"That I cannot allow," the dean's widow firmly interposed. "Henriette must not be disturbed, nor her position unnecessarily altered——"
"Unnecessarily," Flora repeated, reproachfully, pouting like a child. "Why, aunt, it is my betrothal-ring."
Kitty fairly trembled at these words. Was Flora really such a child of good fortune that some miracle had restored to her the ring she had flung away? or was this all a brazen falsehood? In vain did she look for an answer to this in the anxious eyes of the beautiful sphinx.
"It is an unlucky accident," the dean's widow said, "but the ring cannot be lost; we shall find it when Henriette's bed is made, and my servant shall take it over to the villa to you."
"She shall be rewarded with a handful of gold if she brings it to me this evening," declared Flora, who was evidently much disturbed.
The Frau President and the councillor seated themselves by the bedside of the sick girl, who had taken no further part in the conversation. Only once had she raised her head, with her lips opened as if to speak. When her grandmamma had said she could not understand the delay upon the part of the cabinet-maker, she had been upon the point of saying, "Because your orders have been all but countermanded." But she remembered before it was too late that the past must never again be alluded to.
[CHAPTER XVII.]
The dean's widow left the room, to provide some refreshment, and Kitty followed her. Disgust and aversion drove her from the room in which such a farce had just been played. She begged the old lady to resign to her for an hour her household cares, and the widow willingly handed her her keys. "Here, my dear, dear child, my faithful, true-hearted Kitty," she said, gently, in a voice which trembled as if she were suppressing a sigh, and then she put her arm around the girl's waist and drew her towards her. "It rests me only to look into your frank, sweet face. I am always reminded of Luther's beloved Catharina, the true wife standing so firmly and boldly by her husband's side." And then she sighed deeply as she released the blushing girl and returned to the sick-room.
Kitty brought from the store-room the coffee, and a cake baked in honour of the day, and, while the stout, good-humoured maid made the fire in the stove, she filled the pretty old-fashioned bowl with sugar, and was just cutting the cake in slices, when she heard some one leave the sick-room. The kitchen-door was ajar, and through the wide opening she saw Flora come into the hall.
The beautiful woman looked around her with a troubled, uncertain air,—the geography of the "dreary barn" was unknown to her,—but it seemed as if those searching eyes had magnetically attracted the doctor. At that moment he came out of his aunt's sitting-room.