Again the days passed calmly and quietly at DÖnninghausen, but they wore a different aspect from those which had preceded Christmas. Then the Freiherr had been the centre around which everything revolved, now it was Johann Leopold. Ludwig had pronounced all exciting causes dangerous for his patient, and begged that all his wishes might, as far as possible, be fulfilled. Therefore every one whose presence he requested was relieved from all other claim; even the meals, from which at other times only serious indisposition could excuse any member of the family, might be disregarded for Johann Leopold's sake.

With the egotism of an invalid, he required that either Ludwig or Aunt Thekla should be beside him all day, even when he was sleeping.

He took pleasure also in his grandfather's visits, so long as the old Herr could sit still; but as soon as he began, according to his habit, to pace the room to and fro, the sick man grew so restless as to oblige Ludwig courteously to dismiss the Freiherr.

"The lad is like a nervous girl," the latter would then say, with an irritated knitting of his brows; but the next moment he would add, "Well, we must be satisfied with seeing him as well as he is; by and by he will be perfectly reasonable again."

Perfect recovery, however, came but slowly. Only gradually did his memory of people and events begin to revive. One morning when his grandfather was sitting beside him he suddenly said, "Johanna!" and after a while he added, "I want to see her; let her come to me."

"Yes, my dear boy, I will send her to you," the Freiherr replied; "but send for Magelone too, or she will be hurt."

"Magelone!" he repeated, and his eyes expressed distress. "Magelone! No, no, she must not come! I will not see her. It is all her fault."

The Freiherr was startled. Johann Leopold was more seriously ill than he had supposed. "I will send Johanna," he said, rising; but the patient refused now to see even her. "No; send Dr. Werner," he said, fretfully. "I want him; he is the only one who knows what is good for me."

The next morning he insisted upon seeing Johanna, and she went to him.

"Sit down; I have much to say to you," he said, after her first greeting. "Pray, Aunt Thekla, leave us alone."

The old lady withdrew with an air of surprise. Johann Leopold lay still, staring before him, while Johanna contemplated him with compassion. His sunken temples, his neglected beard, his haggard eyes, made him still look very ill.

"Red Jakob,—what do you know of him?" he asked at last.

"I asked Ludwig—Dr. Werner, I mean—to take your place there," she replied. "You can depend upon him——"

"I know that," he interrupted her. "Well, what does he think?—how is Jakob?"

"Not well; Ludwig thinks his arm will always be useless."

"I thought so," said the sick man. "Does Christine know it?"

"Yes; I wrote her about it," Johanna made answer. "She was with him yesterday, and came to me afterwards. She was very sad——"

"And has given the poor fellow up, of course," the invalid interposed.

"You do not really believe that," said Johanna. "Do you not remember calling them the 'happy unfortunates'? Christine considers it a matter of course that she is now to take care of the helpless man. 'God has taken from me my little Jakob, and so I am better able to work for the big one,' she said; adding that she would do it joyfully if he would only be content, but that it would almost break his heart not to be able to earn his own living."

"Perhaps he may do so yet. I may be able to help him in that," said Johann Leopold. And after a pause he went on, in a hard tone, "Suppose I were no longer the heir, but ill and a cripple for my lifetime, how would my future betrothed behave to me? Do not reply. I know that our opinions upon this point agree, and that I cannot lay any claim to affection."

He looked so unhappy as he spoke that Johanna felt compelled to contradict him, but he cut her words short impatiently.

"Let us consult about Red Jakob," he said. "With whole limbs he would have had to go, for the sake of grandpapa's game; but crippled he may stay. About a mile and a half from here, among the mountains, I have a small estate, inherited from my mother. It is called Forest Hermitage, and the house is little more than an observatory. The grounds about it I have laid out as a forester's garden. The man who has had the care of it wishes to move down among his children in the valley. What do you think? Would Jakob and Christine like to live in that solitude?"

"They would be enraptured——" Johanna began.

The invalid interrupted her. "Then Dr. Werner shall propose it to Jakob," he said, and, covering his eyes with his hand, he sighed heavily. "It would enrapture no one to live in a solitude with me," he said, as if to himself, as Johanna, filled with solicitude lest the conversation should have been too much for him, called Aunt Thekla from the next room.

But the exertion seemed to have enabled Johann Leopold completely to conquer his disease. From this time he made rapid strides in convalescence; he was soon able to leave his bed, and at the end of January Aunt Thekla announced one morning with tears of joy, "He is coming down at noon to-day."

Just after this news, as Johanna and Magelone were left alone in the room, the latter said, "Have you written to Otto?"

"No, not yet." And Johanna bent over her work.

"He begged you so earnestly to do so. Why should you be so cruel to your friend?" Magelone continued. "You really must do it; I ask you for my own sake. Otto must have carried off with him my little ivory tablets which he took from me to tease me. Write to him to send them back to me."

"Why not do so yourself?" Johanna asked. "Then you could inform him concerning Johann Leopold."

