"But supposing they attack you down in the village?"
"Pah! What do I care for _them_?" she exclaimed, shrugging her shoulders contemptuously, as she always did when the villagers were in question.
Soon afterwards he saw her glide by the window like a shadow and disappear in the gloaming.
Hours passed. She did not return. He began to reproach himself for having engaged her in his amatory mission when her life was at stake.
At last, towards midnight, he heard the front door latch click.
She appeared on the threshold with chattering teeth, blue with cold, the letter still grasped in her cramped fingers.
He made her sit down by the stove, and gave her Spanish wine to drink--and gradually she found her voice.
"I have been lying all this time in the snow under the parsonage hedge," she said, "but there was no possibility of getting at her. Just now she put the light out in her bedroom, so I came home. But don't be vexed, _Herr_. Perhaps I shall have better luck to-morrow."
He wouldn't hear of her repeating the adventure, but when she came to him the following evening equipped for her walk, he did not forbid her to go.
This time she came back with glowing cheeks, panting for breath. Two peasants on their way home from the Black Eagle had seen her and given chase.
"But to-morrow, _Herr_, to-morrow, I shall succeed."
She was right. More breathless than the evening before, but radiant with delight, she came into the room, and stood at the door, stretching out two empty hands in triumph.
"Thank God," he thought, "that I shan't have to send her a fourth time on a fool's errand."
In joyous excitement she told him all about it. Sultan, the big dog in the kennel, knew her; and as a hostage she had taken him a bone, then he had permitted her to stand at the back door and look through the keyhole. She had seen Helene standing at the great store-cupboard. "I knew that Helene,--I mean the pastor's Fräulein,--went to the store-cupboard every night to put out coffee and oatmeal for the morning," she explained, "and sure enough I just timed her right, for there was her candle flickering in my face, and she standing within three steps of me----"
He gave a deep sigh. Happy creature! She had _seen_ her!