The young fellow felt very surprised, and now and then something like suspicion awakened within him. How could his stepmother always be smiling? Was it not rather a thing to cry about? But who could know if her smiles came from the heart? She was, no doubt, to be pitied too. It was wrong of Marianna to speak so unkindly of her mistress. She ought not to shrug her shoulders and make faces, but it was just like a servant. That was another cause of annoyance to the young man. If there had been anything between the schoolmaster and his stepmother, he would, of course, have noticed it of his own accord, he was no longer a foolish boy. Rosa gave him much more to think of than that. He felt very uneasy about her, she was so strange. He could not dissuade her from that confounded wish of hers to go into a convent. She persisted in it more than ever. He had already tired himself out with talking to her about it. She would listen quietly, with her eyes fixed on her hands lying idly in her lap, and then, when he knew of no other argument to bring forward, she would say softly, but more decidedly than if she had spoken in a loud voice, "I shall go into a convent, all the same." What a pity the girl was so holy. "Holy," that [Pg 261] was what Marianna called her. If only Becker and she had married, how nice it would have been. Mikolai still harped on this, and it was this disappointment that grieved him most of all. Why did Martin not care for Rosa? As they were returning home together in the early twilight, Mikolai once more took courage. He was certainly not going to offer Rosa again to Becker--he felt too sorry for her to do that--but he wanted to hear why his beautiful plan could not be realized. So he said, "The snow has come, now you'll soon be going," and cast a covert glance at his friend to see what he would say to it. Martin answered quite simply, "I shall soon be going." "There's still a fortnight," said Mikolai. "There's still a fortnight," repeated Martin, and then gave a deep sigh of relief as one who again breathes light, fresh air after it has been sultry and oppressive for a long time. Mikolai sighed too. _Psia krew_, how difficult it was to sound the fellow. Although he thought he had introduced the subject so cunningly, he saw he would have to be still more explicit. So he continued, "Only a fortnight longer, a very short reprieve. We shall all miss you, Rosa especially. Well, well!" He paused for a moment, and then cast another covert glance at Martin.