Marian had returned to the table. She took the letter with the enclosed contract and read both of them. Her heart beat with joy, but she was exceedingly careful not to betray her state of mind to Daniel: she was afraid of his contradictory and crotchety disposition. She hardly dared look at him, as she waited in anxious suspense to see what he would do. Finally he came back to the table, made a wry face, stared at the letter, and then said quite laconically: “Church music? Yes, I will do it.” With that he took his pen, and scrawled his name to the contract. “Thank God,” whispered Marian. That afternoon they left Daniel. Eva hung on her father’s neck, quite unwilling to leave him. Without the least display of shyness, she kissed him many times, laughing as she did so. She was overflowing with a natural and whole-hearted love for him. Daniel offered no resistance. He looked serious. As his eye caught that of the child, he shuddered at the abundant fulness of her life; but he was aware at the same time of a promise, and against this he struggled with all the power there was in him. XII It was a sunny day in September. Eberhard, who had spent the entire August at Erfft, had returned to the city to attend to some urgent business—and also to hasten the arrangements for his coming wedding. As the streets were filled with playing children, he sauntered along on his way up to the Castle on the hill. He wanted to look up his little house; he had not been in it for months. He had a feeling that he would enjoy the quiet up there; he longed to look back over and into scenes from the past; he wanted to pass in review the shadowy pictures of his former self; pictures he saw before him wherever he went, wherever he was. One of these was always with him; if he found himself in a certain room it was there; if he went on a long journey it was with him. He even found it on the faded pages of books he had taken to himself as companions in his loneliness. He hesitated from time to time, stopped, and seemed quite irresolute. All of a sudden he turned around, and started back with hasty steps to Ægydius Place. Just as he was entering the hall of Daniel’s apartment, he met Daniel coming out. He greeted Eberhard and gave him his hand. “I was just going to call for you,” said the Baron. “Won’t you come with me up to my old hermitage?” Daniel looked out through his glasses at a swallow that was just then circling around over the square; there was something fabulous in its flight. “To tell you the truth, Baron, I have very little inclination to gossip at present.” He made the remark with as much consideration for the laws of human courtesy as lay within his power. “There must be no gossiping,” said Eberhard. “I have a great secret, one that I can tell you without saying a word.” Daniel went along with him.