The old baron sent several times to inquire how Bruno was, and in the afternoon he came up stairs himself. He thanked Oswald with great cordiality for his kindness, patted Bruno on his hot cheeks, and promised to give him the horse he had long wished for as soon as he should be well again.
"I am exceedingly sorry," he said to Oswald, as the latter accompanied him to the door, "that we must have company just to-day. It is very painful to me to think that the house is open, and dancing going on, while a member of my family is lying dangerously ill."
Oswald tried his best to quiet the good old gentleman, although his own heart was full of anxiety. Nor did he dare to mention to the baron at this time a resolution which he had formed during the last hours.
He had come to the conclusion that he could not remain any longer in this house.
How he should be able to live without Bruno; how he should tear himself away from the happiness of seeing Helen every day, he could not tell. He only knew he must go.
This he repeated to himself, over and over again, as he smoothed Bruno's pillow, as he took his burning hands in his own, brushed his hair from his brow, or moistened his parched lips. There was almost womanly tenderness in these loving attentions.
"If my mother were alive, she could not nurse me better," said Bruno, pressing his hand gratefully.
"You never knew your mother, Bruno."
"I was only three years old when she died; but I remember my father," and now the boy began to speak of his father with feverish excitement; how tall and strong and beautiful he had been; "not as slender as you, but broader in the shoulders, and with long, dark locks that flowed down upon his shoulders, like King Harfagar;" and of the little farm, high up in Dalecarlia, which the father had worked with two servants only, and how clever he had been at everything; and how he had wielded his axe, although he had been page at the queen's court in his youth, carrying her long silk train on state occasions; and of Thor, the fast trotter, whom the father put into his sleigh; and of the northern winter nights, when the stars on the black sky sparkled like diamonds, rubies, and emeralds, so bright that the snow glittered in their light; and of the northern lights, how they suddenly blazed up on the horizon and stretched out their fiery arms to the zenith.
"We must make a trip to Sweden together," he said; "here winter is mere child's play; there you will see real snow and ice! Here it is hot, intolerably hot--I wish I were amid snow and ice!" And the boy tossed his head restlessly on his pillow and asked for water.