"And I took up the pieces of the letter and went to look for Anna Maria. She was sitting at the window, looking over toward Dambitz. 'Here, Anna Maria,' said I, 'your fear is groundless.'
"She read, and a painful expression came over her face. 'I pity her, aunt. She thinks her happiness is floating about without, but it is slumbering here in this little cradle. She will find it out sooner or later, and she will return, don't you think so?' she asked, anxiously confident.
"Then her face lighted up: Stürmer was coming across the garden; he was leading his horse by the bridle, and sent up a greeting.
"'Your lover, Anna Maria!'
"She grew very red. 'Is it not like a dream?' she asked softly.
"It was in November, the day before Anna Maria's marriage, that a letter with a strange post-mark lay in the mail-bag for me, the address in a man's handwriting. I gave a start; I recognized the bold hand, the peculiar flourish at the last letter of a word. It was the same hand that had written that letter whose remains I had found in Susanna's room.
"I broke open the envelope; it contained two letters. The one which first fell into my hands was a formal announcement of the marriage of Frau von Hegewitz, née Mattoni, to Mr. Robbin Olliver, London.
"I took up the other letter. 'Dearest aunt,' my astonished eyes read, 'the accomplished fact has just come to your knowledge; forgive me, forgive me everything! I am not wicked, not light-minded; I have only sought for myself the freedom which is as necessary to my life as air to breathing. I shall gladly follow my husband, with whom I became acquainted in Nice, to Brazil, out of the narrow circle of rusty old customs, to a more stirring, varied life, in which to-day and to-morrow, weeks and months, do not follow each other in dull repetition.
"'With longing I think of my child. I have no right to take him with me over the sea; he belongs to his ancestral home, and I know that Anna Maria must love him more than I. Forgive me, I beg you once more from my heart, and send me occasionally—it is the last request I shall make of the family which chains me with inward bonds—a lock of my child's hair, and teach him to think without ill-will of his mother.'
"No signature, nothing more. I turned the sheet over—nothing! I gave a sigh of pain, and yet it seemed as if the weight of a mountain had rolled from my heart.