Afterwards, for a full minute there was not a sound in the room; Helen’s sobbing had ceased, she had looked up and sat staring at the two figures,—­until at last, with a sudden start of fright she sprang up and crept silently toward them.  She glanced once at the woman’s body, and then bent over David; as she felt that his heart was still beating, she caught him to her bosom, and knelt thus in terror, staring first into his white and tortured features, and then at the body on the floor.

Finally, however, she nerved herself, and tho she was trembling and exhausted, staggered to her feet with her burden; holding it tightly in her arms she went step by step, slowly and in silence out of the room.  When she had passed into the next one she shut the door and, sinking down upon the sofa, lifted David’s broken figure beside her and locked it in her arms and was still.  Thus she sat without a sound or a motion, her heart within her torn with fear and pain, all through the long hours of that night; when the cold, white dawn came up, she was still pressing him to her bosom, sobbing and whispering faintly, “Oh, David!  Oh, my poor, poor David!”

  Hast du im Venusburg geweilt, So bist nun
  ewig du verdammt!

CHAPTER III

“Then said I, ’Woe is me!  For I am undone;... for mine eyes have seen the King, the Lord of Hosts.’”

David’S servant drove out early upon the following morning to tell him of a strange woman who had been asking for him in the village; they sent the man back for a doctor, and it was found that the poor creature was really dead.

They wished to take the body away, but David would not have it; and so, late in the afternoon, a grave was dug by the lake-shore near the little cottage, and what was left of Mary was buried there.  David was too exhausted to leave the house, and Helen would not stir from his side, so the two sat in silence until the ceremony was over, and the men had gone.  The servant went with them, because the girl said they wished to be alone; and then the house settled down to its usual quietness,—­a quietness that frightened Helen now.

For when she looked at her husband her heart scarcely beat for her terror; he was ghastly white, and his lips were trembling, and though he had not shed a tear all the day, there was a look of mournful despair on his face that told more fearfully than any words how utterly the soul within him was beaten and crushed.  All that day he had been so, and as Helen remembered the man that had been before so strong and eager and brare, her whole soul stood still with awe; yet as before she could do nothing but cling to him, and gaze at him with bursting heart.

But at last when the hours had passed and not a move had been made, she asked him faintly, “David, is there no hope?  Is it to be like this always?”