In the afternoon Paul went into his sisters’ room and said:
“Children, say a prayer for Frau Douglas, who was buried to-day.”
They looked at him with eyes sparkling with joy, and a dreamy smile passed over their faces.
“Have you not understood me?”
“Yes,” they said, softly, and looked terrified—they clung to each other as if they feared the rod. He left them alone in their happiness, and stepped out into the clear, cold winter air. “How is it,” he thought, “that everybody now fears me and no one understands what I mean?”
The same day he dismissed all the servants, and wrote to the foreman to come back on the morrow to resume work again.
During the same week it began to thaw, the work went on quickly, and one Friday evening at the beginning of March “Black Susy” stood there, smart and shiny in her newly-mended garment. Next day the boiler was to be tried, and the wood and coal lay heaped up by the walls of the shed.
Paul, unable to sleep, tossed on his bed. The hours crept slowly by, and a short eternity of the most painful expectation elapsed between midnight and dawn.
“Will she come to life? Will she?”