"No one!"
"Then come with me and try whether you cannot love me well enough to make it worth while to live for me! Will you?"
"Yes, your Highness, I will try!" replied the girl, fixing her large eyes with an expression of mingled inquiry and admiration upon the countess. A beautiful glow of gratitude and confidence gradually transfigured the grief-worn face: "I think I could do anything for you."
"Come with me then--at once, poor child--I will save you! Your relatives will not object."
"Oh, no! They will be glad to have me go away."
"And your cousin, the--the--" she does not know herself why she hesitates to pronounce the name.
"The Christ-Freyer?" said Josepha finishing the sentence. "Oh! he has not spoken to me for a year, except to say what was absolutely necessary, he cannot get over my having brought disgrace upon his unsullied name. It has made him disgusted with life here and, if it were not for the Christ, he would not stay in Ammergau. He is so severe in such things."
"So severe!" the countess repeated, thoughtfully.
The clock in the steeple of the Ammergau church struck two.
"It is late," said the countess, "the poor thing needs rest." She wrapped her own cloak around the girl.