“Liebe Mai”—it began—“Will you come and help me in my trouble? Sigmund is very ill. Sometimes he is delirious. He calls for you often. It breaks my heart to find that after all not a word is uttered of us, but only of Eugen (burn this when you have read it), of you, and of ‘Karl,’ and ‘Friedhelm,’ and one or two other names which I do not know. I fear this petition will sound troublesome to you, who were certainly not made for trouble, but you are kind. I saw it in your face. I grieve too much. Truly the flesh is fearfully weak. I would live as if earth had no joys for me—as indeed it has none—and yet that does not prevent my suffering. May God help me! Trusting to you, Your,
“Hildegarde v. Rothenfels.”
I lost no time in complying with this summons. In a few moments I was in the carriage; ere long I was at the schloss, was met by Countess Hildegarde, looking like a ghost that had been keeping a strict Lent, and was at last by Sigmund’s bedside.
He was tossing feverishly from side to side, murmuring and muttering. But when he saw me he was still, a sweet, frank smile flitted over his face—a smile wonderfully like that which his father had lately bent upon me. He gave a little laugh, saying:
“Fräulein May! Willkommen! Have you brought my father? And I should like to see Friedhelm, too. You and der Vater and Friedel used to sit near together at the concert, don’t you remember? I went once, and you sung. That tall black man beat time, and my father never stopped looking at you and listening—Friedel too. I will ask them if they remember.”
He laughed again at the reminiscence, and took my hand, and asked me if I remembered, so that it was with difficulty that I steadied my voice and kept my eyes from running over as I answered him. Gräfin Hildegarde behind wrung her hands and turned to the window. He did not advance any reminiscence of what had happened since he came to the schloss.
There was no doubt that our Sigmund was very ill. A visitation of scarlet fever, of the worst kind, was raging in Lahnburg and in the hamlet of Rothenfels, which lay about the gates of the schloss.
Sigmund, some ten days before, had ridden with his uncle, and waited on his pony for some time outside a row of cottages, while the count visited one of his old servants, a man who had become an octogenarian in the service of his family, and upon whom Graf Bruno periodically shed the light of his countenance.
It was scarcely to be doubted that the boy had taken the infection then and there, and the doctor did not conceal that he had the complaint in its worst form, and that his recovery admitted of the gravest doubts.
A short time convinced me that I must not again leave the child till the illness was decided in one way or another. He was mine now, and I felt myself in the place of Eugen, as I stood beside his bed and told him the hard truth—that his father was not here, nor Friedhelm, nor Karl, for whom he also asked, but only I.