of the torches he read Angela's last words to him—