Growing impatient at length, Montalvo unlocked the prison door andopened it, to discover Lysbeth and her husband kneeling side by side inthe centre of the room like the figures on some ancient marble monument.They heard him and rose. Then Dirk folded his wife in his arms in along, last embrace, and, loosing her, held one hand above her head inblessing, as with the other he pointed to the door.
So infinitely pathetic was this dumb show of farewell, for no wordpassed between them while he was present, that not only his barbedgibes, but the questions that he meant to ask, died upon the lips ofMontalvo. Try as he might he could not speak them here.
"Come," he said, and Lysbeth passed out.
At the door she turned to look, and there, in the centre of the room,still stood her husband, tears streaming from his eyes, down a faceradiant with an unearthly smile, and his right hand lifted towards theheavens. And so she left him.
Lysbeth, a Tale of the Dutch Page 51