It seemed to her as if she must create a bond which could not even be sundered by crime, to say nothing of misunderstanding or caprice; it seemed to her that Daniel had to effect a reconciliation in the home of the Rüdigers as well as in that of his mother; and that, conscious as she was of doing what was right, she would meet with no opposition, would have no settling of accounts to fear. She also took the practical side of the matter into careful consideration: Meta would have no trouble in making her living in Eschenbach; she could help Daniel’s mother, or she could do day work among the peasants. When the child was born, Daniel’s mother would have a picture of young life to look at; it would alleviate her longing; it would appease her bitterness to see a child of Daniel’s own blood. Eleanore told the people at home that she was going on an excursion with a school friend to the Ansbach country. She studied the time-table, and wrote a postcard to Meta telling her to be at the station at eight o’clock in the morning. Jordan approved of Eleanore’s outing, though he warned her against bandits and cold drinks. Gertrude was not wholly without suspicion. She had a feeling that something was wrong, that these unspoken words referred to Daniel, for she was always thinking about him. If she received a letter from him, which was very rare, she would let it lie on the table for a long while, imagining that it was full of the most glorious declarations of his love for her, expressed in language which she could not command. In a sort of moon-struck ecstasy she made an inner, dreamed music out of what he wrote. When she read his letter, she was satisfied merely to see the words he had written and to feel the paper on which his hand had rested. She submitted in silence to the laws of his nature, which would not permit him to be excessive in his remarks or unusually communicative. Each of his dry reports was a tiding of glad joy to her, though her own replies were just as dry, giving not the slightest picture of the enraptured soul from which they came. She felt that Eleanore was lying, and that the lie she was telling was somehow connected with Daniel. That is why she went up to Eleanore’s bed in the dead of night, and whispered into her ear: “Tell me, Eleanore, has anything happened to Daniel?” But before Eleanore could reply, reassured by her sister’s astonished behaviour, and angry at herself for having suspected Eleanore of a falsehood, she hurried back to her own bed. She had come to think more and more of her sister every day. “How she must love him,” thought Eleanore to herself, and buried her smiling face in the pillow. VII “Wait for me at the fountain,” said Eleanore to her companion, as she crossed the market place in Eschenbach at midday: “I’ll call for you as soon as everything has been discussed.” The coachman pointed out the little house of the widow Nothafft.