"We both meant to come to Saint Michael," said Hertha, who by this time had regained her self-possession, "but my mother was taken ill,--not seriously, however,--yet I came with some anxiety. It was her express wish that at least one member of our family should be present at the festival and at the consecration of her gift, and so I yielded to her desire." Michael uttered a few words of condolence and sympathy, mere phrases, which fell mechanically from his lips and were scarcely heeded. He did not look at Hertha as he spoke, and she avoided glancing at him. Instinctively their looks refused to encounter each other; they dwelt upon the picture, now fully illumined by the setting sun, which, streaming through the side windows into the nave of the church, cast a broad band of golden light upon the high altar. The picture had none of the traditional setting of its predecessor: no circle of angelic heads looked down from above; no flames flickered up from the abyss; the two life-size figures were alone within the frame, each powerful and effective in its way. Above them arched the clear shining heavens; beneath them yawned a rocky gulf, the abode of eternal night. Dashed from on high, on the very edge of the abyss, Satan was writhing upwards with the last desperate effort of a conquered foe not in the guise of the horned dragon-like monster of the legend, but in a human form of strange demoniac beauty, with dark wings like those of a bird of night. The face expressed agony, rage, and at the same time horror of the power that had hurled him to destruction; while in the upturned eyes there was the hopeless despair of a lost soul conscious of the light that had been radiant about it, but to be henceforth quenched in eternal night. It was Lucifer, once the Son of the Morning, and now showing in his ruin a gleam of his former splendour. Above him, in the clear heavens, Saint Michael, in glittering mail, was sustained by two mighty wings, like those of an eagle, and like an eagle he was swooping down upon the foe. In his right hand flashed the sword of flame, and flame also flashed from his large blue eyes, while his hair, loosened by his impetuous flight, waved above his brow. His look, his bearing, bore witness to the battle that had been fought, and yet the entire figure of the archangel was as if bathed in the halo of glory that beamed about the strong, victorious champion of light. "The picture produces a totally different effect in these surroundings," said Hertha, her gaze still fixed upon it. "Much more solemn, and much more powerful! The archangel has something terrible in his aspect; one can almost feel the fiery breath of annihilation proceeding from him. I am only afraid that the peasants will not comprehend this conception; they may perhaps regret the solemn indifference of the old picture."