"Well, then, do your own thinking, you psalm-singer."
"So I will," said Emmerence, going. She took her way straight to the convent, asked to see the principal, and told him frankly that she wished to talk to Ivo.
"Are you his sister?" asked the principal.
"No: I'm only the housemaid."
The principal looked steadily into her face: she returned his look so calmly and naturally that his suspicions, if he had any, were disarmed; and he directed the famulus to conduct her to Ivo.
She waited for him in the recess of a window on the long vaulted corridor. He came presently, and started visibly when he saw her.
"Why, Emmerence, what brings you here? All well at home, I hope?" said he, with a foreboding of evil.
"Yes, all well. Your mother sent me to give you a thousand loves from her, and to say that Ivo needn't be a clerical man if he doesn't want to be one with all his heart. Mother can't make her mind easy: she thinks she has made his heart so heavy, and that he only does so to please her, and that was what she didn't want, and he was her dear son for all that, even if he shouldn't be a minister, and----Yes: that's all."
"Don't look so frightened, Emmerence: talk without fear. Give me your hand," said Ivo, just as one of his inquisitive comrades had passed. "We are not strangers: we are good old friends, a'n't we?"
Emmerence now related, with astonishing facility, how she had tried to write the letter, and had wandered all night to see him: she often looked to the ground and turned her head as if in quest of something. Ivo's eyes rested on her with strange intentness, and whenever their glances met both blushed deeply; yet they had a dread of each other, and neither confessed the emotions of their hearts. When her story was all told, Ivo said, "Thank you from the bottom of my heart. I only hope a time may come when I may requite a little of your kindness."