"The Herr Pastor enjoys excellent health, and will throw himself with more zeal than ever into his work." "Then why--" "And the Frau Pastor will do her duty." "Yes." She stopped and faced him. "Yes," she said, "I'm going to, but--what is my duty?" "My dear Frau Pastor, there is only one left. You have discharged all the others. Your one duty now is to keep well in body and mind, provide your two children with a capable mother, and your husband with a companion possessed of the intelligent amiability that springs from good health." "But Robert--?" "He has been consulting me about you. I will not allow you to turn him, who deserves so well of fate, into that unhappy object, a widower." "Oh? So really--?" He opened the front door. "Yes," he said, "really." And he handed her up into the seat next to Herr Dremmel and waved them off on their homeward journey with friendly gestures. And Ingeborg, now aware that the real cause of Robert's preternatural gloom was the dread of losing her, not the dread of leaving her, was deeply touched and full of a desire to express her appreciation. She slid her hand through his arm and spent the time between Meuk and Kökensee earnestly endeavouring to reassure him. He was not, after all, she eagerly explained, going to be a widower. He bore her comforting in silence. CHAPTER XXIV Being a wise man, Herr Dremmel lost no time in fidgeting or lamenting over the inevitable, but having heard the doctor's summing up, which was expressed in the one firm word repeated over and over again like a series of blows, _ausgeschlossen_, he ruled Ingeborg out of his thoughts as a wife and proceeded to train himself to contemplate her as a sister.