In the half hour which followed, as they sat there, speaking sometimes of Karl, more often silent, some things seemed to pass from the man's heart, other things to come. And as at the last he rose to go, for he felt she would like a little time alone, he said, and his face and his voice gave much which the words missed: "Ernestine, you have done more than you know. For me too—you have made it right."
She sat a long time before her picture, dreaming of Karl. She whispered his name, and he seemed to answer with, "Liebchen—brave liebchen—you have been good to me."
To her too the hour brought new light. It came to her now that she had won a victory for them, not because she had painted a great picture, but because she had brought them back to that world harmony from which they seemed for a time to have gone. She had won, not through the greatness of her achievement, but through having made it right with her own soul. The picture itself was a thing of canvas and paint; it was the spirit out of which it grew—his spirit and hers—was the thing everlasting. She was sure that Karl too knew now that it was having the spirit right which counted. The "perhaps" of his letter was surely answered for him now.
And out of this closeness to the past there opened to her a little of her own future—things she would do. For she must work,—theirs a love which made for work. There was much more to paint, much to show how she and Karl loved the world, what they held it worth,—and all of it to speak for their love, glorify, immortalise it.
She dreamed deeply and tenderly—the past so real to her, Karl, their love, so great.
Now she must go. To-morrow many others would come. Artists would come to pronounce her work good, wonder how she had done this or that. Doctors and the university men would come, proud to speak of Karl, claim him as their own. But ah—who would understand the tears and heart's blood out of which it had come? Who would know? Who could?
"Karl," she murmured at the last—eyes dim with loving tears—"dear Karl,"—dwelling with a long tenderness upon the name—"did I indeed bring you the light?"