"God grant it. But I tremble to ask for the truth. The future is not more awful to me now than the past."
"Keep up heart, dear Paul. You know how pleasant it is to fall asleep amid storms that shake the trees, and to awake in the stillness and the sunshine, and amid the songs of the birds. To-morrow the falsehood will be outfaced, and you will return to fetch me."
"Yes," said Paul, "or else drag out my days as an outcast in the world."
"No, no, no. Good-bye, dearest." Then the voice of the comforter failed her, and she dropped her head on his breast.
The choir within chanted the matin service. Paul removed the iron bar that crossed the door, and opened it. The opposite side of the street was a blank wall, with gaunt boughs of leafless trees behind it and above it, and beyond all was the dim sanctuary. Traffic's deep buzz flowed in the distance. The dawn had reddened the eastern sky, and the towers of the abbey were black against the glory of the coming day.
"It may be that there is never a sunrise on this old city but it awakens some one to some new calamity," said Paul; "yet surely this is the heaviest stroke of all Good-bye, my darling!"
"Good-bye, my husband!"
"Yonder gray old fabric has looked on the scarred ruins of many a life, but never a funeral that has passed down its aisles was so sad as this parting. Good-bye, dearest wife, good-bye!"
"Good-bye, Paul!"
He struck his breast and drew his breath audibly, "I must go. The thing is not to be thought of and endured!"