“Delicious-delicious!” he answered, cordially.  “The June day is reflected in your dear face.  You have learned to be contented here?”

Elizabeth nodded eagerly, pressing both hands upon her heart, while her eloquent glance told him how well, how grateful and happy, she felt here; and when in reply to his timid question, whether it would be hard for her to leave this place and seek another, a safer home, she gazed at first in surprise, then anxiously into his face, and then, with an eager gesture of refusal, gasped “Not go—­not go!” He answered, soothingly: 

“No, no; we are still safe here to-day!”

Elizabeth knew her husband, and had keen eyes; a presentiment of approaching danger seized upon her.  Her features assumed an expression of terrified expectation and deep grief.  The furrow in her brow deepened, and questioning glances and gestures united with the “What?—­what?” trembling on her lips.

“Do not fear!” he replied, tenderly.  “We must not spoil the present, because the future might bring something that is not agreeable to us.”

As he uttered the words, she pressed closely to him, clutching his arm with both hands, but he felt the rapid throbbing of her heart, and perceived by the violent agitation expressed in every feature, what deep, unconquerable horror was inspired by the thought of being compelled to go out into the world again, hunted from country to country, from town to town.  All that she had suffered for his sake, came back to his memory, and he clasped her trembling hands in his with passionate fervor.  It seemed as if it would be very, very easy, to die with her, but wholly impossible to thrust her forth again into a foreign land and to an uncertain fate; so, kissing her on her eyes, which were dilated with horrible fear, he exclaimed, as if no peril, but merely a foolish wish had suggested the desire to roam: 

“Yes, child, it is best here.  Let us be content with what we have.  We will stay!—­yes, we will stay!” Elizabeth drew a long breath, as if relieved from an incubus, her brow became smooth, and it seemed as if the dumb mouth joined the large upraised eyes in uttering an “Amen,” that came from the inmost depths of the heart.

Costa’s soul was saddened and sorely troubled, when he returned to the house and his writing-table.  The old maid-servant, who had accompanied him from Portugal, entered at the same time, and watched his preparations, shaking her head.  She was a small, crippled Jewess, a grey-haired woman, with youthful, bright, dark eyes, and restless hands, that fluttered about her face with rapid, convulsive gestures, while she talked.

She had grown old in Portugal, and contracted rheumatism in the unusual cold of the North, so even in Spring she wrapped her head in all the gay kerchiefs she owned.  She kept the house scrupulously neat, understood how to prepare tempting dishes from very simple materials, and bought everything she needed for the kitchen.  This was no trifling matter for her, since, though she had lived more than nine years in the black Forest, she had learned few German words.  Even these the neighbors mistook for Portuguese, though they thought the language bore some distant resemblance to German.  Her gestures they understood perfectly.