"That night what didst thou make of the footprints?"
"One was Genoveva's, that was plain to be seen; the largest, an Indian warrior's; the third, a squaw's or young Indian lad's, I have never made up my mind which," and then he said nothing more for a long while, but at last he looked at me suddenly, saying as though much puzzled, "Would that I knew what the half-witted one meant; it hath been with me day and night lately, so that I had no other will in me than to come back, for it is in my mind that Genoveva, if she be still alive, is not far away." After a bit he looked up at me as though he were ashamed to ask, "Dost believe, Vaterchen, that if she be nigh her spirit hath called me back?"
To which I could only say, "I know not, though there be among us who claim they have had such communication, both with the living and the dead."
And then in all the simpleness of a boy he asked, "Dost think our sister was caught up into the heavens like Elijah?"
Ere I knew what I was saying I replied with some heat, for his question seemed like blasphemy to me, "Nay, nay, Elijah was a saint!"
"Dost mean Genoveva was not good enough to be taken up like old Elijah?" he cried out angrily at me, as he had never yet spoken to me.
"Quietly, my Sonnlein, quietly; my reply meant not that I think not highly of our sister; but though we have holy writ that Elijah was translated, yet there have been, as thou knowest, many good men and women since that time who have had to go to heaven by way of the gates of death. I do not think our Genoveva was taken up to heaven, and in this I mean no disrespect."
But he heeded not the gentle reproof in my voice, and after a while he asked, "Dost believe in the state of innocence taught by Brother Onesimus and his brethren while they were with us, and of whom thou hast told me so often?"
"Nay, I ne'er had much faith in their heathenish practices," I replied shortly.
Still he persisted, "They who pass through the ordeal of purification come forth with limitless vision and with mental powers unbounded."