t the Ruedigers'. That he should
now want to call Gertrude's child by the same name seemed so strange to
her.

"Why not Eva?" he asked. "There is something back of this objection on
your part. Women always have something up their sleeve. Out with it! Why
do you object to Eva?"

Eleanore smiled, and shook her head. She would have liked to make a
clean confession to him, but she was not certain how he would take it:
she was afraid he would turn back, enraged at her cunning. Once the
child had been born and lay there before him, it would captivate him,
and she knew it.

They had stopped and were looking out over the sunlit plains. "How alone
we are!" said Daniel.

"Everything is easier here," said Eleanore thoughtfully. "If one could
only forget where one comes from, it would be easy to be happy."

III

"I have been away for seven years," said Daniel as they passed through
the village gate. Everything seemed so ridiculously small--the Town
Hall, the Church, the Market Place, and the Eschenbach Fountain. He had
also pictured the houses and streets to himself as being cleaner and
better kept. As he passed over the three steps at the front gate, each
one of which was bulging out like a huge oyster shell, and entered the
shop with its smell of spices, the past dwindled to nothing. Marian was
so happy she could not speak. She reached one of her hands to Daniel,
the other to Eleanore. Her first question was about Gertrude.

In the room sat a four-year-old child with blond hair and marvellous
blue eyes. Its little face was of the most delicate beauty, its body was
delicately formed.

"Who is the child? To whom does it belong?" asked Daniel.

"It is your own child, Daniel," said his mother.

"My own child! Yes, for heaven's sakes--!" He blushed, turned pale,
looked first at his mother, and then at Eleanore.

"It is your own flesh and blood. Don't you ever think of Meta any more?"

"Of Meta.... Oh, I see. And you, you adopted the child? And you,
Eleanore, knew all about this? And you, Mother, took the child?" He sat
down at the table, and covered his face with his hands. "That was what
Eleanore had in mind?" he murmured timidly to himself. "And I presume
that to make the story complete the child's name is Eva ...?"

"Yes, Eva," whispered Eleanore, touched by the situation. "Go to your
father, Eva, and shake hands with him."

The child did as it had been told. Then Marian related