“Let us bid each other farewell now, Georg; hours may pass before I return.”

“I have time, a horrible amount of time.  I’ll wait.  There goes the door.”

The Junker grasped his sword, but soon removed his hand from the hilt, for it was Belotti, who came out and greeted the signorina.

Henrica followed him into the house and there talked with him in a low tone, until Georg called her, saying: 

“Fraulein Van Hoogstraten, may I ask for a word of farewell?”

“Farewell, Herr von Dornburg!” she answered distantly, but advanced a step towards him.

Georg had also approached, and now held out his hand.  She hesitated a moment, then placed hers in it, and said so softly, that only he could hear: 

“Do you love Maria?”

“So I am to confess?”

“Don’t refuse my last request, as you did the first.  If you can be generous, answer me fearlessly.  I’ll not betray your secret to any one.  Do you love Frau Van der Werff?”

“Yes, Fraulein.”

Henrica drew a long breath, then continued:  “And now you are rushing out into the world to forget her?”

“No, Fraulein.”

“Then tell me why you have fled from Leyden?”

“To find an end that becomes a soldier.”

Henrica advanced close to his side, exclaiming so scornfully, that it cut Georg to the heart: 

“So it has grasped you too!  It seizes all:  Knights, maidens, wives and widows; not one is spared.  Never ending sorrow!  Farewell, Georg!  We can laugh at or pity each other, just as we choose.  A heart pierced with seven swords:  what an exquisite picture!  Let us wear blood-red knots of ribbon, instead of green and blue ones.  Give me your hand once more, now farewell.”

Henrica beckoned to the musician and both followed Belotti up the steep, narrow stairs.  Wilhelm remained behind in a little room, adjoining a second one, where a beautiful boy, about three years old, was being tended by an Italian woman.  In a third chamber, which like all the other rooms in the farm-house, was so low that a tall man could scarcely stand erect, Henrica’s sister lay on a wide bedstead, over which a screen, supported by four columns, spread like a canopy.  Links dimly lighted the long narrow room.  The reddish-yellow rays of their broad flames were darkened by the canopy, and scarcely revealed the invalid’s face.

Henrica had given the Italian woman and the child in the second room but a hasty greeting, and now impetuously pressed forward into the third, rushed to the bed, threw herself on her knees, clasped her arms passionately around her sister, and covered her face with owing kisses.

She said nothing but “Anna,” and the sick woman and no other word than “Henrica.”  Minutes elapsed, then the young girl started up, seized one of the torches A cast its light on her regained sister’s face.  How pale, how emaciated it looked!  But it was still beautiful, still the same as before.  Strangely-blended emotions of joy and grief took possession of Henrica’s soul.  Her cold hard feelings grew warm and melted, and in this hour the comfort of tears, of which she had been so long deprived, once more became hers.