But now it seemed to me I could suddenly read whole volumes
in their features, and that all of them said to me: "We also have once
lived and suffered." Under these iron armors secrets were once hidden
as even now in my own breast. These white robes and the red cross are
real proofs that a battle was fought here like that now raging in my
own heart. Then I fancied all of them regarded me with pity, and a
loftier haughtiness rested on their features as if they would say, Thou
dost not belong to us. I was growing uneasy every moment, when
suddenly a light step dissipated my dream. The English lady came down
the stairs and asked me to step into an apartment. I looked at her
closely to see if she suspected my real emotions, but her face was
perfectly calm, and without manifesting the slightest expression of
curiosity or wonder, she said in measured tones, the Countess was much
better to-day and would see me in half an hour.

When I heard these words, I felt like the good swimmer who has ventured
far out into the sea, and first thinks of returning when his arms have
begun to grow weary. He cleaves the waves with haste, scarcely
venturing to cast a glance at the distant shore, feeling with every
stroke that his strength is failing and that he is making no headway,
until at last, purposeless and cramped, he scarcely has any realization
of his position; then suddenly his foot touches the firm bottom, and
his arm hugs the first rock on the shore. A fresh reality confronted
me, and my sufferings were a dream. There are but few such moments in
the life of man, and thousands have never known their rapture. The
mother whose child rests in her arms for the first time, the father
whose only son returns from war covered with glory, the poet in whom
his countrymen exult, the youth whose warm grasp of the hand is
returned by the beloved being with a still warmer pressure--they know
what it means when a dream becomes a reality.

At the expiration of the half hour, a servant came and conducted me
through a long suite of rooms, opened a door, and in the fading light
of the evening I saw a white figure, and above her a high window, which
looked out upon the lake and the shimmering mountains.

"How singularly people meet!" she cried out in a clear voice, and every
word was like a cool rain-drop on a hot summer's day.

"How singularly people meet, and how singularly they lose each other,"
said I; and thereupon I seized her hand, an