Danira Part 23

"And all the priests in the neighborhood must be present,"

George expressed his joy in a jump that was sadly opposed to dignity and respect; then he eagerly kissed the priest's hand.

"Your reverence, I'll never forget this as long as I live! I said that a priest could set everything straight. Hurrah for the young mistress of Moosbach Farm!"

Half an hour later Gerald and his wife set out on their journey to Castle Steinach.

Jovica sat beside the coachman. Her tears were dried, and she looked extremely happy, for George had of course found time, before his departure, to come to her and tell the successful result of the dispute and the no less delightful fact that Moosbach Farm was only fifteen minutes' walk from Castle Steinach.

The carriage drove swiftly through the sunny valley of the Adige, which to-day seemed to have decked itself in the full radiance of its beauty to greet the returning son and his young wife. The wide landscape was steeped in golden sunlight, one vast vineyard, which was surrounded by a chain of villages like a garland, stretching upward even to the castles everywhere visible on the heights. The river, sparkling and glittering, also rippled a welcome, mountains towered aloft, the distant peaks veiled in blue mist, the nearer ones clothed with dark forests, while from the highest summits the gleam of snow was seen from the valley, to which the warm, soft south wind lent all the splendor of a southern clime.

"Is not my native land beautiful?" asked Gerald, with sparkling eyes.

"Shall you miss your home here?"

"I shall miss nothing--with you," said the young wife, looking up at him with a smile.

"It shall be my care to make the new home dear to you. Yet I sometimes feel a secret dread that the old conflict may be renewed. You made me realize so long and so painfully, my Danira, that your people were hostile to mine."

"They have now concluded a treaty of peace, like ourselves. No, Gerald, you need not fear. All that I had to conquer and subdue was vanquished on that night of storm when I went from the Vila spring to the fort.

The hardest choice was placed before me, a choice far more difficult than the decision between life and death. I chose your rescue--was not that enough?"

"Yet, even after that rescue, you intended to sacrifice your life and our happiness to an illusion. You would have been lost had that confession escaped your lips--and you were going to speak."

"It was no illusion, it would have been only an atonement," said Danira, with deep emotion. "I knew that Marco would resist any attack, and if a battle had ensued, if the blood of my people had been shed by you--I had summoned the enemy, the guilt would have been mine. That blood would have separated us forever. I could not have lived with such a memory. Then a higher power uttered Marco's doom and my pardon. No battle was fought; even the fierce sons of our mountains saw in that sign what I recognized--a judgment of G.o.d."

FOOTNOTE:

[Footnote 1: Preis means both prize and price, the play upon the word cannot be given in English.--Tr.]

THE END.