“I wonder,” Peter cried, “if you realize what love it is that loves you enough to give you up.”

“You have not asked me if I care, Peter.”

Peter looked at her.  She was very near to tears, very sad, very beautiful.

“I’m afraid to ask,” said Peter, and picking up his hat he made for the door.  There he turned, looked back, was lost.

“My sweetest heart!” he cried, and took her in his hungry arms.  But even then, with her arms about his neck at last, with her slender body held to him, her head on his shoulder, his lips to her soft throat, Peter put her from him as a starving man might put away food.

He held her off and looked at her.

“I’m a fool and a weakling,” he said gravely.  “I love you so much that I would sacrifice you.  You are very lovely, my girl, my girl!  As long as I live I shall carry your image in my heart.”

Ah, what the little Georgiev had said on his way to the death that waited down the staircase.  Peter, not daring to look at her again, put away her detaining hand, squared his shoulders, went to the door.

“Good-bye, Harmony,” he said steadily.  “Always in my heart!”

Very near the end now:  the little Marie on the way to America, with the recording angel opening a new page in life’s ledger for her and a red-ink line erasing the other; with Jimmy and his daddy wandering through the heaven of friendly adventure and green fields, hand in hand; with the carrier resting after its labors in the pigeon house by the rose-fields of Sofia; with the sentry casting martial shadows through the barred windows of the hospital; and the little Georgiev, about to die, dividing his heart, as a heritage, between his country and a young girl.

Very near the end, with the morning light of the next day shining into the salon of Maria Theresa and on to Peter’s open trunk and shabby wardrobe spread over chairs.  An end of trunks and departure, as was the beginning.

Early morning at the Gottesacker, or God’s acre, whence little Jimmy had started on his comfortable journey.  Early morning on the frost-covered grass, the frozen roads, the snap and sparkle of the Donau.  Harmony had taken her problem there, in the early hour before Monia would summon her to labor—­took her problem and found her answer.

The great cemetery was still and deserted.  Harmony, none too warmly clad, walked briskly, a bunch of flowers in oiled paper against the cold.  Already the air carried a hint of spring; there was a feeling of resurrection and promise.  The dead earth felt alive under-foot.

Harmony knelt by the grave and said the little prayer the child had repeated at night and morning.  And, because he had loved it, with some vague feeling of giving him comfort, she recited the little verse:—­

“Ah well!  For us all some sweet hope lies
Deeply buried from human eyes: 
And in the hereafter, angels may
Roll the stone from its grave away.”