"DO YOU THINK IT WAS A LITTLE RABBIT THAT MADE
THE NOISE?" ASKED WILLI, FRIGHTENED.
The children looked at each other perplexed.
"Do you think it was a little rabbit that made the noise?" asked Willi, frightened.
"Do you think it was a chicken?" asked Lili, with a very bad conscience.
Both hoped sincerely they had heard wrongly when it sounded like a child's cry, and that they had only hurt a little animal. They knew they had been very disobedient in handling the weapon, and without saying a word, they carried the bow back to its place.
Here a new dread took hold of them. What would happen if Rolf discovered an arrow was missing?
Just then they heard the others coming back from church. This prevented them from going out and hunting for the missing arrow, which would give them away at once. Rolf, of course, would not know they had shot, but he might ask them. They felt very helpless and entangled by their disobedience. Besides, it seemed quite impossible ever to admit the truth, if somebody asked them for the arrow.
In silence and greatly oppressed by a feeling of guilt, Willi and Lili slipped back to the schoolroom and remained there without making a sound till they were called to dinner. They sat down quietly on their chairs without any joyful expectation of the coming meal. They never raised their eyes and swallowed hard at their soup as if it contained large gravel stones. Whenever the father accosted them, they did not raise their eyes, and their answers were scarcely audible.
"What is the matter again with those two?" the father asked, quite convinced that their contrition was not due to the incident of the day before: the repentance of the twins never lasted so long as that.
He received no answer, as they sat motionless, staring at their plates. The mother anxiously shook her head, while Hun, who guessed at once that something dreadful must have happened, kept a watchful eye on the pair.