He stood opposite her, quietly and respectfully, but his voice had an odd, covert sound, as if something of deeper significance were hidden beneath this story.  Frau von Wallmoden looked up at him suddenly, and said, gazing earnestly into his face: 

“And—­the end?”

“The end is death, as in all these legends.  The knowledge of the broken vows comes to light and the guilty ones are offered as a sacrifice to an enraged deity—­the priest perishes in the flames with the woman whom he loves.”

There was a second’s pause after the last words were spoken, then Adelheid rose abruptly; she would end this conversation at once.

“You are right; no doubt the legends do resemble ours; it is only the old story of sin and atonement.”

“Do you call that sin, my dear lady?” Hartmut dropped suddenly the more formal madame or baroness.  “Men call it sin and punish it accordingly, without any premonition that such a punishment will lead to perfect happiness.  To pass away in a flame of fire after one has enjoyed the highest earthly joys, and is yet surrounded by them in death.  Ah! that is to die like a god—­far better such a death than a long, stupid, humdrum existence.  Eternal, undying love rises like a flaming brand to the heavens above, in defiance of mankind’s sentence—­do you not think such an ending is enviable?”

Adelheid’s face was pale, but her voice was as steady and cool as ever, as she answered: 

“No, nothing is enviable but death for a high and holy duty.  One can forgive sin, but can never admire it.”

Hartmut bit his lips and gave the slender, white robed figure who stood near him a threatening glance.

“Ah, what a hard sentence to meet my drama at the outset, for I have expended all my strength in transfiguring just such love and death.  What if the world’s judgment is like yours—­I beg your pardon, madame.”

He crossed to the divan upon which she had been sitting, where her fan and the camelia blossom yet lay.

“I thank you,” said Adelheid, extending her hand for them, but he only handed her the fan.

“I beg your pardon—­I wrote my ‘Arivana’ upon the veranda of a little Indian house where these lovely flowers were gleaming through the dark foliage on all sides, and to-day they greet me here again in the cold north.  May I not keep this blossom?”

Adelheid made a little impatient motion.

“No; for what reason?”

“For what reason?  As a reminder of the harsh sentence which my poem has received from the lips of a woman who bears the same name as my heroine.  There were many white blossoms, baroness, but you broke off unconsciously the deep purple-red.  Poets are superstitious above all things.  Let me keep this as a token that my work may yet find favor in your eyes, when you learn to know it.  You do not know how much it contains.”

“Herr Rojanow, I—­”

It was apparent to him, both from her voice and manner, that she meant to refuse his petition, so he interrupted her in a subdued, but passionate tone: