When they reached home Julie found a note, which Fridolin had brought, containing a few lines from Jansen, written in pencil. He hoped he should be able to see her before the day was over, and she mustn't feel any anxiety about him. This made her very happy. She decided to let him find his child with her, particularly as the weather was raw and it did not seem advisable to put Frances, who was feverish from weeping, into a damp drosky again. So she sent old Erich to the foster-mother, with a note in which she asked permission to keep the little one with her overnight. She wanted to do this, she said, in order to surprise the father; and having dispatched the letter she enjoyed herself playing with the child, whose affections she now felt as if she had thoroughly won and deserved. She made a cup of chocolate, and looked on while it eagerly drank it; for it had not touched the sweetmeats Lucie had given it.
She acknowledged such an evident interposition of friendly powers in all that she had just passed through, and the good gods seemed to have taken the part of her love and hopes so earnestly, that she had no doubt but what the remaining difficulties would be also satisfactorily solved.
In this opinion she was shaken, though only for a moment, by the news Frances's foster-mother brought. That good woman was still full of the fright that had been caused by the supposed abduction of the child, and had no sooner received Erich's message than she set out to convince herself with her own eyes that at all events the worst had not happened, and that little Frances was in safety. The excitement of the last few hours, the self-reproach she felt, and the thought of the consequences that might follow, had so worked upon her that, at the sight of the child smiling a welcome to her, she burst into tears and could with difficulty be quieted. As for the permission, she said she no longer had any right whatsoever to give such a thing, now that it appeared that the child had not been safe from such an invasion under her own roof; and if the father should withdraw all his confidence from her she felt she would have no right to complain.
"Let me have her just for this night," Julie begged. "I have a presentiment that Jansen must return to-night, and then he will be so rejoiced to find us together. After to-morrow, you shall once more enjoy your mother's privileges without stint, until I take your place with still better rights."
But her presentiment deceived her.
The child was put to bed early, and, with its head resting on Julie's pillow, had long since dropped off to sleep in the midst of a loving chat with its "beautiful mamma." Julie sat and listened to the storm, starting to her feet every time she heard a man's step approach the house. But the hours slipped by, and she remained alone. At last, about midnight, she gave up all hope. She dismissed her old servant, noiselessly undressed herself, and lay down on the bed by the side of the sleeping child. It was long before she closed her eyes.
When she awoke next morning her little bedfellow soon roused herself, and was very much surprised not to find herself in her accustomed place. The preceding day, with its adventures, only floated before her like a confused dream. She had a strange dislike to asking Julie how it had all come about, but allowed Julie to dress her, amid much petting and caressing, and to carry her home. Julie herself was depressed, and felt her confidence in the helping powers of fate much shaken. She resigned little Frances to the foster-mother, and then immediately started for the studio.
The weather had cleared, and a warm though pale winter sun shone down upon the streets, covered with a thin layer of snow. The long walk did Julie good. When she finally reached the house, her cheeks were glowing, her blood was quickened, and her spirits had recovered their former confidence. She was, therefore, all the more alarmed to find four well-known figures in the courtyard, all of whom greeted her with a look of profound distress--Angelica, Rosenbusch, Kohle, and Fridolin, the janitor. They were standing in a group, and appeared to be eagerly discussing something, when Julie's sudden arrival frightened them apart.
"What has happened?" she cried to them. "Has he returned? For God's sake, what has happened?"
"Dear Fräulein," said Rosenbusch, who was the first to stammer out an answer, "we know as little as you what has happened; but he has returned, and last night too, and not very late either; he gave back his horse to the stable-keeper himself; or, at all events, when I inquired about it early this morning, the two animals stood in the stalls, but the hostlers knew nothing of their riders. 'Well,' thought I to myself, 'that affair passed off better than we had a right to expect,' and hurried over here. But when I asked Fridolin, he knew nothing except that the 'professor' must have returned, for he had not been able to open the door of the studio; the key was inside, and he had received no answer to his knocking. In the mean time, as the sun rose quite high, I thought he certainly must have slept enough, and I also knocked and gave him good-morning through the keyhole. No answer. The marble-cutters, who wanted to get into the saints' studio, found the door locked likewise; and after waiting for a time, they went away again. As time went on I began to think there was something very odd about it all. So I climbed up to the window on the garden side, and looked into the ateliers--first into his own. Everything there was in the best of order, only there was no trace of him. So I climbed down again, and then up to the other window--well, in there things looked oddly enough. Just picture it, Fräulein: all his worthy saints, with the exception of the models which he had made himself, were smashed into fragments; and what was worse than all, in the midst of all this wreck I saw him--our poor friend--stretched out on the floor as if he were lying on the softest mattress; don't be frightened, Fräulein, he is alive and conscious, but so tired apparently that he cannot even rouse himself enough to go into the other studio and lie down on the sofa. For, upon my beating a most devilish reveille upon the closed window and shouting out his name, he raised himself half up, made a motion with his hand for me to leave him in peace, and then sank back again on the heap of fragments, with nothing under his head but a corner of his cloak."