After giving his promise to stay in Zanah, Everett found that the day dragged. Having finished questioning the fool, he went to the inn, where he ate his noonday dinner in silence. Then he wandered among the lanes and winding roads until it was time for the evening meal, at which two taciturn women waited on him. He made an effort to talk to the women, but they pretended not to understand his German, and insisted upon offering him hot biscuits and honey. He found that he had no appetite, and soon left the table. As he passed through the big room which served as an office, he noticed that Diedrich Werther was not in his usual seat beside a little, round table where at all hours the innkeeper was to be seen smoking his pipe and drinking huge cupfuls of black coffee. Hans Peter occupied his favorite nook on the settle near the fireplace.

Everett went out on the porch, where he took possession of his host’s arm-chair. Naturally his thoughts wandered to Walda. The girl was a mystery to him. Although he was slow to acknowledge it, he knew that she aroused in him an insistent interest. He who cared little for women suddenly found his attention fixed upon a girl who belonged to a class different from any other with which he had ever come in contact. He usually classified all women he met. He found that they were easily divided into comparatively few types. Here was one whose education and whose traditions isolated her. He hoped she would pass by the inn. Impatiently he looked at his watch; the hour for evening prayer was slow in coming. He had risen with the intention of strolling about the square, when he heard the meeting-house bell ring. In a moment the long street again became alive. As the men and women went by on opposite sides, many of them glanced at him. Even the demure, quiet girls allowed their eyes to rest upon him for half a second. One, however, was unconscious of his presence. Frieda Bergen, the village maid who had taken the letter from the tree-trunk at the mill, looked across the grass-grown road to a youth who kept his eyes upon her until the blood mounted to her cheeks and her glance was cast upon the ground.

The school-master walked with his head bowed, as if he were deep in thought, and behind him followed the boys, who forgot to romp and play. He stopped on the rustic bridge. When all the villagers had passed, Walda Kellar came. Her hands were crossed upon her breast, and instead of keeping her eyes upon the ground she had them fixed on the clouds, where the crimson light was turning to purple and gray. On either side of her walked women whom Everett had never seen before. One of them was stout, and had passed her first youth. As Walda walked by Gerson Brandt on the bridge, the school-master and his charges doffed their caps to her. Everett could see that Walda smiled on the man of Zanah, and that she spoke to him. The school-master waited in reverent attitude until the future prophetess disappeared within the church porch. Then he motioned to his pupils to go on, while he turned back towards the inn. With lagging step he came into the village square.

“Hast thou half an hour to spend with one who would speak to thee?” he asked, addressing Everett.

The stranger in Zanah hastened to assure the school-master that he wanted companionship. Without being summoned, Hans Peter appeared with a chair. Gerson Brandt dropped into it as if he were weary, and Everett had a chance to notice that the delicate face was worn and haggard. There was something extraordinarily impressive in the personality of this man of Zanah. His gaunt form was well knit. Meekness and gentleness sat upon a face that denoted an intense nature. The curve of the lip told of unusual will-power, but the eyes revealed the fact that the soul of a dreamer dwelt within the school-master.

“I would talk to thee about Brother Kellar,” he said. “Walda Kellar is concerned lest she hath been selfish in asking thee to stay in the village. The women of Zanah have told her that thou hast much to do in the world and that thou canst ill afford to waste thy time here in the colony.”

Everett forgot his reflections of the previous hour and replied:

“I shall be glad to stay here. It is a privilege to be useful once in a while.”

“Dost thou work much?” asked the school-master. Gerson Brandt folded his thin hands that bore the marks of toil and turned to scrutinize the stranger. “It is long since I left the world,” he added. “I know little of it as it is to-day, but I remember that it was a very busy place.”

Everett could not repress a smile.

“You speak as if the whole world were one great village, and Zanah’s only rival,” he said.

Gerson Brandt laughed, and for an instant his face was young.

“We colonists live shut up in our little valley so closely that we can hardly be called a part of the changing life of America,” he said. “Once I loved the things of the world, and even now I sometimes long for what were once my idols.”

“Your idols?”

“Once I dreamed of being a great artist,” confessed the school-master. “That was when I was a youth in Munich. There came to me a disappointment. Then it was shown to my soul that I must not fix my hopes on the things of earth. I drifted to America. The world was cruel to me. Somehow I found Zanah. My art was a help to the people of the colony. They took me in.”

He spoke simply, but there was a little quaver in his voice, and he turned his head away.

Everett rose and began to pace up and down the porch. The humble tragedy in the life of the man of Zanah touched him and made him feel ashamed of his own paltry aims.

“Do you mean that you illuminated their books?” he asked.

Gerson Brandt shook his head.

“Not at first. I still loved beauty. I yet had ambition, and it was long before I could trust myself to use the colors. I had a hard discipline. For years I have made the designs for the blue calicoes that the mills turn out.”

“By Jove! I don’t know how a man can surrender all his ambitions. I cannot make it out,” Everett exclaimed, pausing before the gentle school-master. “How long have you been in Zanah?”

