In spite of his eye being upon her, Gretchen managed to elude him, and go home by herself when her duties were over; and when he followed her to the parsonage, he was told that she had gone to bed with a bad headache. There was a light in her window, however, and a shadow upon the blind as of some one moving about the room. Fritz felt half inclined to keep watch all night; but, though in one sense a full-blooded German, three generations of his kith and kin had breathed American air; so he only said, “Humbug!” and went to bed in a re-actionary frame of mind.
And all the while that Face was so very, very close to him!
He could not sleep; the room was small and close on that warm night; his pillow was first too high, then too low; and all sorts of horrors haunted his restless brain. George, on the pillow beside him, snored loud and heavily, only rousing occasionally to protest against his brother’s restlessness, and bid him—with a mild but terribly sounding German oath—to lie still and go to sleep. But it was not until near morning that Fritz, having by sheer force of will remained motionless unusually long, had a strange dream. He thought the Christ Himself stood beside him, like as Gabriel Max has drawn Him, only without that look of solemn agony. Gently as a father, tenderly as a mother, He laid His hand on the young man’s burning brow, saying, “Sleep, Fritz, I am watching over her.” What he dreamed next, Fritz could not remember; but suddenly it was broad daylight in the room, and he was sitting up in bed, inspired—not oppressed—by the sense that something was to be done immediately.
He dressed himself quickly without waking George, and only discovered, when he was outside in the silent street, that he had mechanically put on his Sunday clothes.
“But it’s all right,” said Fritz, “if He’s got anything really for me to do, I’m ready; and if not, I’ll get home in time to change ‘em. Well! I’m hanged if I even know where I’m going, for all I walk so thundering fast. Eh? oh! good-morning to you, Denny,” as the railway porter we once saw conversing with Father McClosky, crossed over the street to meet him.
“What’s up at ‘Prices,’ Fritz,” demanded the porter, “that they do be sendin’ Miss Gretchen to New York be the foive-o’clock train?”
Fritz’s heart stood still for a minute, then he said coolly, “That’s more than I can tell you, Denny. Did you see her off?”
“Sure, I did, an’ mighty glad to oblige her. She axed me to buy her ticket, but that blazin’ young spalpeen that’s managin’ Randolph’s Mill come along, and took it out of my hands intirely, bad luck to him!”
“Oh! Frank Randolph has gone too, has he? Then she won’t travel alone, at any rate.”
“Indade, and she won’t that, for they got into the same car, and it’s mighty attintive he was, wrappin’ her up, and carryin’ her carpet-bag,” said Denny, looking curiously at the young man.