"But what, Elke?" asked Hauke, as she hesitated to go on. A few tears ran down over the girl's cheeks. "I was only thinking of my father," she said; "believe me, it will be hard for him to lose you." And with an effort she added: "It often seems to me as if he too were preparing for his end." Hauke did not answer; it seemed to him as if the ring in his pocket suddenly moved but before he could suppress his indignation at this involuntary stir Elke went on: "No, don't be angry, Hauke! I trust and believe that even so you will not forsake us!" At that he seized her hand eagerly and she did not draw it away. For some time longer the two stood there together in the growing dusk till their hands slipped apart and they went their different ways. A gust of wind struck the ash-tree and rustled through its leaves, rattling the shutters on the front of the house; but gradually the night fell and silence lay over the vast plain. The old dikegrave yielded to Elke's persuasion and allowed Hauke to leave his service although the latter had not given notice at the proper time. Two new men had since been engaged. A few months later Tede Haien died, but before he died he called his son to his bed: "Sit down here beside me, child," he said in a feeble voice, "close beside me! You need not be afraid; the one who is with me is only the dark angel of the Lord who has come to call me." And the grief-stricken son sat down close to the dark wall-bed: "Speak, Father, tell me all that you still have to say!" "Yes, my son, there is still something," said the old man and stretched out his hands on the counterpane. "When you, only a half-grown boy, went into the dikegrave's service you had it in your mind to be a dikegrave yourself some day. You infected me with the idea and gradually I too came to think that you were the right man for that. But your inheritance was too small for you to hold such an office. I have lived frugally during the time you were in service. I thought to increase it." Hauke pressed his father's hands warmly and the old man tried to sit up so that he could see him. "Yes, my son," he said, "the paper is there in the top drawer of the strong chest. You know, old Antje Wohlers had a field of five and a half acres; but in her crippled old age she could not get on with the rent from it alone; so every Martinmas I gave the poor creature a certain sum and more too, when I had it; and for that she made over the field to me; it is all legally arranged. Now she too is lying at the point of death; the disease of our marshes, cancer, has overtaken her; you will not have anything more to pay!" He closed his eyes for a time; then he added: "It isn't much; but still you will have more than you were accustomed to with me. May it serve you for your life in this world!"