eside the corpse only
because she believed that she would be unable to resist sleep. She had
slipped a pillow between her back and that of the tall, handsome chair
which she had chosen for a seat, but Eva disappointed her expectation;
for whatever she earnestly desired she accomplished, and whilst Els
often closed her eyes, she remained wide awake. When sleep threatened
to overpower her she thought of her mother's last words, especially one
phrase, "the forge fire of life," which seemed specially pregnant with
meaning. Yet, ere she had reached any definite understanding of its
true significance, the cocks began to crow, the song of the nightingale
ceased, and the twittering of the other birds in the trees and bushes in
the garden greeted the dawning day.

Then she rose and, smiling, kissed Els, who was sleeping, on the
forehead, told Sister Renata that she would go to rest, and lay down on
her bed in the darkened chamber.

Whilst praying and reflecting she had thought constantly of her mother.
Now she dreamed that Heinz Schorlin had borne her in his strong arms out
of the burning convent, as Sir Boemund Altrosen had saved the Countess
von Montfort, and carried her to the dead woman, who looked as fresh and
well as in the days before her sickness.

When, three hours before noon, she awoke, she returned greatly refreshed
to her dead mother. How mild and gentle her face was even now; yet the
dear, silent lips could never again give her a morning greeting and,
overwhelmed by grief, she threw herself on her knees before the coffin.

But she soon rose again. Her recent slumber had transformed the
passionate anguish into quiet sorrow.

Now, too, she could think of external things. There was little to
be done in the last arrangement of the dead, but she could place the
delicate, pale hands in a more natural position, and the flowers which
the gardener had brought to adorn the coffin did not satisfy her. She
knew all that grew in the woods and fields near Nuremberg, and no one
could dispose bouquets more gracefully. Her mother had been especially
fond of some of them, and was always pleased when she brought them home
from her walks with the abbess or Sister Perpetua, the experienced old
doctress of the convent. Many grew in the forest, others on the brink of
the water. The beloved dead should not leave the house, whose guide and
ornament she had been, without her favourite blossoms.

Eva arranged the flowers brought by the