"You often appear to me," said Blanden, "like a charming Savitri, and although you also are my goddess of fire, I do not mean her, but the child which bore her name. A dark prophecy dedicated the beloved one to death after the lapse of a year, but before the fatal respite drew near, she performed daily penances, praying and fasting; and like a marble goddess standing before the altar, and when the blood-red god of death appeared, with the thin rope in his hand, and had already extracted her beloved one's soul, she knew how to move him by her prayers, entreaties, and her touching faithfulness, until he granted her her husband's life. You, too, with faithful care and touching prayer have won my life from the blood-red Yamna." "It was my own life," replied Giulia; "without you I could not have lived, you yourself told me that the funereal pile is lighted with sacred fire into which the Hindoo widow casts herself. That pure flame was the fire of your love for me; they die for him who had lived for them, how much more must I have sought death for him who would have died for me?" Trembling in the bliss of such devoted affection, she thought of Beate and her errand with eagerness as terrified as that with which the Hindoo maidens follow the flower-clad little boats, carrying burning lamps, and which they have confided to the waves of the Ganges; if the lamp extinguish, then extinguishes the light of hope, and a silent desire entrusted to the stream, finds its watery grave. When Blanden told her this, how she had thought of her light-ship that was now tossing upon the waves of the Orta lake; perhaps already the north wind which blew through the passes of the Simplon had extinguished the little lamp of her hopes. It was a weird shadow which followed her through life. Oh, how she envied the gods and peris who dwelled in enchanted gardens far above the everlasting snow upon the summits of the Himalayas, envied them not the flowers of Paradise, not the ethereal light, not the glorious song of the Gandharvos, not because they drink the Indian ambrosial amreeta in fox-gloves out of the moon, which, for fourteen days, the sun has filled with that drink, but only the one privilege, that of walking in light and casting no shadow behind them. An unshadowed bliss, this for her was unattainable for evermore! Even the measures of precaution by which she had intended to conceal from Blanden her defeat upon the stage, were only successful for a time. One day a deputation of students, in caps of every hue, came to Blanden. Salomon was the speaker. "We know, Herr von Blanden, that Fräulein Bollini is your betrothed, we wish you happiness, although the muse of song--her name I cannot recollect this moment, as we sons of the muses care less for them than might be expected--will veil her face. A report is spread abroad that you forbid your betrothed to tread the world-renowned stage." "It is her own free will," replied Blanden.