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.

Directly opposite to her was the inscription

"Feldt Urtel auf erden, als ir dort woldt geurtheilt werden," in the
German and Latin languages, and below this motto, urging the magistrates
to justice, was a large fresco representing the unjust judge Sisamne