Her daughter put her arm around her, nestled close to her, and kissed the tears from her cheeks. "Mother," she cried, tenderly, "darling mother!" and without another word she gently led the wretched woman away from the water. The mother made no resistance; she was mortally weary, and leaned heavily upon the slender girl of fourteen.
They slowly returned to the house. A white translucent mist was rising from the fields, and flying through it with drooping wings, so low that they almost stirred the grass, a flock of hoarsely-croaking ravens passed them by.
In the night Erika suddenly aroused from sleep, without knowing what had wakened her. She rubbed her eyes, and turned to sleep again, when just outside of her door she heard a voice exclaim, "Ah, God of heaven!" In an instant, barefooted and in her nightgown, she was in the corridor, where she saw the cook hurrying in the direction of her mother's room. "What is the matter?" the girl cried, in terror. The cook looked round, shrugged her shoulders, and hurried on.
Erika would have followed her, but Strachinsky appeared at the turning of the corridor where the cook had vanished. He looked as if just roused from sleep; he had on a flowered dressing-gown, and carried a lighted candle. Beside him Minna walked, pale as ashes.
Strachinsky set the candlestick down upon a long low table in the passage. "Have the horses harnessed immediately," he ordered, "and send the bailiff to K---- for the doctor."
"Will not the Herr Baron go himself? People are not always to be relied upon," said Minna, with a significant glance at the master of the house.
"Oh, no; the bailiff will attend to it perfectly, and then--you can understand that I do not wish to be away at this time from my wife, who will of course ask for me----" Minna's eyes still being fixed upon him with a very strange expression in them, he added, snapping out his words in childish irritation, "And then--then--it is no business of yours, you stupid fool!" And, turning on his heel, he left her.
Minna shrugged her shoulders, and turned towards the staircase to give the necessary orders.
Neither she nor Strachinsky had noticed Erika. The girl ran to the nurse and plucked her by the sleeve. "Minna," she asked, in dread, "what is the matter? Is my mother ill?"
"Yes."