CHAPTER VI.
After Walpurga had hurried out into the garden and had pressed the babe to her bosom, she quietly gave it to Stasi, saying:
"Take the child; I daren't feed it now. Oh, you poor, dear thing! They want to take me away from you. What harm have you ever done that they should treat you so? And what have I done? But they can't make me go! And who'd dare try? But what have they come for? Why to me? Come, darling, I'm all right again. I'm with you, and we'll not part from each other. I'm quite calm again."
When Hansei came to call Walpurga, he found her quietly pressing the child to her bosom and kissing its little hands.
"If you've had your talk out, do come in."
Walpurga motioned him to be quiet, lest he should disturb the child. He stood there silently for a while; not a sound escaped father, mother, or child; naught was heard but the starlings in the cherry-tree, who were feeding their young. Swift as the wind itself they would fly from their nests and return again. At last, the child, its hunger thoroughly sated, but its lips still softly moving, dropped back on the pillow.
"Come into the house," said Hansei, in a voice far gentler than his rough looks would have led one to expect, "Come in, Walpurga. There's no need of being rude, and there's nothing wrong in what they ask of us. They can't force us, you know, and we can thank them, at any rate. You can talk to strangers much better than I can. It's your turn to speak now; and I'll be satisfied with whatever you say or do."
Walpurga handed the child to the grandmother, and accompanied Hansei into the house. She looked back several times, and almost stumbled at the very threshold.
As soon as she entered the room, Doctor Sixtus came up to her, and, addressing her in a gentle, insinuating manner, said:
"My good woman! I should think it a sin to induce you to do anything that your heart condemns. But I feel it my duty to urge you to reflect upon the matter calmly and dispassionately."