In spite of Eva’s entreaty not to do it, she hastened back to the open window.

The younger sister, though she shook her head, gazed after her with a significant smile.

To Eva this was no accident.

Perhaps it was her saint herself who, when her sister went to seek refreshment for her, had guided her to the window.  Eva deemed it a boon to be permitted to find here in solitude the rest needful for her body which, though usually so strong, had been shaken by horror, and to struggle and pray for a clear understanding of the many things which troubled her; for to her prayer was far more than the petition for a spiritual or earthly blessing; nay, she prayed far less frequently to implore anything than from yearning for the Most High to whose presence the wings of prayer raised her.  So long as she was absorbed in it, she felt removed from the world and borne into the abode of God.

Now also, whilst Els was listening, she brought no earthly matter to the Power who guided the universe as well as her own little individual life, but merely lost herself in supplication and in her intercourse with the Omnipotent One, who seemed to her a familiar friend; she forgot what grieved and troubled her and how she had been pained.  But meanwhile the prediction she had made to the abbess was verified; she felt as if her lover’s soul rose with hers to the pure height where she dwelt, and that the earthly love which filled her heart and his was but an effluence of the Eternal Love, whose embodiment to her was God and the Saviour.

The union of herself and Heinz seemed imaged by two streams flowing from the same great inexhaustible, pure, and beneficent fountain, which, after having run through separate channels, meet to traverse as a single river the blooming meadows and keep them fresh and green.  God’s love, her own, and his were each separate and yet the same, portions of the great fount which animated, saved, and blessed her, him, and the whole vast universe.  The spring gushing from her love and his was eternal, and therefore neither could be exhausted, no matter how much it gave.

But both were still in the world.  As he would certainly put forth all his might to show himself worthy of the confidence placed in him by his Emperor and master, she too must test her youthful strength in the arduous conflict which she had begun.  Her recent experiences were the flames of the forge fire of life of which her mother had spoken—­and how pitifully she had endured their glow!  This must be changed.  She had often proved that when the body is wearied the soul gains greater power to soar.  Should she not begin to avail herself of this to make her feeble body obey her will?  With compressed lips and clenched hand she resolved to try.

CHAPTER IX.

Whilst Eva, completely absorbed in herself, was forming this resolution, Els, panting for breath, stood at the open window under the ceiling of the Council chamber, gazing down and listening to the sounds from beneath.