"What is between you and Mr. Linden I don't know, and it is none of my business to ask. But you see, ma'am, I have had a husband too, that I loved dearly--and life is so short, and I think we shouldn't make even one hour of it bitter, ma'am; the dead never come back again. But if I could know that my Fritz was still in the world and was sitting over there behind the hills, not so very far away from me--good Lord, how I would run to him even if he was ever so cross with me! I would fall on his neck and say, 'Fritz, you may scold me and beat me, it is all one to me so long as I have you!'"
And the young widow forgot the respect due to her mistress and threw a corner of her apron over her eyes and began to cry bitterly.
"Don't cry, Johanna," said Gertrude. "You don't understand--I too would rather it were so than that--" She stopped, overpowered by a feeling of choking anguish.
Johanna shook her head.
"'Taint right," she said, as she went out.
And Gertrude left the table and seated herself at the window, laying her forehead against the cool pane. Are not some words as powerful as if God himself had spoken them?
When some time after, Johanna entered the room again, she found it empty, and the table untouched. And as she began to remove the simple dishes, Gertrude entered and put a key down on the table. She had been in her father's room and the pale face with its frame of brown hair, looked as if turned to stone.
"If visitors come to-morrow, or at any time, I cannot receive them," she said, "unless it be my Uncle Henry."
And she took up her book again and began to read.
The house had long been quiet, when she put down the book for a moment and gazed into space.