These were also the mother's thoughts. She took Ella by the hand and hurried up to the woods, faster than she was able to go at ordinary times. Fräulein Hohlweg ran behind her, for she hardly knew what she was doing she was so anxious.
One hour after another passed. Women and children ran, searching everywhere, but no trace of Rita was discovered. Night came on.
Frau Feland, all the while holding fast to Ella's hand, had been running in every direction through thickets and underbrush, until now she could run no more. She returned with Ella to the house and fell, completely exhausted. Fräulein Hohlweg, who had followed in her footsteps, stood breathless, looking as if she too were near collapsing. Ella sat still, weeping, beside her mother.
Then Herr Feland came back. When he learned in a few words from his wife what had happened, he first of all carried her up to her sleeping-room and told her to remain perfectly quiet, that he would do everything to find the child. Fräulein Hohlweg and Ella, he said, must go to bed. As soon as he had found Rita he would let them know.
Then Herr Feland went over to Martin's cottage, for his first thought, too, was that Rita had gone away with her new friend of the day before. Martin was just coming out of the door. He had already heard that a child was lost and was just coming to try to help. To Herr Feland's questions he replied how, since early in the morning, he had been away with his wife and children, and that the little girl had not been seen at all by them.
Herr Feland now thought Rita must have gone away alone, either as she had proposed to him, somewhere up on the rocks, or deep into the forest. So he ordered Martin immediately to get together all the men in the neighborhood, provide them with good lanterns, and have some of them climb up to the high cliffs and hunt around everywhere and others go through the woods in every direction. These last Herr Feland himself would join, and he was determined to continue the search until the child was found.
So the men started off into the night, and Frau Feland heard one hour after another strike on the old wall-clock downstairs, but the night passed away more slowly, more lingeringly than any she had watched through in all her life. She did not close her eyes. At every distant sound that fell on her ear she jumped up and said to herself:
"Now they are coming and bringing the child! But will she be alive or dead?"
But they did not come. From time to time Ella would come tip-toeing in softly. She wanted to see if her mother was asleep, for through her anxiety she could find no rest either. When she found that her mother also was awake, she would ask again and again:
"Oh, Mamma, shall we not pray once more that the dear Lord will take care of Rita and bring her home again soon?"