"Yes--I was," Erna replied, softly.
"There comes your betrothed!" exclaimed Molly, joining Erna at the window. "How odd he looks! The water is actually pouring from his waterproof; he has ridden over from Oberstein in this storm. I think he would really go through fire and water for one hour with you. But marriage puts an end to all that, my child; trust the experience of a wife of four months. My lord and master sits calmly with his manuscript in Heilborn and waits until the weather is clear enough to come to me. Your romantic Ernst appears, indeed, to be made of different stuff. But what is the matter with him? For three days he has been glooming about like a thunder-cloud, never taking his eyes off you when you are in the room. It is positively terrible to see you together. Nothing will persuade me that there has not something occurred between you. Do be frank with me, Erna; open your heart to me. I am as silent as the grave."
She clasped her hands upon her breast in asseveration of her trustworthiness, but Erna, instead of throwing herself into her arms and confessing, returned the greeting of her betrothed as he alighted from his horse, and then said, evasively, "You are quite mistaken, Molly; nothing has happened,--nothing at all."
Frau Gersdorf turned away provoked: no one seemed in the least need of a guardian angel; these people had a very stupid way of managing their affairs themselves. The little lady could not understand it, and she rustled out of the room decidedly out of humour.
Scarcely was she gone when Waltenberg entered. He had laid aside his hat and cloak, but nevertheless his dress showed traces of the storm, against which no cloak was a protection. He greeted his betrothed with his usual chivalric courtesy, but there was something chilling in his air which was strangely contradicted by the glow in his dark eyes. Molly was right: he was indeed like some thunder-cloud, whose depths threaten ominously.
Erna went to meet him in evident embarrassment; she had learned to dread this icy calm.
"Well, how is all going on outside?" she said. "You come directly from Oberstein?"
"Yes, but I had to take a roundabout way, for the mountain-road is under water. Oberstein itself looks tolerably secure, but the villagers have entirely lost their heads, and are running about bewailing themselves incessantly. Dr. Reinsfeld is doing all that he can to bring them to reason, and Gronau is giving him all possible support, but the people are behaving like lunatics because they think their paltry belongings are in peril.
"Those paltry belongings, however, are all that they have in the world," the girl interposed. "Their own lives and those of their families depend upon them."
Ernst shrugged his shoulders indifferently: "I suppose so; but what is that in comparison with the tremendous loss sustained by the railway? As I entered the house just now tidings of fresh disasters were brought to the president. Nothing but ill news from all quarters. Everything seems to be imperilled."