“What!” cried Freda.
“She not know; ve keep it von her,” muttered Mrs. Orendorf. “Fritz make me promise not to tell.”
“Well, he didn’t make me,” said Norah. “I’ll tell. He raised the money, and he was trying to buy the votes, and I saw him. I haven’t any father. I can’t remember anything of my father except his leading me about when I was a little thing by the finger, and how kind his voice was; but I miss him—I miss him all the time; I know he was a good man, and loved me; and he’d have done anything for me, just as your father is doing; and I couldn’t have borne it to have him, and I was sure you couldn’t, either. Freda, it’s all wrong, this spending more money than they can afford on us; I’ve felt it all along. Now let’s stop it. The church has got enough.”
“Is it true about papa?” said Freda, in German.
“Ach Himmel! Yes, my child. Dost thou not know thy father yet? For all he seems still and stern, thou art more than all the world to him.” Mrs. Orendorf spoke in the same tongue; her other listeners could not understand it, but they marvelled over the soft change in her voice.
“It’s true enough, Miss Freda,” said Mrs. O’Brien, gently. “And maybe you’re in the right of it, Norah darling, though ’tis a bit hard to give in; but, yes, I’m sure you’re right.”
“You are right,” said Freda, “and it’s all been wrong, all wrong. But I’ve got to see my father first. Please come with me.”
As Norah had led them in the first place, Freda led them by an equally potent although entirely different force now; it was Norah’s turn to follow, blindly.
A hush everywhere in their wake betrayed that a consciousness of their conference and its importance was in the air. Freda was pale, Norah’s cheeks burned, but neither girl looked to the right or the left; and both the matrons following avoided their friends’ curiosity by a soldierly “eyes front.” Freda walked up to her father, who looked up, not altogether pleased, at her light touch on his arm.
“This is no place for thee, my child,” said he; something in her face made his voice gentler than common. She looked, he thought, dimly, as she had looked when they got the news about Otto.