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.
"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.
A woman with a stern face and unusually large eyebrows asked her what she wanted as she entered the little shop, which smelled of vinegar and cheese.
Eleanore replied that she would like to talk with her for a few minutes quite undisturbed and alone.
The profound seriousness of Marian's features, which resembled more than anything else an incurable suffering, did not disappear. She closed the shop and took Eleanore into the living room, and, without saying a word, pointed to one chair and took another herself.
Above the leather sofa hung the picture of Gottfried Nothafft. Eleanore looked at it for a long while.
"Dear mother," she finally began, laying her hand on Marian's knee. "I am bringing you something from Daniel."
Marian twitched. "Good or bad?" she asked. She had not heard from Daniel for twenty-two months. "Who are you?" she asked, "what have you to do with him?"
Eleanore saw at once that she would have to be extremely cautious if she did not wish to offend the sensitive--and offended--woman by some inconsiderate remark. With all the discrimination she could command she laid her case before Daniel's mother.
And behold--the unusual became usual, just as the natural seemed strange. Eleanore pictured Daniel's hardships and rise to fame, boasted loyally of his talents and of the enthusiasm for him of those who believed in him, referred to his future renown, and insisted that all his guilt, including that toward his mother, be forgotten and forgiven.
Marian reviewed the past; she understood a great many things now that were not clear to her years ago; she understood Daniel better; she understood virtually everything, except this girl's relation to him and the girl herself. If it was peculiar that this strange woman had to come to her to tell her who Daniel was and what he meant to the people, it was wholly inexplicable that she had brought some one with her who had been the sweetheart of the very man for whom she now showed unreserved affection.