"Is he smiling?" whispered Marie to Ludwig, gazing with compassionate awe on the distorted countenance. Then she bent over him and said:
"Henry—my good Henry, would you like me to pray with you?"
She knelt beside the bed and in a feeling tone repeated the beautiful prayer which the good Père Lacordaire composed for those who journey to the other world, pausing from time to time to let the dying man repeat the words after her.
Henry's tongue became heavier and heavier as he repeated, with visible effort, the soul-inspiring words.
Then Marie repeated the Lord's Prayer. Even Ludwig could not do otherwise than bend his knee upon the chair by which he stood, and bow his skeptical head, while the innocent maid and his dying servant prayed together.
When Marie rose from her knees, the painful smile had vanished from Henry's lips; his face was calm and peaceful; the distortion had disappeared from his countenance.
After Henry's death, life for the occupants of the Nameless Castle became still more uncomfortable. Ludwig Vavel had lost his only friend—the only one who had shared his cares and his confidences. He was obliged to hire a servant to assist Lisette, and, remembering what Henry had advised, took the old soldier with the wooden leg into the castle. For the old invalid, the change from hard labor to comfortable quarters and easy work was certainly an improvement. Instead of cutting wood all day long for a mere pittance, he had now nothing to do but brush clothes which were never dusty, polish the furniture, receive the supplies from and deliver orders to Frau Schmidt every morning, to place the newspapers on the library table, and convey the victuals from the kitchen to the dining-room.
But two weeks of this easy work and good wages, and the comforts of the castle, were all that the old soldier could endure. Then he took off his handsome livery, and begged to be allowed to return to his former life of hardship and poverty. Afterward he was heard to aver that not for the whole castle would he consent to live in it an entire year—where not one word was spoken all day long; even the cook never opened her lips. No, he could not stand it; he would rather, a hundred times over, cut wood for five groats the day.
No sooner did Baroness Katharina learn that Count Vavel was again without a man-servant than she sent to the castle Satan Laczi's son, who was then twelve years old, and a useful lad.