The word fell like a stone on Geiger-Hans’ heart. It was almost with impatience that he glanced at the long, helpless figure in the bed. The young man ought to be up and doing! ... Cassel, seething pot of intrigue and low manoeuvre, paradise of spendthrifts, adventurers, scoundrels, it was the last place on earth for the guileless fugitive bride—and Betty the born schemer. But, if life had taught this wanderer anything, it was submission to the inevitable.
For the moment nothing could be done but to nurse the sick man. Some vague thought of sending a message to Sidonia, to tell her of her bridegroom’s pass, flashed into his mind, only to be dismissed. The chances of any communication reaching her were remote. He could not go himself. And, could he have done so, some inner conviction told him that here he had best not interfere. Between the tree and the bark let none put his finger. The lovers must win back to each other without any further meddling. He was not certain that the separation, the very anger, misunderstanding and soreness, might not be working for the best. They all had gone too fast, they had made too sure. Steven had been an over-confident wooer: little Sidonia too ready to be won.
Geiger-Hans and the Forest-Mother made a tolerable existence for themselves within those sullen walls that had certainly never before beheld such free humours as the wanderer’s, such cosiness and comfort as the Frau Ober-Forsterin’s. Truth to say, from the instant the sick man was put into her care, the old dame became possessed of excellent spirits. Every one has a special ideal of happiness. Nursing chanced to be hers: nursing of men, be it understood, preferably young men—no harm if they were good-looking—and wounds her speciality. She had salves that would, she was proud to say, make the bark grow on a lopped tree. As for poisoned hurts, had she not, she alone, brought her Friedel round after he had been gored and trampled upon by the stag? And as for febrifuges and herb-teas, if she had been willing to sell her secrets, she had not a doubt about it, she now might be a rich woman.
On the fifth morning, a tan-faced boy, with wild eyes looking from side to side, like a bird’s, came pattering up into the Burg, having defied the crags with hardened bare feet. He brought a letter which had reached the Forest-House the night before, addressed to its mistress.