It was Eleanore's intention to take the pregnant girl to Daniel's mother
at Eschenbach.
She knew of the dissension between Daniel and his mother. She knew that
the two avoided each other's presence; that Daniel in his defiance felt
it his duty to avenge himself for the lack of love on the part of his
mother. Back of the picture of the unloving and impatient son she saw
that of an old woman worrying her life away in silent care.
She had often given way to a painful feeling of sympathy when she
thought of the unknown mother of her friend. It seemed to her now as if
she could play the role of an emissary of reconciliation; as if it were
her duty to take the deserted woman here to the deserted woman there; as
if she were called to take the mother-to-be to the mother who had just
reasons for regretting that she had ever been a mother.
It seemed to her as if she must create a bond which could not even be
sundered by crime, to say nothing of misunderstanding or caprice; it
seemed to her that Daniel had to effect a reconciliation in the home of
the Ruedigers as well as in that of his mother; and that, conscious as
she was of doing what was right, she would meet with no opposition,
would have no settling of accounts to fear.
She also took the practical side of the matter into careful
consideration: Meta would have no trouble in making her living in
Eschenbach; she could help Daniel's mother, or she could do day work
among the peasants.
When the child was born, Daniel's mother would have a picture of young
life to look at; it would alleviate her longing; it would appease her
bitterness to see a child of Daniel's own blood.
Eleanore told the people at home that she was going on an excursion with
a school friend to the Ansbach country. She studied the time-table, and
wrote a postcard to Meta telling her to be at the station at eight
o'clock in the morning.
Jordan approved of Eleanore's outing, though he warned her against
bandits and cold drinks. Gertrude was not wholly without suspicion. She
had a feeling that something was wrong, that these unspoken words
referred to Daniel, for she was always thinking about him.
If she received a letter from him, which was very rare, she would let it
lie on the table for a long while, imagining that it was full of the
most glorious declarations of his love for her, expressed in language
which she could not command. In a sort of moon-struck ecstasy she made
an inner, dreamed music out of what he wrote.
When she read his letter, she was satisfied merely to see the words he
had written and to feel the paper on which his hand had rested. She
submitted in silence to the laws of his nature, which would not permit
him to be excessive in his remarks or unusually communicative. Each of
his dry reports was a tiding of glad joy to her, though her own replies
were just as dry, giving not the slightest picture of the enraptured
soul from which they came.
She felt that Eleanore was lying, and that the lie she was telling was
somehow connected with Daniel. That is why she went up to Eleanore's bed
in the dead of night, and whispered into her ear: "Tell me, Eleanore,
has anything happened to Daniel?"
But before Eleanore could reply, reassured by her sister's astonished
behaviour, and angry at herself for having suspected Eleanore of a
falsehood, she hurried back to her own bed. She had come to think more
and more of her sister every day.
"How she must love him," thought Eleanore to herself, and buried her
smiling face in the pillow.