"Oh, my noble, generous patron, my whole life belongs to you! How can you believe me ungrateful? I bless you with every breath of God's free air I take. But ought I to eat the bread of charity in your house, even if you wished it? Must I not go out into the world and earn something, that I may at last make a home for the unhappy girl who has suffered and atoned so truly? But what am I to do? I can accomplish so little, my superficial knowledge makes me so dependent. Who will trust the murderer?"
"Any one who knows you, Albert," said Heinrich, kindly.
Albert's frank brown eyes gazed at him doubtfully. "Do you think so? Ah, when I was in prison, among the criminals whose fate I unjustly shared, I seemed like a saint; but now I am free and in the society of irreproachable men, I feel for the first time like a criminal, and scarcely venture to raise my shame-dyed face."
"Albert, in spite of your error, you are a man of more delicate and noble feelings than millions of the irreproachable citizens who pride themselves upon their phlegmatic honesty. That is why there are so few who understand you well enough to disregard your past as I do. I will take you henceforth into my employment. Will you undertake to become my steward?"
"The steward of your estates?" asked Albert, in joyful astonishment.
"Yes; I know you studied agriculture with a landowner in V---- before you turned to the career of a priest, and came to the college. However, if you did not learn enough there, I will send you to the agricultural school at C---- for six months to perfect your education; and then I think you will become a faithful manager of my property. You can marry your Röschen; and the steward's house is so large that in the course of a few years you can tell a number of children the story of the Prison Fairy."
A deep blush suffused Albert's face, and he clasped his hands with an involuntary sigh. "Oh, the Prison Fairy, Herr Baron! You and the Prison Fairy are the noblest human beings the Lord ever made! What shall I say to you? I can give you no better thanks than the wish that destiny may unite you!" With these words he hurried from the room.
Heinrich gazed after him for a long time in silence. "So that is the greatest blessing you can desire for me? Poor fellow! You too, without knowing it, love the Prison Fairy. It is because you must be deprived of her that freedom itself seems cold and barren; and yet she is so far above you that you do not venture to raise your eyes towards her. To me alone you will not grudge her, whom you consider the essence of everything admirable. And I? Does not the blood mount into my cheeks when I think how little I deserve what you wish me; and how, like a thief, I steal the semblance of virtues I do not possess!"
Veronica and Cornelia were sitting in their little tea-room, engaged in needle-work. "Cornelia, you sew very little, and talk still less," said Veronica to the young girl, who was sitting silent and motionless, gazing at the green shade that covered the lamp.
"I can neither sew nor talk: I am thinking of Ottmar," she answered, frankly. "Is not such a soul, which approaches ours for the first time and opens a new world to us, worthy of being received with quiet solemnity? Are we to rest on that day which commemorates a miracle that happened long ago and has never been fully proved? and when the Deity reveals one of its greatest wonders to our eyes, ought we to grudge our souls a time of sabbath repose in which to receive this lofty guest? You must not reproach me if, under this impression, I spend a few days longer in idle dreams. It is my nature!"