The countess laid her head on the pillow beside him, no longer restraining her tears, and murmuring in his ear: "Angel, you modest, forgiving, loving angel!" She was silent--forcing herself to repress the language of her heart, for the cry of her remorse might disturb the feeble invalid. Yet he felt what moved her, he had always read her inmost soul so long as she loved him--not until strangers came between them did he fail to comprehend her. Now he felt what she must suffer in her remorse and pitied her torture, he thought only of how he might console her. But this moved her more than all the reproaches he had a right to make, for the greater, the more noble his nature revealed itself to be the greater her guilt became!
The friends were to take turns in helping the countess watch the invalid through the night, and now left him. The doctor said that there was no immediate danger and went away to get more medicines. When all had gone, she knelt beside the bed and said softly, "Now I am yours! I do not ask whether you will forgive me, for I see that you have already done so--I ask only whether you will again take the condemned, sin-laden woman to your heart? In my deed today I chose the fate of poverty. I can offer you nothing more in worldly wealth, I can only provide you with a simple home, work for you, nurse you, and atone by lifelong love and fidelity for the wrong I have done you. Will you be content with that?"
Freyer drew her toward him with all his feeble strength. Tears of unutterable happiness were trickling down his cheeks. "I thank Thee, God, Thou has given her to me to-day for the first time! Come, my wife--place your fate trustfully in God's hands and your dear heart in mine, and all will be well. He will be merciful and suffer me to live a few years that I may work for you, not you for me. Oh, blissful words, work for my wife, they make me well again. And now, while we are alone, the first sacred kiss of conjugal love!"
He tried to raise his head, but she pressed it with gentle violence back upon the pillow. "No, you must keep perfectly quiet. Imagine that you are a marble statue--and let me kiss you. Remain cold and let all the fervor of a repentant, loving heart pour itself upon you." She stooped and touched his pale mouth gently, almost timidly, with her quivering lips.
"Oh, that was again an angel's kiss!" he murmured, clasping his hands over the head bowed in penitent humility.
[CHAPTER XL.]
NEAR THE GOAL
From that hour Magdalena Freyer never left her husband's bedside. Though friends came in turn to share the night-watches, she remained with them. After a few days the doctor said that unless an attack of weakness supervened, the danger was over for the present, though he did not conceal from her that the disease was incurable. She clasped her hands and answered: "I will consider every day that I am permitted to keep him a boon, and submissively accept what God sends."
After that time she always showed her husband a smiling face, and he--perfectly aware of his condition--practiced the same loving deception toward her. Thus they continued to live in the salutary school of the most rigid self-control--she, bearing with dignity a sad fate for which she herself was to blame--he in the happiness of that passive heroism of Christianity, which goes with a smile to meet death for others! An atmosphere of cheerfulness surrounded this sick-bed, which can be understood only by one who has watched for months beside the couch of incurable disease, and felt the gratitude with which every delay of the catastrophe, every apparent improvement is greeted--the quiet delight afforded by every little relief given the beloved sufferer, every smile which shows us he feels somewhat easier.
This cup of anguish the penitent woman now drained to the dregs. True, a friendly genius always stood beside it to comfort her: the hope that, though not fully recovered, he might still be spared to her. "How many thousands who have heart disease, with care and nursing live to grow old." This thought sustained her. Yet the ceaseless anxiety and sleepless nights exhausted her strength. Her cheeks grew hollow, dark circles surrounded her eyes, but she did not heed it.