She seemed to understand that and pity it, for each week brought him some tidings.
At midsummer she wrote him word that she was about to be honoured again by a two days' visit of her Imperial friends.
'We shall have, perforce, a large house party,' she said. 'Will you be inclined this time to join it? It is natural that you should sorrow without hope for your country, but the fault of her disasters lies not with you. It is, perhaps, time that you should enter the world again; will you commence with what for two days only will be worldly—Hohenszalras? Your old friends the monks will welcome you willingly and lovingly on the Holy Isle?'
He replied with gratitude, but he refused. He did not make any plea or excuse; he thought it best to let the simple denial stand by itself. She would understand it.
'Do not think, however,' he wrote, 'that I am the less profoundly touched by your admirable goodness to a worsted and disarmed combatant in a lost cause.'
'It is the causes that are lost which are generally the noble ones,' she said in answer. 'I do not see why you should deem your life at an end because a sham empire, which you always despised, has fallen to pieces. If it had not perished by a blow from without, it would have crumbled to pieces from its own internal putrefaction.'
'The visit has passed off very well,' she continued. 'Every one was content, which shows their kindness, for these things are all of necessity so much alike that it is difficult to make them entertaining. The weather was fortunately fine, and the old house looked bright. You did rightly not to be present, if you felt festivity out of tone with your thoughts. If, however, you are ever inclined for another self-imprisonment upon the island, you know that your friends, both at the monastery and at the burg, will be glad to see you, and the monks bid me salute you with affection.'
A message from Mdme. Ottilie, a little news of the horses, a few phrases on the politics of the hour, and the letter was done. But, simple as it was, it seemed to him to be like a ray of sunshine amidst the gloom of his empty chamber.
From her the permission to return to the monastery when he would seemed to say so much. He wrote her back calm and grateful words of congratulation and cordiality; he commenced with the German formality, 'Most High Lady,' and ended them with the equally formal 'devoted and obedient servant;' but it seemed to him as if under that cover of ceremony she must see his heart beating, his blood throbbing; she must know very well, and if knowing, she suffered him to return to the Holy Isle, why then—he was all alone, but he felt the colour rise to his face.
'And I must not go! I must not go!' he thought, and looked at his pistols.