So long as there was such content in his eyes, there was content deep and full in Sidonia's heart. Her confidence in him was unlimited. He had asked her to be his wife: therefore he loved her, and his way of love was perfect in her mind. His parting and meeting kiss—often enough laid fugitively upon her eyelids—was to her the utmost and happiest expression of tenderness.
* * * * *
So passed these odd, quiet, yet all-important hours of courtship. And then the day came, eve of the morrow when they were to be united up in yonder bare stone chapel of the Burg, that was never used save for the baptism, the burial, or the wedding of a Wellenshausen.
Again Sidonia sat among the rocks and the wild herbs, but alone: Steven was engaged in conclave with the ruddy-faced pastor of the hamlet, who was to ride up on his mule in the morning and conduct the ceremony. She smiled happily, as she pictured the interview in her mind. Presently she became aware that she was no longer by herself. From the black shadow of the rock, across the patch of sward opposite to her, eyes were watching her from a lean, sharp-featured face. She gave a small, low laugh.
"I see you," she said.
And Geiger-Hans came forward with a kind of leap from the rocky gloom. He sat cross-legged in the full sunshine before her, his arms folded. His fiddle was slung at his back; his garments were powdered with dust; he looked tired and travel-worn, as if he had come from a long distance. But he was smiling at her.
"Truly, it is a curious thing," he said, as if taking up the thread of some interrupted conversation, "that the first time we ever met, little Mamzell Sidonia, you addressed me in just these very words."
"That must have been very long ago, Onkel," said Sidonia, "for I always remember you."
"Nay, it was an epoch to me. You see, mamzell, I was not then Geiger-Onkel to the country-side, the Geiger-Onkel whom the children run up to, whom the silly maids and youths consult, and the old wives like to gossip with—the old, crazy fellow, who makes merry music and does nobody any harm. I had black misery in my heart in those days, and black misery on my face. And I can well believe," said the fiddler, after a pause, "that I seemed to shed a black curse about me as I passed. I was a restless mortal, and went about, hither, thither, at a terrible pace. The people took me for a wandering devil! And, upon my soul, I don't blame them." He gave a laugh, and the sound of it hurt Sidonia. She had always known, of course, that it was some fearful sorrow that had driven her old friend to his life of wandering.
"Oh, poor Geiger-Onkel!" she cried; the caress of her eyes was infinitely soft.