"She has her living rooms above that. Do you forget, Happie?" suggested Margery. "We will carry her there. I will tell her pupils that Mrs. Stewart has been suddenly taken ill, and dismiss them. Let us get her up-stairs before she becomes conscious; it will be easier for her. You are her husband, Herr Lieder?"
"You have guessed right, Miss Scollard. I am her husband who never expected to see her face again—nor deserved to, nor deserved to! I am Gaspar von Siegeslied." Herr Lieder turned away from Margery with a groan, but he turned to little Mrs. Stewart as she lay unconscious in the chair and took her up in his arms, the expression of his face plainly declaring that if he had neither expected nor deserved to see his wife again, he had hungrily longed to see her.
Margery and Gretta went with Herr Lieder—Herr von Siegeslied—to do what they could for his wife, leaving Happie and Laura disturbed beyond all possibility of tea room duties being properly attended to for the rest of that morning.
It was more than an hour before Margery and Gretta came down. In the meantime Polly and Penny had arrived, disappointed by Margery's announcement that there was to be no rehearsal that day, and full of eager questions as to Mrs. Stewart's sudden illness. "Because, Happie, it really might make it seem as if the tea room had something unhealthy in its tea," said Polly solemnly. "She came down here to get Laura to play, and she was perfectly well. And then she came back too ill to come back—I mean she had to send Margery to dismiss us. I hoped the girls wouldn't think anything."
"I'll attend to that dark green lady," said Gretta when she and Margery came back. "You let Margery tell you about it. It's more wonderful than finding grandmother's will in the Bittenbender trunk! Polly will help me. I suppose Laura will have to hear what Margery tells you."
"Come over in the corner, Hapsie and Laura," said Margery breathlessly. "I must make it short, because there's so much to do here. Mrs. Stewart—Mrs. von Siegeslied—is all right now; she won't be ill. Just to think that this mysterious Hans Lieder has been coming and coming here because that piano which Mrs. Stewart—his wife, I mean—left here reminded him so much of his own! And it was his own! And he had no idea what had become of her, and there she was right above his head all this time! And to-day is their little boy's birthday, and she came down—never came once before when he was here!—and they met. I never can tell you just what happened when she came out of that swoon. It was the loveliest, most painful scene—Gretta and I cried with them both. But Herr Lieder is plainly as sorry as he can be for the wrong he has done, and she is so glad to see him again that I don't believe she knows he has ever done wrong—yes, she does! She knows it just enough to rejoice more in his return! Women are like angels; they are more glad of one sinner that repents than of ninety-nine who need no repentance."
"Would you rather Robert were just reforming from something awful?" inquired Happie.
"Girls like stainless heroes," retorted Margery with a tiny laugh. "Wait till I'm a woman, Happie! No, I shall always be thankful for Robert's goodness. But our dear little lady up-stairs is in ecstasy at being able to forgive her husband, that's plain. Gretta and I felt dreadfully at being present when Mrs. Stewart opened her eyes and saw that her husband actually was there. She thought it could not be true. But we need not have minded, for neither of them remembered us. We sat and cried and held on to each other quite unnoticed. After a while the two von Siegeslieds were able to talk rationally. Mr. von Siegeslied told his wife that he had succeeded to the family estate and title—he's a baron, it seems—because his elder brother was dead, but that he had felt no desire to go to Germany. He had no heart, he said, for life anywhere. But here where he had lost knowledge of his wife, and where she must be, if she still lived, he would rather linger. He had enough to maintain him, he said; his wants were few, his tastes simple. But now that he had found her, he cried, he would go back to Germany and live among his own people, resume his own name, give her the place and the comforts that should have been hers. Then he remembered us, and he turned to us with his face transfigured. You never could imagine our mysterious and rather fearful Hans Lieder looking like that! 'Margery!' he said. 'It has all come about through your fortunate little tea room. There is no more a Hans Lieder to play for you. In his stead behold the Herr Baron von Siegeslied. Is it not suitable, little maid, that I should be resuming my own name and that it means a song of victory? Soon there will be no Baron von Siegeslied, either, to play for you, nor any longer your Mrs. Stewart so bravely to fight her hard battle alone, teaching the little ones on top of your heads.' He grew more German, Happie, as he grew more excited. 'We are rich people now, little maid, and people of consequence in the Fatherland. Will you allow us to wait on your mother at your home to beg of her a great favor? I want her to lend me my little Clara Schumann. She will trust her Laura to my wife, the best, the saintliest, the sweetest of women! I want to take Laura with me to Germany, into my own home, and I want to give her the musical education that shall prepare her to use the talent God has given her."
Margery paused and looked at Laura who gazed at her blankly, silently for a moment as if she could not understand. Then the color rushed to her face and she began to tremble. "Me? Me to go to Germany? To study music? He wants me?" she screamed.
"Hush-sh, sh!" whispered Margery laying her hand on Laura's arm to quiet her, with her eyes on Happie's eyes questioningly. "Yes, dear, he wants to take you away for a long, long time, to train you as he thinks you should be trained. It is a serious proposition, but Mrs. Stew—von Siegeslied is so lovely that perhaps mother will be willing. Isn't it amazing, Happie? What do you say?"