“I will take Hans Peter to the potato-bin, and he shall have a clean straw tick to lie on,” she said. “Come, Hans Peter.”
Mother Werther put a hand on the simple one’s shoulder and walked out into the kitchen with him. Presently they were heard descending the stairs, and then their voices sounded from the distant place of imprisonment.
It was late that night when Everett returned to the inn after a walk far a-field. At supper-time he had asked about Hans Peter, but he had learned nothing of the whereabouts of the simple one. He had a faint idea that he ought to search for the fool, but his thoughts were absorbed by Walda. He spoke to Diedrich Werther, who dozed in an arm-chair, and the landlord slowly lighted a tall tallow dip and passed it to Everett. He lingered to ask whether any message had come from Wilhelm Kellar. The landlord replied that the school-master had stopped to ask for the stranger in Zanah, but it was nothing urgent, for Gerson Brandt had told how fast Wilhelm Kellar was gaining strength.
Everett stumbled along the dark, narrow passage that led to his room. A draught blew out his candle, which he did not relight. Feeling his way to his bed, he threw himself down upon it and tried to think what course was wisest for him to pursue in winning Walda. He was not blind to the many obstacles between them, but he was a man who was accustomed to obtain what he coveted, and he admitted no thought of defeat. He wanted Walda with all the intensity of a strong nature. He knew now that he loved her, and he felt that she was his by right of that claim. A sense of his own unworthiness haunted him when he thought of her innocence and her unworldliness, but there had been born in him a new spirit that consumed all his old desires. He knew that even if he could make the prophetess of Zanah love him, it would be impossible for him to persuade her to leave the colony as long as her father lived. He felt a hot wave of shame every time he realized that if love came to Walda it would bring her only dishonor before her people. Whenever this view of the end of his wooing presented itself, he resolutely refused to face it. He listened to the cry of his heart. He loved the woman of Zanah; he coveted her for his wife.