"Klaus rose without having tasted anything. After a little we heard again the sound of horse's hoofs on the pavement of the court; he was riding out then to search for the missing one. Anna Maria mechanically gave her orders for next day, and I walked alone through the dusky paths in the garden. It was an unusually warm August evening; the moon was rising in the east, the steel-blue sky above was cloudless, and from the wood there came a light, refreshing breath of air. From the court came the sound of men and maids singing, as they made merry after the hot day's work. Ah! how many, many such evenings had I known here, and this one brought back to me a precious memory of my youth, with all its pleasure and all its suffering. Every tree, every bush I had known from my earliest youth. Everything which life had brought to me was associated with this little spot of ground. That feeling is known only to one who can say to himself, 'Here on this spot you were born, here will you live, and here will you die,' and it is a sweet feeling! So I sat down in perfect content on a bench at the end of the garden, and in my dim retreat rejoiced in all the beauty about me, yet at the same time worrying about Susanna. Then I suddenly heard some one talking not far from me:
"'And then don't look so sorrowful to-morrow, do you hear, Susy? And in any case wear the white dress to church to-morrow; I have my reasons for wishing it. And to-morrow afternoon I will come; it has been long enough, I can certainly come to visit you for once. And don't let out anything, darling. What will you answer if they ask you where you have been so long?'
"'Nothing at all!' answered Susanna's voice defiantly. 'I do not like to tell a lie, I shall not do it; but I shall not come to Dambitz again, it is too far away for me.'
"'Very fine!' was the reply; and I now recognized the voice of the old actress. 'I have walked about with you in my arms all night long many a time, no step was too much for me; and you will not go an hour's distance away for my sake? I think of nothing but you and your future; I devise plans and take pains to make your lot happy; I take up my abode in a wretched peasant's house with a shingle roof, and everlasting smell of the stable only to be near you; I sew my eyes and fingers sore—and you—?' And she broke out in violent sobbing, which, however, it seemed to me, made no impression upon Susanna, for she remained still as a mouse.
"'Go, Susy, be good,' the old woman began again. 'I have just given you the pretty little dress to-day; look at it by and by and see how carefully it is embroidered.' And now her voice sank to a whisper, and immediately after Susanna's little figure ran quickly from the thicket and passed close by me; she carried a white parcel in her hand, and her round hat on her arm. I could distinctly see her flashing eyes and red cheeks. I rose quickly, I must speak before any one else saw her. 'Susanna!' I tried to call, but the name remained on my lips; for in the path along which she flew stood, as if charmed thither, the tall figure of a man, and Klaus's deep voice sounded in my ears:
"'Susanna! Thank God!'
"Had I heard aright? They were only three simple words, words which perhaps every one would say to a person who had been missed and anxiously sought. But here a perfect torrent of passion and anxiety gushed forth, as hot and stifling as the summer night in which the words were spoken.
"I sat down again and leaned my swimming head on my hand. 'My God, Klaus, Klaus!' I stammered. 'What is to come of this? This child! Their circumstances compare so unfavorably, he cannot possibly want to marry her; what, then, draws him to her? What conflicts must arise if he really thinks of it! God preserve him from such a passion! It is surely impossible; it cannot, must not be! Oh, Susanna, that you had never come to this house!'
"And round about me whispered the night-wind in the trees; the full moon had risen golden, and bathed field and wood with a bluish light. And Susanna is so young, and Susanna is so fair! Was it, then, strange if Klaus loved her? What cared love and passion for all the considerations which I had just brought up. And their—Oh, God! what would Anna Maria say?
"And I rose, quite depressed, to go to my room and collect my thoughts. Klaus must have taken Susanna into the house long ago. Now Anna Maria would ask where she had been. And she would not answer, as often before, and Anna Maria would speak harsh words and Klaus walk restlessly about the room! Nothing of all this. As I went slowly along the path I caught sight of a dark figure on the stone bench under the linden. 'Anna Maria?' I asked myself. 'Is she waiting here for Susanna?' She looked fixedly out toward the dark country, and the moon made her face look whiter than ever.