At her casement, which opened to the east, stood at the same moment the young Duchess of Hohenstein. Her lips were parted and the mystery of the new day dwelt in her eyes like the memory of a benediction. Southward lay the world, striving, warring, sinning, repenting, elevating the Host, slaying the living, and burying the dead. But between her and that world stretched a wide water not to be crossed, a fixed gulf not to be passed over. It was the new day, and there beneath her was the strip of silver sand where he and she had walked yestereven, when the moon was full and the wavelets of that sheltered sea crisped in silver at their feet.
An hour afterwards these two met and gave each other a hand silently. Then, facing the sunrise, they walked eastward along the shore, while from the dusk of the garden gate Theresa von Lynar watched them with a sad smile upon her face.
"She is learning the lesson even as I learned it," she murmured, unconsciously thinking aloud. "Well, that which the father taught it is meet that the daughter should learn. Let her eat the fruit, the bitter fruit of love—even as I have eaten it!"
She watched a little longer, standing there with the pruning-knife in her hand. She saw Conrad turn towards Joan as they descended a little dell among the eastern sand-hills. And though she could not see, she knew that two hands met, and that they stood still for a moment, ere their feet climbed the opposite slope of dew-drenched sand. A swift sob took her unexpectedly by the throat.
"And yet," she said, "were all to do over, would not Theresa von Lynar again learn that lesson from Alpha to Omega, eat the Dead Sea fruit to its bitterest kernel, in order that once more the bud might open and love's flower be hers?"
Theresa von Lynar at her garden door spoke truth. For even then among the sand-hills the bud was opening, though the year was on the wane and the winter nigh.
"Happy Isle Rugen!" said Joan, drawing a breath like a sigh. "Why were we born to princedoms, Conrad, you and I?"
"I at least was not," answered her companion. "Dumb Max's jerkin of blue fits me better than any robe royal."
They stood on the highest part of the island. Joan was leaning on the crumbling wall of an ancient fort, which, being set on a promontory from which the pinetrees drew back a little, formed at once a place of observation and a point objective for their walks. She turned at his words and looked at him. Conrad, indeed, never looked better or more princely than in that rough jerkin of blue, together with the corded forester's breeches and knitted hose which he had borrowed from Theresa's dumb servitor.
"Conrad," said Joan, suddenly standing erect and looking directly at the young man, "if I were to tell you that I had resolved never to return to Kernsberg, but to remain here on Isle Rugen, what would you answer?"