When Heim entered the next room, he found Hilsborn there, standing at the window, lost in dreamy reverie.
"Well, my boy, will you have a seat in my carriage?"
"Why, father, I should like to stay here to-day and a.s.sist Mollner,"
said Hilsborn, slightly confused.
"a.s.sist Mollner? Hm----" Heim paused, and riveted his piercing eyes with infinite humour upon Hilsborn"s blushing face. "Well, well, my boy, since you wish it, pray a.s.sist Mollner. You have my free consent to do so."
The young man clasped his foster-father"s hand with an emotion of grat.i.tude that he hardly understood himself.
"Hm," said Heim again. "We understand! we understand! All right!
Anything else would be unnatural. There"s no need to be ashamed of your choice. Good night, and"--a good-humoured smile played about his mouth--"do a.s.sist Mollner diligently. Do you hear?"
And the genial old man went chuckling out of the room.
Hilsborn bethought himself awhile, then looked cautiously into the sick-room and beckoned to Gretchen. She instantly came to him.
"Only a moment," he begged, and gently drew her away with him. "You must have a little fresh air. All the others think only of Ernestine. I am here to take care of you, and to see that you do not overtask your strength. Come, take a few turns with me in the garden."
"As you please," said the girl meekly.
"Not as I please, Gretchen. You must not talk in that way. I do not like it." He threw a shawl over her shoulders, and gave her his arm.
Together they went down into the garden.
"This garden," said Gretchen, "reminds me of ours at the pension."
"Were you happy there?" asked her companion.
"Oh, very! I had so many kind teachers and companions!"
"It must be very hard for you to leave such a home."
"My home now is with Ernestine. I am content only by her bedside. I wish for nothing else. I do not choose to wish for anything else."
Hilsborn broke off a fading acacia-sprig from the tree.
"Give it to me?" said Gretchen. "I will try whether Ernestine will recover or not." And she pulled off the leaves, one after another.
"Yes,--no,--yes,--no. Yes, she will get well!"
"Do you know Faust?"
"No. We were never allowed to read Goethe."
"Your namesake in Faust plucks off the leaves of a daisy, to answer a question that she puts it, but the question is a different one."
"What is it?"
"She asks whether she is beloved."
Gretchen looked down.
"Did you never put that question?"
"How could I? I was sure that my father, my teachers and friends loved me, and I knew no one else."
"And yet you must often have consulted your flower oracle?"
"Oh, yes. There was plenty to ask,--whether I was to take the first, second, or third rank in the examination,--whether I was to have a letter from my father that day,--and ever so many things besides. But that is all over. There are few flowers or questions for me now."
"You must not indulge such gloomy, autumnal fancies. The flowers will bloom again, and with them many a youthful hope in your heart. You will, perhaps, one day want to know whether one whom you love loves you."
Gretchen looked seriously and kindly at him from out her brown eyes.
"If Ernestine only loves me, and----"
"Well, and----?"
"And you, I will ask nothing more."
"Gretchen, do you not believe that I love you?"
"Yes, I think you do," the girl replied frankly.
"By the good G.o.d, who sees all hearts, I think so too," cried Hilsborn, clasping the little hand that lay upon his arm more closely to his heart.
They stood still for one moment together in the gathering twilight, and then walked slowly on. It was an unusually mild autumn evening. The crescent of the new moon glimmered, like a gleaming diamond upon dark locks, just above the tall firs that crowned the hill that had been Ernestine"s favourite spot. As she looked up, Gretchen"s eyes were moist.
"The moon is the sun of the unhappy," she said suddenly. "Hers is the only light that weeping eyes can endure. They must close in the garish rays of the sun, but they can look up to her through their tears. When she reigns in the sky, repose comes to the weary after the day"s dull pain. And you, my kind guardian, seem to me like the moon,--you are so calm and still. I shrink from the others, it seems to me they must despise me, but with you I can weep freely, and rest from all my pain."
"I thank you, Gretchen, for these words," said Hilsborn.
And the girl, in the self-abandonment of her grief, leaned her head upon Hilsborn"s shoulder and wept silently.
Thus they walked slowly on for a time, without a word. The moon began to disappear behind the firs, and only gleamed through them when the night breeze stirred their boughs. A low whisper,--a soft suggestion of the resurrection,--trembled among the withered leaves and leafless branches. The little silver skiff glided quietly down the horizon, and misty vapours floated about the youthful pair like a bridal veil. Their innocent hearts mourned over scarcely-closed graves in the midst of nature, enlivened by no young blossoms, no nightingale"s song, and yet a future spring was gently stirring around and within them, amid tears and autumn desolation.
"We must return," said Gretchen, suddenly rousing herself from her sad thoughts. "They will miss us." And she hastened on in advance of her friend. At the door of the sick-room he detained her for one moment.
"Gretchen, you have done more than I can tell for me in this last half-hour, but yet not enough. You will give me just such another every evening, will you not?"
"With all my heart!"
"And, Gretchen, I shall pa.s.s this night watching here in this room.
Come to the door now and then, and give me one look."
"Why?" she asked, with a blush.
"Because your face is the dearest sight in the world to me."
"Oh, I am glad of that!" she faltered.