Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/35

Rh portrait of a young girl in Ischl whom Karl had loved when they were little more than children. She had died just before Karl and Wilhelm had set out for America, and this rough and unfinished sketch, drawn by Karl one day, half in sport, when they were sailing on the Königsee, was the only memento he had of her. The edelweiss flowers Karl had gathered on the very glacier of the Watzman, the day before he bade good-by to his home.

Ever since Margaret had occupied the room, she had found a special fascination in this picture; but now she was conscious of a new magnetism in it. Every morning the first rays of the rising sun slanted across this picture, bringing out into full relief each line of the girl's head, and still more, every fine, velvety fibre of the snowy petals of the edelweiss. The picture hung at the foot of the bed, and sometimes when Margaret first opened her eyes and saw this golden light on the lake and the girl's face and the edelweiss wreath, she fancied that there were rhythmic sounds in the light; that she heard voices fainter than faintest whispers, and yet clear and distinct as flute notes in the air, speaking words she did not understand. She grew almost afraid of the picture; it seemed a link be tween her and the unseen world. Yet she never believed that the link was with Karl. It was with the unknown maiden of Ischl; the immortal Love Blossoms seemed to bind it, to symbolize it, and in the tremulous sunlight to utter it. Margaret