"Well, then, the day after to-morrow," he said; "only bear up, my boy, against the women's tears."
"No one will grieve," Johann Leopold replied, with a melancholy smile.
Indeed, what with bustle and excitement, there was scarcely time for grief; but Aunt Thekla supplied tears and lamentations enough as she superintended the packing of the trunks.
It was bad enough that such a dear good creature as Dr. Werner would insist upon undertaking such a foolish expedition; and then, too, he did it for the love of science. But what a Dönninghausen could find to do in India the old lady could not for the life of her conceive; and still less did she understand how her brother could let the lad, hardly recovered as he was, leave Dönninghausen. But the Freiherr seemed better friends than ever with Johann Leopold. His voice and look when he addressed him were most kind, and sometimes when he thought himself unperceived he would gaze at his grandson with an expression of such anxiety as went to Aunt Thekla's very heart.
To Johanna Johann Leopold had much to say; he commissioned her to install Red Jakob and Christine in the Forest Hermitage; told her where to address her letters to him, and promised to write to her in return. He was as taciturn as ever with Magelone, but his eyes spoke a different language from any she had read in them before. What was the meaning in those deep, grave, melancholy eyes?
The last morning he handed his grandfather a letter. "For Magelone," he said. "Let her give you her answer, and you will write me what it is. Do not urge her, do not influence her; and if she thinks she can find her happiness elsewhere, let no consideration for me prevent her from grasping it."
The letter ran thus:
"Dear Magelone,—You know that considerations of health have determined me to this journey, which will keep me absent for an uncertain period from you and from my home. Only my grandfather and yourself must know that I am very ill, perhaps hopelessly so, and it is with great pain that I add that under these circumstances it seems to me dishonourable to hold you bound by the half betrothal at present existing between us. If I should one day return well, and find you still free, and ready anew to bestow upon me your heart and hand, my most ardent desire will be fulfilled; and perhaps, dear Magelone, I might then be better qualified to win you than now, when illness depresses and embitters me. But your future must not depend upon this perhaps; you must not, upon my account, reject or turn away from what might make you happy. You are free, perfectly free. Show our grandfather this letter, that he may know how we stand with regard to each other. If you can give him a kind word of comfort for me—no promise; I cannot accept any such from you now—I shall be heartily grateful to you. Once more, dear Magelone, you are free, whilst I am now and forever yours,
"Johann Leopold."
As soon as the carriage bearing away the traveller had vanished from the eyes that were watching its departure, the Freiherr handed this letter to Magelone. He pitied 'the warm-hearted little thing,' as he had called her ever since Johann Leopold's accident, all the more since she bore her grief with astonishing fortitude. Not a tear, not a sob, not a fainting-fit,—nothing of all that he so detested. She had extricated herself from Johann Leopold's last embrace like a little heroine, merely pressing her handkerchief once to her eyes. Not one of the women among his vaunted ancestry could have conducted herself better upon the departure of a Dönninghausen for the Holy Land.
"God willing, she shall be the lad's wife yet, and the mistress of this old cradle of our race!" the Freiherr thought, and handed her the letter.