"Have pity!" he said in a broken voice, "Have pity, she has repented, she is dead!"
Gesa tore back the curtains. There on the white pillow, waxen pale, but beautiful as ever, the parting smile upon her lips, lay Annette.
She had put on the blue dress in which he had first seen her, fourteen months ago--Guiseppina's little cross lay on her breast.
* * * * *
There is a suffering so painful that no hand is tender enough to touch it, and so deep that no heart is brave enough to fathom it. Dumbly we sink the head, as before something sacred.
Never could he reproach her, lying there before him, clad in the blue dress, of which every fold, so dear to him, cried "Forgive! Not to our desecrated love do I appeal, but to our sweet caressing friendship,--forgive the sister what the bride has done!" How could he reproach her, with her parting kiss still on his lips?
She had drawn off her betrothal ring, and laid it on the coverlet enclosed in a folded letter, where in her large, unskilled, childish hand, she had written the words: "To my dear, dear brother Gesa. God bless him a thousand times!"
He placed the ring again on her finger, and kissed her cold hand.
The fearful mystery which separates us from our dead is so incomprehensible that we never realize our loss in all its fulness while the beloved form yet lies before us. Involuntarily we feel as if the dead knew of every little service we render--and this thought hovers around us as a comfort. The whole bitterness of our anguish is first felt when we have buried our happiness, and life with its sterile uses and requirements reenters, and commands: "What have you to do longer dallying with death? I will have my right!"
And so with Gesa, the bitterest pang of all overcame him when, returning home with his foster-father from the churchyard where they had laid the poor "little one" to rest, he found the old green salon all in order. Annette's favorite trifles removed, and the table laid for--two.