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So I gave the heads of the little history I have told you to my good friend and host, adding that I should like to have a man's opinion of this man; but that if he were not an absolute good-for-nothing, and if Thekla still loved him, as I believed, I would try and advance them the requisite money towards establishing themselves in the hereditary inn at Altenahr.
He said he had never loved her; and that now he was going home to settle, and he hoped that I would come too, and " There she stopped short. "And marry him, and live at the inn at Altenahr," said I, smiling, to reassure her, though I felt rather disappointed about the whole affair. "No," she replied. "Old Weber, his father, is dead; he died in debt, and Franz will have no money.
"There is no misunderstanding possible, is there, sir?" asked she, with a faint smile. "No," I replied; "but you are well rid of such a fellow." She shook her head a little. "It shows his bad side, sir. We have all our bad sides. You must not judge him harshly; at least, I cannot. But then we were brought up together." "At Altenahr?"
Dawn was creeping over the valley of the Ahr. There was a great stir in the camp on the side of the mountain, and up above, in the castle of Altenahr, silence reigned round hazy pinnacles.
She looked at me, and reddened a little. "No. Why do you ask?" "You have been so good to me that I cannot help wanting to know more about you. I must needs feel interested in one who has been by my side through my illness as you have. Where do your friends live? Are your parents alive?" All this time I was driving at the letter. "I was born at Altenahr. My father is an innkeeper there.
I have found out this morning that I love her myself, and so the end of it is, that if you, sir, who are so kind as to interest yourself in the matter, and if you think it is really her heart's desire to marry this man which ought to be his salvation both for earth and heaven I shall be very glad to go halves with you in any place for setting them up in the inn at Altenahr; only allow me to see that whatever money we advance is well and legally tied up, so that it is secured to her.
Franz went off from Altenahr on his journeyings four years ago next May-day; and before he went, he brought me back a ring from Bonn, where he bought his new clothes. I don't wear it now; but I have got it upstairs, and it comforts me to see something that shows me it was not all my silly fancy.
I don't believe she likes him a bit." "No more do I," I said. He turned on me. "Then why did she speak to him at all? Why cannot she like an honest man who likes her? Why is she so bent on going home to Altenahr?" "She speaks to him because she has known him from a child, and has a faithful pity for one whom she has known so innocent, and who is now so lost in all good men's regard.
In all probability Franz Weber was making his way back to Heppenheim too; and the bad suspicion would keep welling up that some lingering feeling for her old lover and disgraced playmate was making her so resolute to leave and return to Altenahr. For some days after this I was the confidant of the whole household, excepting Thekla.
When Max is well enough to have the change of air the doctor prescribes for him, thou shalt take him to Altenahr, and thither will I also go; and become known to thy people and thy father. And before Christmas the gentleman here shall dance at our wedding." "I must go home to England, dear friends, before many days are over. Perhaps we may travel together as far as Remagen.
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