The Cold Embrace by Mary Elizabeth Bradden, read by Mike Bennett.

He was an German. He was an artist.

Such things has happened to him happen sometimes to artists.

He was a German.

Such things has happened to him, happen sometimes to Germans.

He was young, handsome, studious, enthusiastic,

metaphysical, reckless, unbelieving, heartless.

And being young, handsome and eloquent, he was beloved. He was an orphan under the guardianship of his

dead father's brother, his uncle Wilhelm, in whose house he had been brought up from a little

child, and she who loved him was his cousin, his cousin Gertrude, whom he swore he loved in return.

Did he love her?

Yes, when he first swore it. It soon wore out this passionate love. How threadbare and wretched

a sentiment it became at last in the selfish heart of the student, but in its first golden dawn, when he was

only 19 and had just returned from his apprenticeship to a great painter at Antwerp, and they had wandered together

in the most romantic outskirts of the city at Rosie sunset by holy moonlight or bright and joyous morning.

How beautiful a dream!

They keep it a secret from Wilhelm, as he has the father's ambition of a wealthy suitor for his

only child, a cold and dreary vision beside the lover's dream. So they are betrothed and standing side by

side when the dying sun and the pale rising moon divide the heavens.

He puts the betrothal ring upon her finger, the white and taper finger whose slender shape he knows so well.

This ring is a peculiar one, a massive golden serpent, its tail in its mouth, the symbol of eternity.

It has been his mothers and he would know it amongst a thousand.

...