When Gottlieb returned to Almvik, he learned that his worthy uncle, whom as he before knew had left the house early that morning, was not expected to return until late in the evening. In consequence of this unfortunate circumstance, Gottlieb saw nothing before him except a vexatious delay in his intended operations; but it soon entered his mind that Mr. Fabian's absence might be connected in some degree with his wayward love. The day on which he had visited Magde, in order to take advantage of Carl's theft, he had also departed from Almvik in the morning, for during the evening hours his wife was invariably on the watch.
The more Gottlieb considered this circumstance the more he was convinced that if his uncle had sown the seed it was done for his own benefit, and undoubtedly the time was now at hand when he should reap the harvest.
"Ah!" thought Gottlieb, "if I should only be so fortunate as to obtain a power over my uncle, my suspicions and conjectures would exert a powerful influence upon his yielding disposition, especially, if I should place his wife in the back-ground. But to surprise him, with my own eyes in forbidden grounds, would be as good as to have old Mr. Lonner safe back in his cottage again."
CHAPTER XIV.
The Prisoner.
While the incidents last narrated were transpiring on the one side of the lake, Magde's boat had reached the other, and the occupants of the boat were about landing, yes, Carl had even secured the boat to the stake, when one of the little ones in attempting to reach the landing, fell overboard with a loud cry.
The young and always self-possessed mother, answered the boy's cry, not by crying out herself, but by springing into the water after him, and when Carl turned to learn the cause of the confusion, she had already reached her little boy, and was holding him up at arm's length out of the water. It was all done in a moment, without the least unnecessary confusion.
"Carl," said she quietly, "take the boy."