"I? What are you thinking of?" exclaimed Magelone. "I think he showed great tact in asking you to write."

"Tact?" Johanna repeated. "I do not understand you."

"Why, yes; of course it would have been painful for me to destroy Otto's hopes. You are unconcerned, and can do so much better. How you look at me!" she went on. "Did you never think that if Johann Leopold were to die, Otto would be the heir?"

"Magelone! You cannot believe that Otto reckoned upon that?" cried Johanna.

"I do not believe it: I know it. He has talked with me of it more than once," Magelone replied. And after a pause she added, with a mocking smile, "How you look, my dear Johanna! Is it possible that you can have been at all mistaken in our cousin Otto? His is no ideal character. He is a thorough man of the world, selfish and grasping in the extreme."

Johanna made no reply, and was glad when Magelone soon after left the room. How could it be that this woman, who had known Otto from childhood, should judge him so falsely? A man of the world, yes; but far too gay and warm-hearted to be capable of the calculation with which Magelone accredited him. Johanna told herself that she had been wrong to delay sending him the letter for which he had begged her, and she resolved to write to him to-day.

But as she sat pen in hand with the paper before her, she discovered that Magelone's remarks had produced an effect. The ease with which, before hearing them, she could have expressed her delight in Johann Leopold's recovery was gone. What she wrote seemed to her first like a protest against Magelone's declaration, and then to be too warmly expressed. When she had destroyed several beginnings she confined herself to a mere announcement of Johann Leopold's rapid improvement, with a request for the return of Magelone's memorandum-tablets. When the letter had gone, she would fain have recalled it.

Ludwig had requested that there should be no demonstrations of pleasure at Johann Leopold's reappearance in the family circle; and when the convalescent joined them, the Freiherr, Aunt Thekla, and Johanna greeted him quietly as if he had not been absent. Leo, however, would not be repressed; he leaped up upon the friend whom he had so long missed, barking loudly, and nearly knocked him down. At this moment Magelone entered the room.

"Johann Leopold!" she cried joyously, and, hastening to him, she took his hand in both her own and looked up at him with sparkling eyes. He grew paler than before.

"Do not trouble yourself,—I know all you would say. I know my friends," he said, in a tone audible only to herself, as he withdrew his hand.

She changed color, but the next moment she smiled again, and, with a slight shrug, took her usual seat at the window. Aunt Thekla, who had heard nothing, but had observed the manner of the two, looked anxiously at her brother, who, however, was talking with Ludwig, pacing the room to and fro the while, and seemed to have noticed nothing of the meeting.

"Leave us! No, my dear doctor, you must not think of it," he said now, pausing in his walk. "After all the sad days which you have passed with us, you must learn something of the cheerful side of DÖnninghausen."

"Cheerful side!" Magelone repeated to herself, casting an expressive look upwards, while the Freiherr added, "You said lately that you were about to write a book; do it here."

"Thank you, Herr von DÖnninghausen," Ludwig replied; "but I could find no leisure here for writing. Good work must be done among those who work too."

The Freiherr tossed his head. "There we have the arrogance of the scholar," he said, and his eyes flashed beneath his bent brows. "Do you mean to imply that I do not work?"

Ludwig smiled. "Let us make a distinction. You work at your good pleasure as the whim seizes you, while the work to which I allude must be the result of a certain outward or inward pressure. Moreover, the projected book will not be written at present. I am going to India."

"And you tell us this only when you are just going away?" Johanna cried, reproachfully; and Aunt Thekla asked, dropping her work in her lap, "For heaven's sake, my dear doctor, what can you want in India?"

Ludwig came to the window where they were sitting. "Study, madame," he said. "An expedition, half scientific, half mercantile, is about to start for Gujerat and the Vindhya Mountains. I join it as physician. Moreover, my final decision was made only to-day."

"What does your father say to it?" asked Johanna.

"Of course he made all sorts of objections at first, but gradually he relinquished his opposition, and now he admits that the journey will be of great advantage to me."

The Freiherr again interrupted his walk. "Advantage!" he growled. "What advantage can India bring to a German physician? But science and trade are the idols of the present age, to which men sacrifice not only human beings but sound sense into the bargain!"

With these words he left the room, closing the door behind him with a crash.

Aunt Thekla grew pale and red by turns. "Pray do not be offended with my brother," she began.

Johann Leopold interposed: "What is there to be offended about?" and he smiled faintly. "You ought to feel flattered, my dear doctor. Grandpapa wishes to keep you here, and is angry to think that you can prefer India to our DÖnninghausen. DÖnninghausen, you must know, is in the eyes of every member of the family the very ideal of perfection, a paradise on earth."

"Not in my eyes," Magelone called out from the other window: it was insufferable to have no one taking any notice of her.

"My child, how can you say so?" Aunt Thekla admonished her.

