“Thou wilt find nothing to distract thy thoughts here,” said Mother Kaufmann, glancing into the room. “We will take good care that thou art not disturbed,” asserted Mother Schneider. Walda gave no sign that she heard. Crossing the threshold she closed the door, shutting out the six women. She threw herself upon the bed, and gave way to a paroxysm of weeping. The realization that she had missed her opportunity to confess her love for Everett at first frightened her, for she knew it was now too late to speak before going to the _Untersuchung_. Zanah guarded a prophetess so carefully that when once the door of the sanctuary in which Marta Bachmann had fasted and prayed closed upon one supposed to be inspired, no word could be spoken. She lay awake far into the night. When the day had faded, a single candle had been put upon her reading-desk by Mother Kaufmann, who scanned her face with the inquisitive look of a mischief-maker. Walda, sitting with folded hands, had appeared oblivious of the woman’s presence. She had heard the evening prayers of the colony gathered in the meeting-house. She felt a dull pain when she recalled her father’s face. Underneath every emotion that she experienced in the dreary watches of the night she was always conscious of the memory of Everett’s voice as he pleaded for her love. At first she had a faint hope that he might speak to her through the window, or that, in some way, he would send her a token of encouragement, but nothing disturbed the oppressive quiet of the laggard hours. Walda was wakened early in the morning, after a brief and troubled sleep, by the whispers of the women outside her door. She knew that the watch was being changed, and that soon she would be expected to be kneeling at her prayers. Rising from the cot she looked out of the one window—it overlooked the school-house garden, and she saw Gerson Brandt walking back and forth amid the tangled nasturtiums and late asters. As he moved to and fro he never once turned his eyes towards the meeting-house. With difficulty Walda repressed an impulse to call him to her. Through all her childhood and girlhood he had bent a ready ear when she told him her troubles, and now it seemed an easy matter to confide in him. While she was still at the window, Gerson Brandt went up the worn steps that led to the school-room.