"Which you think I have no right to put," he completed her sentence; and then went on, in his gentle, persistent voice, "I knew that I should have to allude to what it would be most painful to you to have mentioned, but it is best to tell you frankly how matters stand. The old Freifräulein confided to my father that the purchase of the jewels is a mere pretence. The Freiherr has parted with you; but he cannot endure to think of you, without means, exposed to the vicissitudes of life. His pride will not allow him openly to offer you a helping hand, and yet he feels it his duty to support you. Meet him half-way."
"Impossible!" Johanna declared.
He was silent for a while. "Pray do not let this be your final decision," he entreated. "Reflect; think how long and sad the life has been that has made your grandfather so hard, and be you all the gentler. The repentance is bitter that comes too late." He stroked back his hair from his forehead, and added, as if in self-reproach, "I pray you to forgive my presumption! You do not know; I may one day, perhaps, be able to explain——There is a certain community of suffering between us. I will call in a few days for your answer to the Freiherr."
And, without waiting for a reply, he took his leave.
CHAPTER XXV.
A WAGER AND AN ADVISER.
Johanna was much agitated. Again she felt bitterly her separation from Dönninghausen, and she was also suddenly assailed by anxiety with regard to her future. The young man was right. When she should be no longer of use as Lisbeth's nurse she could not remain with her step-mother; and what then?
At times, when while sitting at her writing-table, she had felt some consciousness of power,—she had hoped to be able to maintain herself by literary labour. At other times she doubted. Now, when the question seemed to her more grave than ever before, she seemed to hear her father's words of discouragement, 'as devoid of talent as her mother.' But why, then, was she so irresistibly impelled to give life to the creatures of her fancy? and how had she been able in all her misery to forget herself in so doing, if she were not called to avail herself of the talent which she possessed?
She stood at the window, with throbbing pulses, and gazed out into the twilight. Over in the garden a thrush was singing its evening song in the top of an old pear-tree. Ah, that song! Its ecstasy would always recall to the girl the most wretched hour of her existence. 'Called?' Had she not also thought herself called to be a partaker in the bliss of love? How true the words of Holy Writ, 'Many are called, but few are chosen!'