Hauke did not answer her. The dissenting conventicle movement which was in great vogue at that time had also put forth blossoms among the Friesians; artisans who had come down in the world, or schoolmasters who had been dismissed for drunkenness, played the chief part in it, and girls, young and old women, loafers and lonely people assiduously attended the secret meetings in which anyone could play the priest. Of the dikegrave's household Ann Grete and the stable-boy, who was in love with her, spent their free evenings there. Elke, to be sure, had not failed to express her misgivings about this to Hauke; but it had been his opinion that no one should interfere in matters of faith; the conventicle would not hurt anyone and it was at least better than the tavern! So it had gone on, and therefore too he had kept silence this time. But others did not keep silent about him! The words of his prayer circulated from house to house; he had denied God's omnipotence, and what was a God without omnipotence? He was an atheist; perhaps the affair of the devil-horse might be true, after all! Hauke heard nothing of this; in those days he had eyes and ears only for his wife; even the child had vanished from his mind. The old doctor came again, came every day, sometimes twice, then he stayed all night, wrote another prescription, and the man, Iven Johns, galloped off to the apothecary's with it. And then his face lost something of its seriousness, he nodded confidentially to the dikegrave: "We'll pull through! With God's help!" And one day--was it that his art had triumphed over the disease or, after Hauke had prayed, had God been able to find another way out after all--when the doctor was alone with the patient he spoke to her and the old man's eyes beamed: "Mrs. Haien, now I can tell you confidently, today the doctor has his holiday; things were bad with you, but now you belong to us again, to the living!" At that a flood of joy broke from her dark eyes: "Hauke, Hauke, where are you?" she cried, and when in response to her clear call he rushed into the room and up to her bed, she threw her arms around his neck: "Hauke, my husband, I'm saved! I'm going to stay with you!" The old doctor drew his silk handkerchief from his pocket, passed it over his forehead and cheeks and went out of the room nodding his head. On the third evening after this day a pious orator--it was a slipper-maker who had been dismissed from work by the dikegrave--preached in the conventicle at the Dutch tailor's, and explained to his hearers God's qualities: "But whoever denies God's omnipotence, whoever says: 'I know Thou canst not do as Thou wouldst'--we all know the wretched one; he lies like a stone upon the community--he has fallen away from God and seeks the enemy of God, the lover of sins, to be his comforter; for man must reach out for some staff. But you, beware of him who prays thus; his prayer is a curse!"