Part 4 (1/2)
Leave him here the heap of stones.”
”The house of my parents! the place where we have been so happy!”
”You can be happy elsewhere, when you come together again. But Felicitas with the infant--she cannot yet share thy flight. She must stay, and _can_ stay with me. And that, I hope, can be arranged; for I have no doubt about the emanc.i.p.ation. The old people did not fabricate it. It is only the evidence that we want--the evidence!”
”The letter of emanc.i.p.ation is burnt; that is certain; burnt with the few ornaments and savings of the parents. They often told us about it.
They had put all their valuables in a little box of cedar-wood, under the cus.h.i.+ons of the bed, in their own room. In the night that the despairing tax-debtors and the peasants, the beasts of burden of the great landlords, had broken out in riot, the old people had, with the child, hastened into the street to inquire the cause of the fearful noise. They ran forward to the corner of the Vulcan market. Another crowd of fighting peasants and soldiers then poured in from behind, cutting off their return. The wooden storehouses of the small tradesmen that lived there, were set on fire. It was two days before they could return to their house, and then it was almost entirely burnt out; under the half-carbonised cus.h.i.+ons of the bed, they found two melted gold pieces and the iron mounting of the cedar-box, yet glowing, and round about ashes:--from the wood of the box and its contents.”
”The writing was not to be found?”
”In the house of her parents, certainly not; we searched it thoroughly before we sold it, after the death of the old people.”
”Among the records of the Curies?”
”The freedom was given by letter, not by will. Krates intended to leave a will, but was overtaken by death before he had carried out his intention.”
”Witnesses?”
”There were none. I tell you the freedom was given by letter.”
”There is, then, no evidence. It is fearful.”
”It makes one despair.”
”But what thoughtlessness to live long years without”----
”Long years? It is not yet one year that I have called her mine.
Before that it was the care of the parents; but these good old people--strangers here--what could they do? They could not awake the dead master, that he might repeat the emanc.i.p.ation.”
”Had no one else read the letter?”
”Possibly! But these could only witness that they had read it, not that it was genuine.”
”I see no escape but in flight--hasty flight.”
”Hasty flight with the infant, and the young mother hardly convalescent, is impossible. And to fly! it is not my custom. Rather resistance by force.”
”Thou, and I, and the lame Philemon, the force against the lancers of the Tribune! For he stands behind.”
”I believe it! I saw his pa.s.sionate look rest on her--on her neck--I could throttle him!”
”You are a dead man before you raise a hand against him.”
”It is dark, hopeless night around us. Oh, where shall we find counsel, where a beam of hope, of light?”
”In the Church,” spoke softly, but decidedly, a sweet voice. Felicitas put her arm round the neck of her beloved.
”Thou!”
”Thou here?”