"What you heard was undoubtedly about me, and you could not endure it. You faithful soul--was not that the reason you left your relatives and lived alone?" said Freyer, seating himself. "Be frank--were you not obliged to hear many things against me, till you at last doubted your old schoolmate?"
"Yes--many evil things were said of you and the princess--but I never believed them. I do not know what happened, but whatever it was, you did nothing wrong."
"Mary, where did you obtain this confidence?"
"Why," she answered smiling, "surely I know my son--and what mother would distrust her child?"
Freyer was deeply moved: "Oh, you virgin mother. Marvel of Heaven, when in the outside world a mother abandoned her own child--here a child was maturing into a mother for me, a mother who would have compassion on the deserted one. Mary, pure maid-servant of God, how have I deserved this mercy?"
"I always gave you a mother's love, from the time we played together, and I have mourned for you as a mother all the nine years. But I believed in you and hoped that you would some day return and close your old mother's eyes and, though twenty years had passed, I should not have ceased to hope. I was right, and you have come! Ah! I would not let myself dream that I should ever play with you again in the Passion--ever hold my Christus in my arms and support his weary head when he is taken down from the cross. That happiness transcends every other joy! True, I am an old maid now, and I wonder that they should let me take the part again. I am thirty-nine, you know, rather old for the Mary, yet I think it will be more natural, for Mary, too, was old when Christ was crucified!"
"Thirty-nine, and still unmarried--such a beautiful creature--how did that happen, Mary?"
She smiled: "Oh, I did not wish to marry any one.--I could not care for any one as I did for my Christus!"
"Great Heaven, is this on my conscience too? A whole life wasted in silent hope, love, and fidelity to me--smiling and unreproachful! This soul might have been mine, this flower bloomed for me in the quiet home valley, and I left it to wither while searing heart and brain in the outside world. Mary, I will not believe that you have lost your life for my sake--you are still so beautiful, you will yet love and be happy at some good man's side."
"Oh, no, what fancy have you taken into your head! That was over long ago," she answered gayly. "I am a year older than you--too old for a woman. Look, when the hair is grey, one no longer thinks of marrying." And pushing back her thick brown hair from her temples, she showed beneath white locks--as white as snow!