"Oh! I dare say!" said Bertalda. "I am not generally afraid of people, but I won't have anything to do with your father. Just leave it there. Some one will find it and give it to him, and if not it can't be helped." "I will give it to him," said a gentle voice. Ferdinanda started up with a cry, as she saw Cilli, who had entered as usual by the door which led from the studio into the narrow passage between the house and garden, and unnoticed by the others had been present for some minutes, and had heard with her quick ears every word of the latter part of their conversation. "Oh! my better self, my good angel," cried Ferdinanda; "you are come to tell me that I am doing right, that I may, that I ought to follow him as my heart tells me, through shame and grief, through misery and death!" "And may God be with you!" said Cilli, laying her hands on Ferdinanda's head, who had thrown herself on her knees before her;--"with you both! He only asks for love, and yet again for love, the love that beareth all things. You can now--you can both now prove that your love is true love! Give me the letter to your father! and farewell!" She bent down and kissed Ferdinanda on the forehead, as the other rose sobbing and gave the letter into her hand. "You look so pale, Cilli, and your dear hands are cold as ice. Is your father very ill?" "He is very ill; but the doctor says he will get over it. He is asleep now--Aunt Rikchen is with him, so I have plenty of time." She smiled her own sad sweet smile. "And now, farewell! for the last time!" "Come," cried Bertalda impatiently; "come, we have lost only too much time already! Whatever you want besides I can supply you with." Ferdinanda was forced to tear herself away from Cilli. In her own passionate way she had learned within the last few weeks to love, and honour, and even worship the fair being who had come to her, as the good Samaritan came to the wounded man in the burning desert sand. An inward foreboding warned her that this was a farewell for ever, that she should never again behold these angelic features. And to-day the face in its transparent clearness seemed hardly that of an earthborn creature. Was she who seemed fragile as a breath, who was like a ray of light from a better world upon this dark sinful earth, to take this earthly burden upon her slender shoulders, to touch with her pure hands these dark sorrows. "I will go to my father myself!" cried Ferdinanda. "Then you may just as well stay here altogether," said Bertalda. "Go, go!" said Cilli. And now again it was Ferdinanda who thought that Bertalda could not quickly enough put on the cloak which she had thrown off in the hot studio, or find the bonnet which she had flung down anywhere. "I called a cab as I came," said Bertalda; "it is waiting at the door; we shall be at my house in five minutes." At the house door there were two cabs waiting.