"We must now arrange where we will have the child buried," said Freyer; "I think we should bring him here, that we may still have our angel's grave!"
"As you choose!" she said in an exhausted tone, wiping away her tears. "It will be best for you to go and attend to everything yourself. Then you can bring the--body!" The word again destroyed her composure. She saw the child in his coffin with Josepha, the faithful servant who had nursed him, beside it, and an unspeakable jealousy seized her concerning the woman to whom she had so indifferently resigned all her rights. The child, always so ready to lavish its love, was lying cold and rigid, and she would give her life if it could rise once more, throw its little arms around her neck, and say "my dear mother." "Pearl of Heaven--I have cast you away for wretched tinsel and now, when the angels have taken you again, I recognize your value." She tore the jewels from her breast. "There, take these glittering stars of my frivolous life and put them in his coffin--I never want to see them again--let their rays be quenched in my child's grave."
"The sacrifice comes too late!" said Freyer, pushing the stones away. He did not wish to be harsh, but he could not be untruthful. What was a handful of diamonds flung away in a moment of impulse to the Countess Wildenau? Did she seek to buy with them pardon for her guilt toward her dead child? The father's aching heart could not accept that payment on account! Or was it meant for the symbol of a greater sacrifice--a sacrifice of her former life? Then it came too late, too late for the dead and for the living; it could not avail the former, and the latter no longer believed in it!
She had understood him and the terrible accusation which he unwittingly brought against her! Standing before him as if before a judge, she felt that God was with him at that moment--but she was deserted, her angel had left her, there was no pity for her in Heaven or on earth--save from one person! The thought illumined the darkness of her misery. There was but one who would pour balm upon her wounds, one who had indulgence and love enough to raise the drooping head, pardon the criminal--her noble, generous-hearted friend, the Prince! She would fly to him, seek shelter from the gloomy spirit which had pursued her ever since she conjured up in Ammergau the cruel God who asked such impossible things and punished so terribly.
"Pray, order the carriage--I must leave here or I shall die."
Freyer glanced at the clock. "The half-hour Martin required is over, he will be here directly."
"Is it only half an hour? Oh! God--is it possible--so much misery in half an hour! It seems an eternity since the news came!"
"We can feel more grief in one moment than pleasure in a thousand years!" answered Freyer. "It is probably because a just Providence allots to each an equal measure of joy and pain--but the pain must be experienced in this brief existence, while we have an eternity for joy. Woe betide him, who does the reverse--keeps the pain for eternity and squanders the joy in this world. He is like the foolish virgins who burned their oil before the coming of the 'bridegroom.'"
The countess nodded. She understood the deep significance of Freyer's words.
"But we of the people say that 'whom God loveth, He chasteneth,'" he continued, "and I interpret that to mean that He compels those whom He wishes to save to bear their portion here below, that the joy may be reserved for them in Heaven! To such favored souls He sends an angel with the cup of wormwood and wherever it flees and hides--he finds it. Nearer and nearer the angel circles around it on his dark pinions, till it sinks with fatigue, and fainting with thirst like the Saviour on the Cross--drinks the bitter draught as if it were the most delicious refreshment."