Wilhelm Kellar lay propped up in the four-posted bedstead that stood in his little alcove. His thin face showed the effect of his illness, and the hand that played with the flowered coverlet was thin to the point of translucency. His long, white hair was brushed straight back from his high forehead; his eyes, which had sunk deep into their sockets, wandered restlessly.

“Walda, where art thou?” he said, in a thick, indistinct voice. Walda pushed back the chintz curtains that divided the alcove from the larger room, and, kneeling beside her father, took one of his hands in hers.

“I have been thinking of the Untersuchung, daughter,” said the sick man, “and I pray that I may be able to be present when the spirit descends upon thee.”

“Thou wilt be well in another month,” said Walda, soothingly, as she stroked the white hair. “The physician hath said that thou canst soon leave thy bed.”

“But the Untersuchung is only two weeks off,” said Wilhelm Kellar. “It may be that if strength is not vouchsafed me so that I may walk again a litter can be made for me. I would be carried to the place if I cannot go there myself.”

“There is some talk that the Untersuchung may be delayed for a month,” said Walda, “and then thou wilt surely be able to take thy place among the elders.”

“It would be well, indeed, to postpone the Untersuchung, for thou hast been much distracted from thy meditations by my illness.”

“Nay, nay, father. Strange thoughts have come to me since I have been sitting here many hours a day in this room. Never hath heaven seemed so near to me.”

“It is well, indeed, that thou hast never been touched by earthly love,” said the old man, scanning the face of his daughter. “It was to keep thee free from it that I brought thee here when thou wast a little child, for it putteth waywardness and frowardness into the heart of a woman. Since I have been near to death it hath been shown to me that I must warn thee again lest thou some time feel its evil influence. Thy mother forgot all duty. She forfeited her soul for love.”

The old man spoke with intense feeling; he trembled as a long-controlled emotion swept over him. It was as if he had unlocked the flood-gates of a passion barred for many years within his heart.

“What dost thou mean, father?” asked Walda, rising to her feet. A deathly pallor overspread her face, but the habit of repression, taught so persistently in Zanah, prevented her from showing the terror with which his words smote her.

“I mean,” said Wilhelm Kellar, drawing a quick breath—“I mean—” But suddenly his tongue stiffened and refused to frame the words he would have spoken.

“Thou wilt make thyself more ill,” said Walda. “Think not of the past.” Taking a pewter cup of water from the table, she moistened his lips. The old man clinched his fists and closed his eyes. He lay as if he were dead. The frightened girl ran to the door of the room to summon help. Stephen Everett was coming up the stairs.

“Oh, hasten to my father!” Walda implored. “I fear greatly for him.”

Everett went to the bedside, felt the old man’s pulse, listened to his heart, and discovered that his patient had, indeed, some serious symptoms.

“Has anything happened to disturb your father?” he asked, turning to Walda, who stood with hands clasped around one of the head-posts of the bed while she watched him with breathless interest.

“He began to talk to me of the past,” said the girl, with hesitation, and Everett saw tears in her eyes.

“And he recalled some memory that troubled him?” asked Everett.

“Yea, yea; he would have told me something of my mother,” said the girl, as she turned to go into the outer room.

Everett administered a soothing-potion, and went out of the alcove to find that Walda was sitting by the old carven table with her head bowed upon her hands.

“Do not be alarmed,” he said, “your father will recover from this temporary relapse.” His voice and manner were so sympathetic that the girl began to weep.

“Be blind to my weakness, O stranger in Zanah,” she said, presently lifting her head proudly and biting her trembling lips. “My faith teacheth me that nothing which belongeth to earth is worth a tear. The people of Zanah are trained to accept the decrees of God. For an hour I have been thinking of self. Strength will be given me to put these rebellious impulses from me.” She went to the window, where the chaffinch was hanging in his wicker cage.

“Piepmatz, thou hast no foolish tears; thou canst teach me a lesson that I need; thou art undisturbed by any distrust in thy nature.” Piepmatz, thrusting his head forward, looked out between the bars of his little prison. Then he chirped a cheery note. Everett went close to the cage and whistled to the bird, which paid no attention to him.

“If I can be of service to you, you must command me,” he said to Walda Kellar. “You must not think of me as the stranger in Zanah. Have I not earned the right to be called a friend?” He did not look at her as he spoke lest she might be awakened to the fact that he took more than a passing interest in her.

“We use not the word friend in Zanah,” said Walda. “Here we are all brothers and sisters. And what dost thou mean by being a friend?”

