Neither of the lovers spoke.
“It is not permitted here in the colony for men and women who are unmarried to speak together except on rare occasions, and never are they allowed to talk when no one is near them; how then did ye two surrender to the tempter?”
Still there was no answer.
“Speak, Joseph Hoff!” Adolph Schneider shouted, in a tone which showed that he was filled with indignation.
“Love needeth not words or messengers; love is carried on the winds that blow across a woman’s cheek,” said Joseph.
“Nay, it is like a prayer that cometh from the heart of man to the heart of woman,” faltered Frieda, bending in a low courtesy.
“Thou art blaspheming!” Adolph Schneider cried, looking on the maiden with angry eyes. “It is plain that thou art made mad by what thou callest love. To you two erring ones shall be given a chance to repent between now and the Untersuchung, but if your eyes are then still blind to your iniquities ye shall be allowed to marry. Ponder well upon the testimony given here this day by Otto and Christina Schmidt. Human love lasteth but a few years, and eternity is not long enough to blot out the sorrow it can bring to a human soul. Go hence to pray that ye may be delivered from paying the hard penalties earthly love bringeth to all.”
Tears were streaming from the girl’s eyes as she walked back to the women’s side of the building, but in her face was no sign of repentance.
Karl Weisel and the other elders had listened with stolid faces while Adolph Schneider rebuked the people. After the young lovers had taken their seats, Wilhelm Kellar pronounced a benediction. The colonists filed slowly out of the meeting-house. Everett lingered in the hope that by some happy circumstance he might speak to Walda, but she was detained by the elders, who gathered around her. He had given up hope of getting near her when it occurred to him to make Wilhelm Kellar’s imprudence an excuse by which he might at least go closer to the woman he loved. He went forward to where Wilhelm Kellar stood at the foot of the platform steps.
“You have taken a great risk,” he said, to his patient. “You should not have come here to-day.”