Johanna clasped her hands upon the note. "God-speed!" she said to herself, smiling through her tears.
CHAPTER XXVI.
DR. STEIN'S SCHEME.
Life at Dönninghausen since Johanna's departure, although outwardly unchanged, was no longer the same.
The Freiherr applied himself more diligently than ever to the administration of his extended estates, but the strictest attention to his work did not do away for him with the sensation of emptiness and loneliness. Whether he rode out or busied himself with accounts, at table with the family or shut up in his study, everywhere he missed his grand-daughter's watchful eyes, her comprehension of him, her vivacity, her fresh interest in life. In spite of the habit of more than seventy years, his sister hardly seemed so much his own as this young creature. He had always rather looked down upon the gentle docile Thekla, while in Johanna, in spite of the respect she always manifested towards him, he recognized an equal. And because she was so, and because she had found a home with him, her desertion of him, as he called it, was all the more irritating; and since he could not prevent his thoughts from dwelling upon her continually, he was all the more careful not to betray this weakness in words.
Magelone had long since returned to Dönninghausen, graceful and capricious as ever, and yet Aunt Thekla fancied she was hardly the same; her merriment seemed forced. The monotony of her life weighed upon her more heavily, although she did not bewail it so often and so loudly as formerly. She did not know that Otto had confessed everything to his aunt, and the old lady shrank from telling her, although she sometimes thought that Magelone's mind would be easier if she could unburden it freely. She must be unhappy, for was not all the misfortune that had befallen Dönninghausen of late her fault? And it was because she knew this and repented it that her behaviour towards Otto was so strange: now so frigidly cold, and now so provokingly derisive.
Otto had taken up his abode in Tannhagen, and was managing the small estate. He seldom came to Dönninghausen, and when he did so he avoided being alone with any one member of the family. Aunt Thekla was more troubled about him than about Magelone. The discomfort which evidently weighed upon him at Dönninghausen seemed to her the result of his repentance, and of his longing love for Johanna. She and the Freiherr were both convinced that he had written repeatedly to Johanna; and when she would ask him if he had received an answer, and he would hurriedly reply in the negative and then change the subject, the old lady's heart would be filled with bitterness towards Johanna. She did not reflect that in concealing his fault from his grandfather Otto was constantly sinning afresh. Now and then she really blamed herself for striving, in spite of her brother's express command and of Johanna's heartless treatment of 'poor Otto,' to keep up even indirectly a kind of communication with the girl. Notwithstanding these scruples of conscience, she waited impatiently for news from Löbel Wolf; and when, one day, he made his appearance, and gave her a detailed account of his son's visit to Johanna, her grudge against her was drowned in compassion. Instead of the love she had dreamed of in her pretty woodland nest, to be confined in the close atmosphere of a sick-room! At the old lady's request, Löbel Wolf declared his readiness to treat in person with Johanna, and to tell the Freiherr, whom fortunately he had not yet seen, that he had not yet made his intended trip to Hanover, but would do so in a few days.
Scarcely had Löbel Wolf driven out of the court-yard when the Freiherr came into his sister's room and called out to her, "Good news! Johann Leopold is coming home!"
"When?" Aunt Thekla asked, half startled, half pleased.