The huge ledger lay open upon it; in that drawer were six business letters which ought to be answered to-day; and she could hear the rumbling in the court-yard below of one of the clumsy mill-wagons laden with grain. The dogs were barking furiously at a beggar to whom Susy was throwing a piece of bread from her window. Here was enough of prosaic reality. And the rude pictures, which, as they had formerly been the objects of her grandfather's admiration, still adorned the walls, were as little calculated to excite emotion as the stout stuffed cushion of the sofa above which they hung, or the tall Schwarzwald clock standing stiff and straight against the wall, swinging its weary pendulum behind the ground glass.
The young girl's glance lingered among all these glories, till finally she took a sheet of paper and dipped her pen in the ink. "Messrs. Schilling & Co., Hamburg,"—oh, no one would be able to read that! In despair she passed her hand over her forehead, parting the brown curls so that a faint crimson scar was disclosed. Thus she sat for a moment, motionless, her left hand covering her eyes, her right still holding the rebellious pen. Suddenly she felt a cool air upon her cheek; the draught came from an open door or window; she looked up, and there he stood upon the topmost step of the small flight leading into the room, smiling and radiant with the joy of return.
"Leo! I knew it!" she exclaimed; and, throwing down her pen, she ran towards him and was clasped in his arms.
Susy came running from the hall. What was the matter? The door was wide open, and she had heard the cry. She stood open-mouthed; the corner of her blue apron, with which she had been about to wipe her heated forehead, dropped from her hand in dismay, for there upon the well-scoured boards of her sacred castle-mill room stood Doctor Bruck, clasping her Fräulein in his arms as if he never in his life meant to release her. Lord save us! if they were betrothed no one knew it.
She cautiously crept nearer to close the door, but Kitty saw her, and with a burning blush tried to extricate herself from her lover's embrace.
The doctor laughed, the gay musical laugh of former times, and held her fast. "No, Kitty, you came, to be sure, of your own accord, but I cannot trust you yet," he said. "I should be a fool to give you a chance of transforming yourself into a titter again. Come in, Susy," he cried over his shoulder to the old housekeeper; "you must witness the fact that we we betrothed, before I can let her go."
Susy wiped her eyes, and was profuse in her congratulations, after which she hurried across the court-yard to tell the news to her gossip and crony, poor Franz's widow, lamenting at the same time that the good times at the mill were nearly over, since the Fräulein was to be married.
The doctor went to the writing-table and solemnly closed the huge ledger. "The career of the lovely miller's maiden is at an end, for—Easter has come," he said. "How I have counted the days of this time of probation, which I myself ordained that I might not lose you altogether! You cannot tell how hard it is to live on from hour to hour in uncertainty, when the whole happiness of life is at stake. My only consolation I found in your letters to my aunt, in which, in spite of the character and force of will that they showed, I fancied I could detect your love. But how few and short they were!" He took her hand and drew her towards him again. "I knew that a time of renunciation must intervene between the unhappy past and my complete happiness; I bore in mind all your sorrow for your sister; but to this hour I have never been able to understand why you would have renounced me forever and lived a lonely unblessed existence." He paused suddenly, and his face flushed,—there beside the closed ledger lay a folded note; he knew the large uncertain characters only too well: such missives had frequently been sent him in the early days of his former engagement.
Firmly Kitty laid her hand upon the paper. Why expose this detestable intrigue? Let it lie buried forever; there was no longer any obstacle in the way of her happiness. But the doctor gravely drew the note from beneath her detaining fingers. "There must be no secret between us, Kitty," he said, "and this seems to be one."
He read, and then insisted upon a full confession. Kitty told him of what she had endured, and through it all he could not but gratefully perceive the depth of the unselfish affection that would have foregone the happiness of an entire future to secure his freedom.