All at once his eye encountered that of Anna. A flash of recognition and joy kindled it up, and, extending his arms, he thrust his way towards her, crying: “My mother! my own mother!”
Then—just as she was about to be folded to his heart, all faded away, and a voice said in her soul: “He is no son of thine, Anna Arler. He is not, because thou wouldest not. He might have been, God had so purposed; but thou madest His purpose of none effect. Thou didst send his soul over the mill-wheel.”
And then faintly, as from a far distance, sounded in her ear the call of the cuckoo—three.
The magnificent new church had shrivelled up to the original mean little edifice Anna had known all her life. The square was deserted, the cold faint glimmer of coming dawn was visible over the eastern mountain-tops,
