spirations towards the bliss of heaven. Yet Eva knew that she could
accomplish whatever she willed to do, and instead of using the strength
which she felt stirring with secret power in her fragile body, she had
preferred to let it remain idle, in order to dwell in another world from
that in which she had been permitted to prove her might. The fire of
the forge, by whose means pieces of worthless iron were transformed into
swords and ploughshares, should use its influence upon her also. Let
it burn and torture her, if it only made her a genuine, noble woman, a
woman like her Aunt Christine, from whom her mother had heard the phrase
of "the forge fire of life," who aided and pointed out the right path
to hundreds, and probably, at her age, had needed neither an Els nor an
Abbess Kunigunde to keep her, body and soul, in the right way. She loved
both; but some impulse within rebelled vehemently against being treated
like a child, and--now that her mother was dead--subjecting her own will
to that of any other person than the man to whom she would have gladly
looked up as a master.

Whilst Heinz knelt in front of the chapel without noticing Sister
Perpetua, who was praying before the altar within, these thoughts darted
through Eva's brain like a flash of lightning. Now he rose and went to
his horse, but ere he mounted it the dog, barking furiously, again broke
from the thicket close at her side.

Heinz must have seen her white mourning robes, for her own name reached
her ears in a sudden cry, and soon after--she herself could not have
told how--Heinz was standing beside the basket amidst the flowers, with
her hand clasped in his, gazing into her eyes so earnestly and sadly
that he seemed a different person from the reckless dancer in the Town
Hall, though the look was equally warm and tender. Whilst doing so, he
spoke of the deep wound inflicted upon her by her mother's death. Fate
had dealt him a severe blow also, but grief taught him to turn whither
she, too, had directed him.

Just at that moment the blast of the horn summoning the Emperor's train
to his side echoed through the forest.

"The Emperor!" cried Heinz; then bending towards the flowers he seized
a few forget-me-nots, and, whilst gazing tenderly at them and Eva,
murmured in a low tone, as if grief choked his utterance: "I know you
will give them to me, for they wear the colour of the Queen of Heaven,
which is also yours, and will be mine till my heart and eyes