They had nothing to say in answer to her words, nor could they have said anything, for their voices failed them.
All three remained silent.
Suddenly they looked at one another with indescribable anxiety, for all three had heard a sigh, a human sigh that seemed exhaled by the ruins around them.
Could it have been the wind, moaning as it swept through the sharp points of the broken walls?
Berta rose to her feet, and cried twice in a loud voice:
"Adrian! Adrian!"
Her voice was borne away on the breeze, losing itself in the distance. But before the last notes died away, another voice resounded among the ruins, saying:
"Berta! Berta!"
The sun had just set, and the twilight shadows gathered swiftly, as if they had sprung up from among the ruins, hiding the broken pillars and the crumbling walls.
In one of the angles of the cloister appeared a moving shadow. This shadow advanced slowly until it reached the middle of the court where the remains of the disused cistern were seen. There it stopped, and in a soft clear voice uttered the words:
"It is I, Berta; it is I."
