"He too, he too! My poor Anna Maria! If I could have taken him down to the sick-room, if I could have shown him how she knelt beside her brother's bed and buried her weeping face in the pillows, if I could say to him: 'See, that is the secret of all her actions; she has too much heart, too much generosity. She has done everything for the sake of her only brother, who once lost a happiness on her account.' If I only might show him this——
"Slowly the tears ran from my eyes.
"'I did not mean to grieve you, Aunt Rosamond,' said he, tenderly. 'I am in a hateful mood, and ought not to have come over. The empty house has put me out of humor; an old bachelor ought to have no house at all—everywhere great empty rooms, everywhere solitude. One wants to talk to one's self to keep from being afraid. I knew it well, and for that reason put off my return from day to day.' He gave a shrug. 'I shall go away again; that will be the best thing.'
"I now first looked at him attentively. He had altered, he had grown years older. I did not know how to answer, he had spoken so strangely. After a while he rose. 'I wish for improvement with all my heart. Do not worry; God cannot wish that he should go now, right from the most complete happiness.'
"God cannot wish it! So we mortals say when we think it impossible that some one should leave us on whose life a piece of our own life depends. God does not wish it—and already the shadow of death is falling deeper and deeper over the beloved face. Such times lie in the past like heavy, black, obscure shadows; that they were fearful we still know, but how we felt we are not able to feel again in its full terror.
"Days had passed. Anna Maria had long ceased to weep; she had no tears, for breathless fear. Without a word she performed her sad duties, and listened benumbed to the wandering talk of the invalid—Susanna and the child, and ever again Susanna.
"Then came a day on which the physicians said, 'No hope.' In the morning Klaus had recovered his senses, and Anna Maria came out of the sick-room with such a happy, hopeful look that my heart really rose. She beckoned to me, and I took her place at the sick-bed for a moment.
"He reached out for my hand. 'How is Susanna?' he said softly.
"'Well, dear Klaus; do you wish to see her? Shall she come in?'
"'No, no!' he whispered, 'not come; it may be contagious—but Anna Maria?'