Out in the world Everett had the reputation of being ever ready with words, but when the future prophetess of Zanah looked up at him with questioning eyes he was abashed.

“I mean,” he began—“I mean that I want you to feel you can trust me even more than if I were a brother of Zanah,” he replied, rather lamely.

Walda looked puzzled.

“There is none whom I could trust more than the men of Zanah,” she said. “I have been taught by Adolph Schneider and the elders that there is no such thing as friendship between men and women. The Bible telleth that David and Jonathan were friends, but truly I cannot remember that there were men and women in Holy Writ who called each other by that word thou wouldst have me give to thee in my thoughts.”

Everett now sought in vain for an argument that he would dare make bold to use. Suddenly he regretted that he had neglected to study the Bible since his Sunday-school days had ended. He tried to think of all the Scripture stories he knew, dimly hoping that somewhere he could recall one that would be a fit illustration. He felt a disgust with himself when he discovered how lamentably ignorant he was. If he could only have commanded a text that would be convincing, he felt that he might be able to win something more than an impersonal gratitude from the future prophetess of Zanah, who had almost ignored him during the fortnight that had passed since he had been serving her father for her sake.

“Out in the world there are many friendships between men and women,” he declared.

“Then, indeed, must they be sinful,” said Walda, “for I have heard that there be few who serve the Lord with singleness of purpose out there beyond the bluffs.”

“Do not condemn the world too severely. Surely you do not think that I am such a wicked man?” His effort to draw attention to himself failed, however, for Walda was gazing out upon the bluffs as if she had forgotten him in thinking of the great world that Zanah barred out.

“Still thou hast not told me the true meaning of a friend,” she said, presently, and again Everett became aware that somehow he had lost the gift of speech.

“Perhaps I cannot find words to make the meaning of friendship plain,” he said, finally, “but I will try to teach you what the word implies.”

“Nay, Stephen Everett, it is not right that thou shouldst teach me anything, since thou art of the world, to which thou wilt soon return.”

“The world will never be the same to me after I leave Zanah,” said Everett.

“Hast thine eyes been opened to its wickedness?”

“No. Since I came to the colony I have thought little of the world, but my eyes have been opened to some things to which they were blind before—things that do not belong to the every-day world.”

Again he was afraid to let himself look at Walda, and he appeared to be addressing Piepmatz. Walda did not reply to him. She was thinking again of the life beyond the bluffs.

“Often have I tried to imagine what life must be outside of Zanah,” Walda remarked, by-and-by, after a long silence. “Now and then stray memories come back to me, for thou knowest I was born in the world, and that I was a little child who brought to the colony recollections of another existence. It is these memories that compel me oftentimes to pray that I may be spared temptation which should never assail a woman of Zanah.”

“Surely no temptation could come to you,” said Everett.

“Thou knowest little of a woman’s heart. The seeds of vanity are here,” she said, folding her hands upon her breast. “I find pleasure in the flowers and the pretty things that God hath made.”

“It seems to me a sin for the colonists to deny its members the highest joys that have been given to men and women,” said Everett. “I have often wondered whether you had any idea of all that you miss here in Zanah.”

“I miss nothing that is best for my well-being,” said Walda. “Thou wouldst not plant discontent in my heart, wouldst thou, Stephen Everett?”

“I would have you enjoy all that is most to be desired in life,” said Everett; and as he spoke he felt for the hundredth time an overwhelming impatience with the creed of the colony which denied to the young and beautiful all that made living worth while.

Walda went to the chest of drawers, and, taking her knitting from a little basket, sank upon a low chair, from which she could get a glimpse of her sleeping father. Everett felt that she had dismissed him. He took up his hat and said:

“You told me I might call you Walda, so I shall say, Good-night, Walda.”

“Good-night,” said the girl.

Everett hesitated.

“Will you not say, ‘Good-night, Stephen’?” he asked.

Walda stopped knitting.

“Why wouldst thou have me say thy name again?” she inquired.

For the twentieth time Everett was embarrassed.

“Because it is the custom of friends to speak one another’s names,” he explained.

“But we are not friends,” said Walda.

“At least you will repay me for my long stay here in the colony by speaking my name now and then,” he insisted, hypocritically.

There was the barest shadow of a smile on the lips of the future prophetess of Zanah. “Good-night, Stephen,” she said; and because he could find no excuse for lingering longer in the quaint room under the eaves, he went away.