"I have arranged everything to the best of my ability," he replied. "The greater part of my people have been called to enlist; even the inspector has to leave in a few days, and a substitute cannot be had now. Work must therefore be reduced to the necessities, and old Martens will overlook everything."
"Martens is a goose," said Regine, in her old, terse way. "If he takes the reins, everything at Burgsdorf will go topsy-turvy. Nothing else is left for me to do but to go there myself and look after things right."
"How? You would?" cried Willibald. But his mother cut him short.
"Do you think I would let your possessions go to nothing while you are in the war? It will be securely cared for in my hands--you know that. I have held the reins there long enough and will do it again--until you return."
She still spoke in the hard, cold tones, as if she wished to exclude every warmer feeling. But now Willy stepped up to her, with his arm still around his bride-elect.
"You will take care of my worldly possessions, mamma," he said, reproachfully; "you will take them under your protection. But for the best and dearest thing that belongs to me you have no word nor look. Have you really only come to tell me that you will go to Burgsdorf?"
Fran von Eschenhagen's harsh reticence could not hold fast at this question. Her lips trembled.
"I came to see my only son once more before he goes to war--perhaps to death," she said, with painful bitterness. "I had to hear from others that he had come to say farewell to his bride. He did not come to his mother, and that--that I could not bear."
"We should have come," cried the young lord; "we should have made one more attempt to win your heart before leaving. See, mother, here is my bride-elect--my Marietta. She is waiting for a friendly word from you."
Regine threw a long look upon the young couple, and again her face quivered painfully as she saw how Marietta pressed shyly, but confidently, to the man in whose protection she knew herself so secure. Maternal jealousy stood a last, hard struggle; but finally she allowed herself to be conquered. She stretched out her hand to the young girl.
"I offended you once, Marietta," she said, in a half-stifled voice, "and did you a possible wrong that time; but for that you have taken from me my boy, who, until then, had not loved anybody but his mother, and who now loves nobody but you. I believe we are quits."