"You must not laugh at the lady at the castle," said Käthchen, leaning her pale little face against Johannes' throbbing heart. "My mother complained to-day that I had grown as pale and ugly as the Fräulein, and she prayed the Lord to break the spell that the Fräulein had laid upon me. It made me so sorry, for she cannot help my being so pale. She is so good and kind,--how could she bewitch me?"
Johannes silently drew the child closer to him.
"To be sure, she is good and kind, and would not harm any one," said Herr Leonhardt;--but his son interposed, with youthful exaggeration, "She is a saint,--far too holy for these ignorant people to be permitted to kiss her footprints as she passes!"
Johannes pressed his bearded lips upon the child's head, but did not speak.
"Herr Professor, where are your thoughts?" asked Leonhardt anxiously, laying his hand gently upon Johannes' shoulder.
"With the subject of your conversation, dear friend. It gives me no rest. It is now four weeks since I have seen her. I would not seek her again until I had collected all the material that was necessary to convict her uncle, for I must be prepared for the most determined opposition on his part to my visits. To-day, through my kind old friend Heim, I have discovered a clue to Gleissert's rascalities, and when I compare the intelligence that I have received with the fact of which you informed me, that all his letters are addressed to Unkenheim, I think I have a terrible weapon against him in my possession. And yet,--yet I do not know whether I ought to warn Ernestine by letter or to go to her myself. Will not,--must not the sight of me be painful to her?"
"As well as I remember, you told me that she begged you not to forsake her," said Herr Leonhardt.
"So she did, old friend. But how do I know how she thinks and feels now, since she never visits you without such anxious inquiries beforehand as to whether I am with you, and never, too, unless accompanied by Gleissert?"
"That is all her uncle's doings," said Walter. "You cannot think, Herr Professor, how he watches and guards her. Since I have been allowed to study in her laboratory, I have never for one moment been alone with her,--that devil is always present. And it was with difficulty that she obtained permission for me to come to the castle. Willmers says that there was a three-days fight about it, but Fräulein Ernestine had made up her mind, and he was at last obliged to give way. It is high time that something were done for the unfortunate lady, for since the completion of her last treatise she has been utterly exhausted, and if she goes on thus much longer she will kill herself."
"I have known that for a long time," said Johannes with a profound sigh, "but what is to be done? I can make no impression either upon her head or heart. My solitary hope now lies in separating her from that villain."