How often she had remained away from the invalid in order to let her aunt point out the path for her own higher happiness whilst Els nursed her mother; but now that she had left her, she suddenly felt what she had possessed and lost in her love.  It seemed as if hitherto she had walked beneath the shadow of leafy boughs, and her mother’s death had stripped them all away as an autumn tempest cruelly tears off the foliage.  Henceforth she must walk in the scorching sun without protection or shelter.  Meanwhile she beheld in imagination fierce flames blazing brightly from the dark soot—­the forge fire of life, to which the dead woman’s last words had referred.  She knew what her mother had wished to say, but at the present time she lacked both the desire and the strength to realise it.

For a time each remained absorbed by individual grief.  Then the father drew both girls to his heart and confessed that, with their mother’s death life, already impoverished by the loss of his only son, had been bereft of its last charm.  His most ardent desire was to be summoned soon to follow the departed ones.

Els summoned up her courage and asked:  “And we—­are we nothing to you, father?”

Surprised by this rebuke, he started, removed his wet handkerchief from his eyes, and answered:  “Yes, yes—­but the old do not reckon Ay, much is left to me.  But he who is robbed of his best possession easily forgets the good things remaining, and good you both are.”

He kissed his daughter lovingly as he spoke, as if wishing to retract the words which had wounded her; then gazing at the still face of the dead, he said:  “Before you dress her, leave her alone with me for a time——­There is a wild turmoil here and here”—­he pointed to his breast and brow—­“and yet The last hours——­There is so much to settle and consider in a future without her With her, with her dear calm features before my eyes——­”

Here a fresh outburst of grief stifled his voice; but Els pointed to the image of the Virgin on the wall and beckoned to her sister.

Wholly engrossed by her own sorrow, Eva had scarcely heeded her father’s words, and now impetuously refused to leave her mother.  Herr Ernst, pleased by this immoderate grief for the one dearest to him, permitted her to remain, and asked Els to attend to the outside affairs which a death always brought with it.

Els accepted the new duty as a matter of course and went to the door; but at the threshold she turned back, rushed to the deathbed, kissed the pure brow and closed eyelids of the sleeper, and then knelt beside her in silent prayer.  When she rose she clasped Eva, who had knelt and risen with her, in a close embrace, and whispered:  “Whatever happens, you may rely on me.”

Then she consulted her father concerning certain arrangements which must be made, and also asked him what she should say to the maid’s lover, who had come to beseech his forgiveness.