"Think not of her more, my sister; she cannot harm thee now, dear Bernice." Upon which boastful assurance she smiled confidently enough and said with a look I would not have changed for a kingdom, "That I know quite well, thou great giant; wast thou ever afraid, Brother Jabez?"
"Never," I responded valiantly, recklessly adding another lie to the record I this day seemed bound to cover with falsehoods.
"Oh, that I could be so brave, Brother Jabez; but I have ever been weak, such a coward; the Vaterchen and the Mutterchen always shielded me as though I were in all truth a baby." Here she paused as if to catch her breath, and then slowly again as with difficulty she said quietly, "I have been growing so weak lately, I wonder what ails me?"
And now my selfish joy, after all these gloomy months without sight of her, gave way to a pain that shot through me like an arrow as I saw how much more delicate and ethereal she had become since that blissful love feast. For a moment my soul was in hot rebellion at all the hardships and privations that made our Kloster life almost unbearable to the strongest and which were so heavy on the frail shoulders of this sweet angel at my side. Something of my wicked wrath must have expressed itself against my will, for she suddenly looked up at me alarmed, crying out, "What is wrong, Brother Jabez? Thou hast such a hard, angry look in thy eyes, such as I have never seen there before."
"I am not in anger, Sister Bernice" replied I, softening my evil looks to fit my words, "merely thinking hard—exceeding hard."
"And dost thou look so stern and fierce and frown so, when thou art lost in great thoughts?" she asked looking up so innocently I felt myself an unregenerate and abandoned soul for such shameless lying. "If thou dost," she went on slowly, "I shall be afraid of thee."
"Yea, sister," I lied again unhesitatingly, "thou hast yet to learn that like many other silly men and women I save my smiles and cheerfulness for those whom I know the least and am sternest and coldest to those that know me and love me best."
"That I know to be false," she cried out, smiling up at me brightly, in such a way I thought I never could let her go; "thou art not a hypocrite. Who in all our Kloster does not know and love our big brother, Brother Jabez, for his kindness, his patience, his tenderness, his charity, for every one, good or bad, and most of all for that mischievous Sonnlein?"
All this sweet-sounding anthem to my unmerited exaltation made me so sinfully happy and irreligiously proud I fairly forgot myself in my foolish joy, so that I pressed the gently resisting girl—for a mere girl she was—to my breast, and was about to insult her trust and purity by an unhallowed kiss, and doubt not I had done this great wickedness, had I not seen too near for me to venture on such indulgence, the form of some Sister straying our way.
I hurriedly urged Sister Bernice—who not seeing the approaching Sister, marveled much at my sudden coldness and failure to complete the sweet enterprise on which I had embarked: "Go thy way, my best beloved sister; think no more of witches; I shall not let them harm thee." And with that she smiled more heavenly than before, but obeyed my will and betook herself to her Kammer, while I passing on in the opposite direction, went straight for that accursed spot where Brother Martin had been the first ill-fated one to see that grisly shape.