Adelheid had gone off into an uneasy doze which began to be troubled by feverish dreams, and presently she tried to talk, painfully in her hoarse, choked voice.
“Hush, Adelheid, don’t talk,” Lucy coaxed her, but she paid no heed, tossing about on her narrow bed, as though living again the troubled moments whose memory possessed her little brain.
“Yes, Papachen, I’m going. I’ll run all the way, so don’t be angry,” she cried, panting for breath as she spoke and struggling against the cough that mastered her at every moment. Franz stopped his aimless walk and stared at her. Adelheid went on, now half to herself:
“It’s cold, and I don’t know where I am. Oh, I wish I could see the clearing! It’s awfully big—the forest. But I’ll go, Papachen, I’ll go all the way. I’ll tell him what you said. I’ll tell him you will go to the river without fail——”
“Be silent, Adelheid!” commanded Franz, towering above the child, who shrank back at the harsh voice, staring dazedly up into her father’s face.
Then eagerly she continued, “I did it, Papachen. I went there, though I was tired and very cold. I told Herr Johann——”
“Be quiet!” Franz grasped Adelheid’s little shoulder, speaking the stern words close to her ear.
Trudchen gave a quick sob. “Franz, she is ill, poor little one,” she whispered.
Franz took away his heavy hand, then, as though ashamed of his roughness, he smoothed Adelheid’s tumbled hair and pulled the blanket up about her chin. He cast an odd look at Lucy, in which hostility at her presence contended with a kind of gratitude.
“Tell me, Fräulein,” Trudchen whispered, “will she be very ill?”