Without a word Ludwig Vavel raised the woman to her feet, clasped her in his arms, and pressed his lips to hers in a long, long kiss. In it were forgiveness, love, union.
* * * * *
From the adjoining room came the sounds of a piano. Some one was playing the hymn of the Hungarian militia.
Ludwig and Katharina hurried into the room. Marie was seated at the piano, arrayed in her favorite blue gown. Her transparent hands hovered over the ivory keys, and lured from them the melancholy air, to which she sang, in a voice that seemed to come from the distant clouds:
“Was kleinliche Bosheit
ausgedacht,
Hat unserer Liebe ein Ende
gemacht.”
At the last word her arms sank to her sides; the exertion had completely exhausted her. But she struggled bravely to overcome her weakness. She smiled brightly at Ludwig and Katharina, and said:
“This melancholy song was not intended for you two. It was only to show Ludwig how I have improved. You two will love each other very dearly, won’t you? And you will go far, far away from here, and leave ‘Marie’ buried in her tomb. I don’t mean myself; I mean the troublesome girl who has made so much ill feeling in the world, because of whom so many people have suffered; the girl whose ashes rest there in the steel casket, and whose life was so sad that she had no desire to live longer. But ‘Sophie’ is going with you out into the world. She will see how happy you two can be. And now, help me to the window; I want to look at the evening star,”
They rolled her arm-chair to the window, and Vavel opened the sash to admit the fresh air from the garden.
Marie clasped Ludwig’s and Katharina’s hands in both her own, and whispered in a faint voice:
“You will forget the past, will you not? or think of it only as a dream—a disagreeable dream. And don’t go back to the Nameless Castle. The veiled woman, the locked doors, the silent man, the telescope, the lonely promenades in the garden—all, all were dreams. Don’t think of them! Forget them all! The clanking swords, the thunder of cannons—all these