Walda went out of the house of the women and stood in the little street, in which she felt suddenly that she was a stranger. She turned her steps towards the hill, for she obeyed the impulse to go to her father. Wilhelm Kellar was sitting in the window whence Walda had looked so many times at the far-off bluffs. He was reading his Bible, and as Walda entered the room he was mildly rebuking Piepmatz, who was singing the doxology and the love-song, mingled in such a medley as was never before heard from the throat of any bird.
“Peace be with thee, daughter,” he said, taking off his horn spectacles and stretching out his thin hand to her.
Walda clasped his hands, and her eyes fell beneath his glance. “Thou art feeling better, I hope?” she said, sinking upon a stool that was just beneath Piepmatz’s cage.
“The knowledge that the day of the _Untersuchung_ is so near giveth me new life,” declared the old man. “To-day I am full of gratitude because the Lord hath kept thee safe from the wiles of men. I have given thanks unto the Lord that thou art to be the prophetess.”
Walda’s face flushed and then became pale. Her heart beat so that she could not answer.
“Come near to me, Walda,” her father said. “I would tell thee that thou hast crowned my life with happiness, that thou hast atoned for the sin of the mother who bore thee.”
Walda knelt before him and hid her face upon his knee.
“Nay, nay, father,” she cried, “I am unworthy of thy trust. I am but a weak woman such as thou sayest my mother was.”
“It is right that thou shouldst feel humble, my daughter,” the old man replied, putting both hands upon her head. “But thou hast not sinned in deceiving those that trust thee. Thou hast not known the temptations of a human love.”
“Father, father!” Walda raised her head and looked up with tearful eyes.
A knock sounded on the door, and Hans Peter, still tapping on the door-jamb with one of his gourds, crossed the threshold.
“The elders have sent me to tell thee they would consult with thee. They bade me make ready the ink-horn and the papers, as they have business of much importance,” he announced.
Walda went away from her father’s room with her confession still unspoken. She lingered for a moment on the school-house porch, for she felt uncertain what to do with her day. For the first time in all her Zanah life she had no inviting task before her. She was already removed from the calm routine of duty. Ordinarily she would have gone to study the heavy books kept in the elders’ room which occupied a little wing of the meeting-house, but as she looked at the door, which stood invitingly open, she felt that she would no longer need to be familiar with the annals of former prophetesses and the discourses of the elders long since sanctified by good works. She had a sense of being outside the colony. A pang of homesickness made her sink upon the bench and look out upon the quiet valley.