"And why not?" Magelone replied. "You all of you have such a passion for the truth, why should I not say that I like Berlin a thousand, nay, a million times better than DÖnninghausen,—that I have been better entertained in papa's meanest garrison-town than here?" She yawned. "Every morning when I wake I wonder why the slumber of the Sleeping Beauty does not overtake us."

As she said this, she glanced from beneath her drooping eyelids towards Johann Leopold. She wanted to vex him: he had been too disagreeable. But he rose with an air of indifference,—the bell for the second breakfast had just rung,—approached her, and offered her his arm.

"With your views I should have you on my side if I were to imitate the doctor and take a flight into the world," he said. "But no more at present; our grandfather must know nothing of it as yet."

Again they sat at table side by side as before the accident, and Magelone forced herself to discuss indifferent topics indifferently, but all the while the question would obtrude itself, "What did her cousin's 'into the world' mean?" Was he only jesting, or was it a concealed menace, or the mere whim of a sick man?

"He is too indolent to go away,"—it was thus she consoled herself,—"and grandpapa would not allow it, nor would I." So long as she could consider Johann Leopold as securely her own he was more than indifferent to her, but now when it looked as if he were freeing himself, withdrawing from her sway, she wanted at all hazards to hold him fast, and this not from calculation alone. He had repulsed her advances to-day, but ice does not melt beneath the first sunbeam, and her amiability must conquer, like the sunshine, through persistency. If the doctor were only gone! His keen, observing glance made her uncomfortable.

Her wish was shortly to be fulfilled; Ludwig departed on the following morning. Very early, while he was busy packing, Johann Leopold came to his room. "I do not mean to disturb you," he said, throwing himself down on a sofa, "but I cannot spare one moment of you. You have spoiled me; I shall be doubly lonely now."

Ludwig frowned. "Do not be so weak," he said; "it is not fitting. You look badly,—you have not slept well."

"I have not slept at all," Johann Leopold replied. "After our conversation of last evening, after your answer to my questions——"

"You wanted the truth," Ludwig interrupted him, "and I thought I owed it to you."

"You did, and I thank you for it; but it is hard to bear."

Ludwig's lips quivered, as they always did when he was moved, and for a while he went on stuffing some things into his portmanteau; then he said, "Finish it all quickly; there should be no half measures where the knife is necessary."

Johann Leopold passed his hand wearily across his forehead and eyes. "You are right; it is time I should do what must be done."

"If you see that, do it instantly,—to-day,—within an hour! Can I help you? Perhaps it would be easier for you if I spoke with the Freiherr——"

Johann Leopold started up and changed colour. "No, no, I must do it myself; I must first be clear in my own mind. But I thank you," he added more quietly, "and later I may entreat your help in another way. I may reckon upon it, may I not?"

"Upon my best efforts, assuredly," Ludwig answered, pressing the delicate white hand extended to him. "But what do you mean? I am not fond of vague promises."

"You shall know more as soon as possible. Your ship sails on the 14th of March,—time enough to arrange everything," said the other, sinking back among the sofa-cushions.

"Time enough to fall back into the old indolence," thought Ludwig, but he did not utter his thought, and hurriedly finished locking his trunk and portmanteau.

The servant came to say that the carriage was waiting.

"Stay here!" Ludwig said, decidedly, as Johann Leopold rose. "The morning is bitterly cold; it is another kind of hardening process to which I would have you subject yourself. Good-by."

They shook hands, and before Johann Leopold could add a word of gratitude to his 'Farewell,' Ludwig had left the room and closed the door after him.

Leave-taking was so painful to him that he had suppressed all mention to the family of the time of his departure, and had only late on the preceding evening requested of Johann Leopold to order his conveyance in the morning; but he was not to escape thus. In the lower story old Christian requested him to step into the drawing-room for a moment, and there, to his surprise, he found the entire family, with the exception of Johann Leopold; even Magelone had not ventured to absent herself.

The Freiherr came towards him with outstretched hands. "My dear doctor, you wanted to steal away," he said, "but we could not allow it. It is not my fashion to talk of gratitude, but I hope you know what obligations we are all under to you. You have grown dear to us, and I beg and hope that you will in future consider DÖnninghausen as another home in the full sense of the word. So soon as you return from your travels we shall expect you." And he kissed the young man's forehead, as he was wont to do in taking leave of all belonging to him. Aunt Thekla with tears in her eyes wished him a happy journey, and hoped he had breakfasted well. Magelone offered him her finger-tips with a smile, and Johanna, who had on her hat and cloak, declared that she was going to drive to Thalrode with him.

With sparkling eyes he followed her into the corridor, but at the head of the stairs he paused and took her hand. "Dear Johanna, I thank you; but let me drive off alone," he said. "It is only prolonging a farewell if you accompany me. Stay here for my sake. Good-by! good-by!"

His last words were scarcely audible. He took her in his arms, and for the first time in his life kissed her on the lips,—a long, ardent kiss, that thrilled her to the heart. Then, while she stood as in a dream, he ran down the stairs. The next moment the door of the carriage was shut, and the wheels rattled over the pavement of the court-yard.