Quisisana, or Rest at Last Part 33

"It is no fault of yours. Neither you nor I could have kept him alive.

Now, leave me here alone; you may wait in the next room."

After Konski had left, the doctor went to the little round table on which the empty bottle and two gla.s.ses were standing, one empty, one half-full. Above the sofa, to the right and left, were gas-brackets, with one lighted jet on either side. He held the half-full gla.s.s to the light and shook it. Bright beads were rising from the clear, liquid.

He put the gla.s.s down again, and murmured--

"He never spoke an untruth! It was in any case solely a question of time. He drank his death-draught six months ago. The only wonder is that he bore it so long."

Erna's letter was lying upon the table. The doctor read it almost mechanically.

"Pretty much as I thought!" he muttered. "Such a clever and, as it would seem, large-hearted girl, and yet--but they are all alike!"

A sc.r.a.p of paper, with something in Bertram's hand writing caught his eye. It was the German telegram.

"All hail--happiness and blessing--to-day and for ever--for my darling child in Quisisana."

The doctor rose, and was now pacing up and down the chamber with folded arms. From the adjoining room, the door of which was left ajar, he heard suppressed sobs. The faithful servant's unconcealed grief had well-nigh unchained the bitter sorrow in his own heart. He brushed the tears from his eyes, stepped to the couch, and drew the covering back.

He stood there long, lost in marvelling contemplation.

The beautiful lofty brow, overshadowed by the soft and abundant hair, the dark colour of which was not broken by one silvery thread; the daintily curved lips, that seemed about to open for some witty saying, lips the pallor of which was put to shame by the whiteness of the teeth, which were just visible; the broad-arched chest--what wonder that the man of fifty had felt in life like a youth--like the youth for whom Death had taken him.

From those pure and pallid features Death had wiped away even the faintest remembrance of the woe which had broken the n.o.ble heart.

Now it was still--still for evermore!

He laid his hand upon that silent heart.

"_Qui si sana!_" he said, very gently.

FOOTNOTE.

[Footnote 1:

"Und immer ist der Mann ein junger Mann, Der einem jungen Weibe wohlgefallt."]

THE END.