“Fifteen years. I was two-and-twenty when I came. Some day, before I die, I mean to go out to see what changes have taken place. I know that men are doing marvellous things, for sometimes I talk to strangers. But it is better not to know the world, for it gives a man so many interests he forgets his God.” Gerson Brandt hesitated a moment. “Even under the protection of Zanah it is hard for a man to subdue all the human forces within him,” he added.

“All human forces are not wicked. Such a creed as that is not taught in the New Testament,” said Everett. He felt irresistibly drawn towards the school-master. All the vigorous manhood in him resented the restrictions that Zanah placed upon its disciples.

“There are many that seem not so to me,” assented the school-master, “but Zanah teaches that it is best to fix all one’s thoughts on heaven. Of course we have our restless hours. We who have been touched by the world find it hard to forget. Those whose thoughts have been centred always in Zanah are the happy ones.”

“Walda Kellar is one of the happy ones, is she not?”

Everett felt that the question would be parried, and he hesitated to ask it; but his impulse to speak of the girl who occupied his thoughts gained the mastery. Gerson Brandt’s face reddened.

“There is peace and faith in the heart of her whom the Lord hath chosen to be his instrument,” said the school-master, and, rising, he turned as if to leave the presence of the stranger. He paused and added:

“I came here to talk with thee of Brother Wilhelm Kellar. He is the closest to me of all Zanah, and I would ask thee to tell me the truth concerning him. Hath the Lord called him, or will he be spared to go on with his work in the colony?”

“If no great shock and no unusual strain of work is put on him he may live many years,” said Everett. “He appears to have much vitality, and I expect to see him able to resume his duties within a month.”

“The Untersuchung is but a month off,” said Gerson Brandt, “and it will be a sore trial to him if he is not able to see his daughter anointed prophetess of Zanah.”

Gerson Brandt did not listen to Everett’s reply; he rose and stood upon the steps of the inn with his face turned towards the meeting-house. Down the street came Mother Werther and Walda. The wife of the host of the inn walked with the girl’s hand clasped in hers, and, entering the square, she drew Walda to the place where the school-master stood.

After the manner of the men of Zanah, Gerson Brandt made no sign until Walda had spoken to him.

“Thou wert missed at prayers, Gerson Brandt,” she said, “and because I asked thee to do a service for me. Thou hast talked about my father to the stranger?”

The school-master nodded his head.

“It hath been shown to me that I was selfish in begging thee to stay in Zanah,” Walda said, addressing Everett. “Thou wilt forgive a girl who hath not yet subdued her soul?”

In her presence Everett felt abashed. He saw in her a mysterious mingling of the child, the woman, and the prophetess. As she waited for him to answer her, he had a chance to notice the noble outlines of her face and the perfect poise of her lithe body.

“Do not concern yourself about me,” he said. “I assure you I am glad to stay in Zanah.” As he spoke the rare beauty of the girl again cast a spell over him, and he meant what he said. Mother Werther put her arm about Walda’s waist and would have drawn her inside the door of the inn had not Everett stopped them.

“One moment,” he said. “There is a condition that I should like to make. Your father needs faithful nursing—the watchfulness that only love can give him. If you will take care of him I shall feel that I have the right help and that I shall not have cause to regret that I remained in Zanah.”

“That is a matter thou shouldst put before the Herr Doktor,” said Mother Werther. “Brother Schneider is coming now; speak to him.”

“Is it not customary for members of families here in the colony to nurse one another?” Everett asked the school-master.

“Not unless they are especially appointed to the task,” answered Gerson Brandt.

Adolph Schneider had reached the inn. He greeted Everett with a show of cordiality, and, taking possession of the big arm-chair, lighted his pipe. He began to talk of Wilhelm Kellar’s illness, and to lament the loss of the elder’s aid in carrying on the business of the colony. Then Everett found his chance to request Walda’s attendance at the bedside of her father.

“The Untersuchung is at hand,” said the Herr Doktor, “and it is the time for prayer and meditation. Thou knowest that we believe she will be made the instrument of the Lord, and therefore she should live much alone until the hour when she shall speak with a new tongue.”

Adolph Schneider looked at Everett suspiciously. The man of the world showed that he could outwit the man of Zanah. With an assumption of indifference Everett replied:

“Of course it makes little difference to me. I shall do the best I can to help Wilhelm Kellar back to health, but if you send his daughter to nurse him he is likely to recover twice as rapidly as he would otherwise.”

He resumed his promenade on the porch. As he walked back and forth the president of the colony saw that he was a man of magnificent physique, erect and athletic. With some misgiving he noticed that the stranger had more than the ordinary share of physical beauty, and that he had the indefinable air which belongs to those accustomed to command the best the world has to give.

“It is important that Wilhelm Kellar should be well as soon as it is God’s will to restore him,” said Adolph Schneider. “His sickness is a stroke of Providence we may not question. Still, it behooveth us to aid in his speedy recovery. Walda Kellar shall be sent to nurse her father.”

Everett put his hands behind him and turned his back as if he had not heard. When the Herr Doktor repeated his decision the man of the world said, in a quiet tone:

“Very well. I shall expect to see the new nurse in the sick-room to-morrow.”