"'It will come, nevertheless,' whispered the girl, and an expression full of anguish lay about her mouth; 'and then she will go away with him, and will take the child with her, and at last the cup of my unhappiness will be full. Then I shall feel nothing any longer, no longer call anything in the world mine, not even a miserable hope!'
"I was silent and looked at her sadly. How many hundred times I had said to myself that this would come. I shuddered at the thought of an empty, icy-cold future—poor Anna Maria!
"And it certainly was as Anna Maria had said. Stürmer came often, Stürmer came every day. We sat together at coffee in the garden-parlor, or on the terrace on warm summer evenings. Susanna had quite regained her old happy disposition. Sometimes, too, a white rose shone out from her dark curls, and her eyes laughed down over the garden, without a thought of the grave there below. It seemed sometimes as if something took hold of me, as if a dear, familiar voice said to me: 'So quickly am I forgotten?'
"And Anna Maria would sit for hours with the child on her lap, and say the word 'father' to him countless times, and rejoice like a child over his first awkward attempts. She guided his first steps; she did not let him out of her arms, but carried him about everywhere, all over the house and in the garden. 'Perhaps he will retain a recollection,' said she, 'and this is all his; he will live here some time, in his home, and then he will be tall and strong like his father, and dear and good to his old Aunt Anna Maria.'
"Was Stürmer really drawing nearer to Susanna? I could not bring myself to perceive it, and then—it could not be announced yet, the year of mourning had not expired. But perhaps she had her word already; he loved her, had already loved her as a girl; no other hindrance except the mourning lay any longer between them.
"The day following the anniversary of Klaus's death some one gave a quick, excited knock at my door. Stürmer entered; he wore a short coat and high boots, as if he had come from hunting.
"'Dear Aunt Rosamond,' said he, throwing himself into a chair, as if exhausted, and drying his moist forehead with his handkerchief—'dear Aunt Rosamond, we have always been good friends, have known each other so long. I have a favor to ask of you, a very great favor.'
"'Of me?' I asked, my heart beating hard from a painful fear.
"He looked pale, and quickly threw his gloves on the table. 'Speak for me!' he begged. 'I am a coward. I cannot tell you what would become of me if a second time I—' He hesitated.
"'Are you so little sure of your case, Edwin?' I asked, bright tears running from my eyes. I thought of Klaus, I thought of Anna Maria, my dear old Anna Maria!