"You will catch cold, dear Grenwitz," said the baroness; "I think you'd better come with us."
"No, I prefer staying with the others," said the old baron, with an earnestness which surprised all of them, and himself perhaps most.
He gave his arm to his daughter, but remained near Oswald and Bruno, chatting with them leisurely, as he liked to do, and inquiring from time to time how the boy came on.
"I am quite well, quite well," said Bruno, again and again; but Oswald felt that he leaned heavily on his arm, and that his hands were cold.
Thus they reached the house, one by one. The old baron disappeared, wishing Bruno a speedy recovery, while Oswald carried the boy at once to his room and sent him to bed.
"You are worse, Bruno, than you wish to confess," he said, sitting down on the edge of the bed; "you have your old pain, have not you?"
"Yes," said Bruno, and his teeth chattered, and cold perspiration broke out on his forehead.
Oswald hastened to use the same remedy as before; and he succeeded in this case also in relieving the patient, at least as far as the pain was concerned.
"Will you not tell me, Bruno, what brought on the attack?" asked Oswald.
"Oh yes!" said the boy. "I only did not like to tell while the others were present, because they would have laughed at me. I had stayed behind a little, and a projecting rock hid the others from my sight I thought I could overtake them at any moment, and so I was walking on slowly, often looking upward. Suddenly I saw Helen come so close to the edge of the precipice, which there comes down a hundred feet or more, that it looked as if she must fall if she moved ever so little. I cried out in my anxiety--then she came still nearer, actually bending over, and everything turned around me well, you know the rest. But there is Malte coming. Goodnight, Oswald."