The mother joined them. Irma looked at her, as if she were an angel come to save her. With a voice free from the slightest trace of doubt and hesitation, the mother said:
"Walpurga, this is your Countess!"
"Yes, mother."
"Then you're a thousand times welcome," said the old woman. "I offer you both my hands. Sad things must have happened to you. You must have fallen. Or has some one struck you in the forehead?"
Irma made no reply. She sat between the two women who supported her, and her gaze was as fixed as though she were lifeless.
"Mother, help her; say something to her," whispered Walpurga.
"No; let her quietly recover herself. Every wound must bleed itself out."
Irma grasped her hands, kissed them and cried:
"Mother! you've saved me. Mother! I'll remain with you; take me with you!"
"Yes, that I will. You'll find it ever so healthy up in my home. The air and the trees there are better than anywhere else in this world. There you'll become well again, all this will fall away from you. Does your father know that you've run away, out into the wide world? and does he know why?"