"Mille grazie," replied the other. "I'll take you at your word. Write a line this afternoon, either yes or no, to inform me whether the old sinner is secretly spoiling colors and washing brushes, or conscientiously keeps to his bond. I'll then add a postscript to his letter to the prince. Adieu, my dear fellow, I wish you success!--"
Edwin's heart beat violently as he entered the little house. The door chanced to be open, and he met no one in the entry. His heart told him that he should find Leah in the sitting room on the left. Yet he knocked at the door of the studio, and without waiting for the "come in," crossed the threshold he had so long avoided.
CHAPTER IX.
At his entrance the little artist started from a chair by the window, where he had apparently been seated a long time, absorbed in deep thought.
"Thank God!" he exclaimed, and his sad, honest face brightened, as he held out both hands to Edwin--"you again walk among the living. It's pleasant that you instantly remember your old friends--though this is not exactly the right atmosphere for a person just recovering from illness--you come to people who, in the midst of the loveliest air of Spring, sit in affliction and the shadow of death. Well--it's as God wills, I keep calm."
With the tear's streaming down his cheeks, he now told Edwin that Leah had grown so ill that she could scarcely get an hour's sleep, and the food she took was hardly enough to nourish an infant a week old. Yet she bore her fate with a divine patience that often made him wonder whence she derived her strength, since she neither prayed nor accepted everything as the will of an all merciful Father who could make even the most incomprehensible and hardest things result in a blessing. "In that she's like her mother, whose only defense and weapons against all sorrow were silence and meditation. Go to her, dear Doctor, I know she'll be delighted to see you. She always esteemed you so highly, and God is my witness that I've often reproached myself for yielding to Frau Valentin and interrupting your lessons. Doctor Marquard says the sickness is connected with the mind--if she could but divert her thoughts, and not brood perpetually over one idea--Ah! me! If philosophy could give her sleep and appetite, preserve my child to me--" He paused and pressed his handkerchief to his eyes.
"If you'll give me leave, dear Herr König," said Edwin, "I'll try what I can do. Philosophy has already banished many evil spirits and infused new blood into whole races. I'll speak to your dear daughter, and hope it is not yet too late."
He turned away to conceal his emotion, and hastily left the studio. When he entered Leah's room, he found her resting on the sofa with a book in her lap, her beautiful dark eyes fixed upon it, each a burning fire in whose glow a waxen image is slowly consuming. In other respects she was not altered, except that her complexion was more transparent and a sorrowful smile seemed frozen on her lips. But as he approached her and with a few cordial words took her hand, a deep blush suffused the delicate face and gave to it the appearance of blooming freshness and health.
"What sorrow you are causing us, dear Leah!" he said drawing a chair toward her couch. "No," he added as she attempted to rise, "you must remain as you are, if you don't want to drive me away. I'm so glad to see you again. Since that terrible day I've only heard of you through others. And yet not entirely through others, through yourself, too. Do you know that I read your journal yesterday for the first time?"
She moved her head as if to beg him not to talk about it, and replied: "You've so many better things to do--if my father had not desired it--"