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Willoughby listened with great pleasure to Frida's tale, glancing every now and again at the fair girl face, which was lit up as with sunshine as she spoke of her happy days and dear friends in the Forest.
But later on when her husband came down from the lodge, in which he sat in his leisure hours mending boots and shoes, to drink a cup of coffee and eat a bun on Frida's birthday, the doll was fetched out again and shown him. "Fine, isn't it? She's got it from Wolfgang's mamma.
But when everything and even everybody else save Albert and the baron, and a few other obstinate people was and were quite ready and rejoicing for a grand affair, to be celebrated with well-springs of wine and delightfully cordial Watersmeet, rocks of beef hewn into valleys, and conglomerate cliffs of pudding; when ruddy dame and rosy damsel were absorbed in "what to wear," and even steady farmers were in "practice for the back step"; in a word, when all the country was gone wild about Frida's wedding one night there happened to come a man.
Only the perfume as of violets or of a higher life still hung heavy upon the air, and a patch of daintier purple burned bright on the moor, like a pool of crimson blood, where the body had fallen. Only that, and a fierce ache in Frida's tortured heart; only that, and a halo of invisible glory round the rich red lips, where his lips had touched them.
Albert de Wichehalse, her trusty cousin and true lover, had fallen in a duel with that recreant and miscreant Lord Auberley. The strictest orders were given that this should be kept for the present from Frida's ears; but what is the use of the strictest orders when a widowed mother raves?
And he remembered his first invitation to the Lämkes' quite distinctly it had been Frida's tenth birthday he had sat there with the children, and the coffee and the cakes had tasted so excellent. And a host of other memories came back to him nothing but pleasant memories but still he and Frau Lämke did not seem able to start a proper conversation.
Tears were in Frida's eyes tears of gratitude as she thought of the goodness of God in restoring her, a lonely orphan, to the care of kind relations since she had crossed the Channel rather more than a year before.
As he spoke, for the first time it really came home to Frida's mind that Bertram Ingledew, standing there before her, regarded in very truth the Polynesian chief and Sir Lionel Longden as much about the same sort of unreasoning people savages to be argued with and cajoled if possible; but if not, then to be treated with calm firmness and force, as an English officer on an exploring expedition might treat a wrathful Central African kinglet.
"It was kind of you to promise to undertake a foolish errand for me, and to wait here, and the best thing I can do is to take myself off now and keep you no longer. Please don't ask me WHY. Sometime I may tell you, but not now." "Then you have seen her?" asked Miss Trotter quickly, premising Frida's refusal from his face. He hesitated a moment, then he said gravely, "Yes.
To be sure, it was Frida's place to ask forgiveness first, and make the first advances. But Frida made no move. So after sitting there long, salving his masculine vanity with the flattering thought that after all his rival was no mere man at all, but a spirit, an avatar, a thing of pure imagination, he raised his head at last and looked inquiringly towards Frida. "Well?" he said slowly.
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