320 WHISPERS FROM FAIRYLAND. {v1.

 

be heard from her sweet lips in the future but the
vacant laugh and wild shriek of insanity.

‘Then came the next blow. Had Rudolf returned,
I would have forgiven him all, even then: was he not
my last child? my last child with reason and sense
left to him? Despite my terrible grief, I could not
have avoided calling him to me, and sharing my
affliction with the last of my race. But it was not to
be. The unhappy boy, hearing of his sister's melan-
choly fate, lost all desire to live and abandoned him-
self to the pangs of remorse, Whilst still I mourned
the Englander and yet longed to receive once more
his slayer to my bosom, fate dealt me the cruel stroke
she had in store and robbed me of my only remaining
boy. Unable to endure his misery, he sought in
death the peace which life had denied him, and his
body was found in the deep lake near the forest, where
he had drowned himself in sheer despair. My cup
was now nearly full. I had but one aim and object
left, namely to alleviate, if possible, the condition of
my idolised Christina.

‘T tell you, stranger, that I passed moments,
hours, aye, days of agony which might have atoned,
I think, for greater crimes even than mine, if any
atonement for crimes could be made by mortals.
Comfort, or even relief to my child, was impossible.
Again and again would I visit her in the futile hope
that some returning gleam of reason might enable her
once more to speak to me—if but one singlesentence—
as of old. It was denied.

‘Nor was this the whole of my sorrow. I have said
that we were constant companions in the past days. I