That the great things were paid for
like that. That so many of the things which had lived longest and gone
deepest had come from broken hearts and souls tried almost beyond their
power for suffering. He told her that the future would accept this, as it
had the others, without knowing of its cost, that a myriad of broken
hearts had gone into the sum of the world's achievement.
In the half hour which followed, as they sat there, speaking sometimes of
Karl, more often silent, some things seemed to pass from the man's heart,
other things to come. And as at the last he rose to go, for he felt she
would like a little time alone, he said, and his face and his voice gave
much which the words missed: "Ernestine, you have done more than you
know. For me too--you have made it right."
She sat a long time before her picture, dreaming of Karl. She whispered
his name, and he seemed to answer with, "Liebchen--brave liebchen--you
have been good to me."
To her too the hour brought new light. It came to her now that she had
won a victory for them, not because she had painted a great picture, but
because she had brought them back to that world harmony from which they
seemed for a time to have gone.
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