rse which all his thoughts
pursued. Some disgrace must be threatening the house so to alter
Valentine's usual manner; and it must be a terrible one indeed thus to
upset the old fellow and break through his assumed composure. The old
gentleman trembled as he arose from his chair. He struggled with
himself as to whether he should ask. It was not necessary. The old
fellow confessed, unasked. With nervous haste he related his fears and
his reasons for them. The old gentleman was startled, in spite of the
fact that his imagination had prepared him for the truth; but
Valentine observed none of this in his exterior, he listened to him as
always, as if he were relating matters of the utmost indifference.
When Valentine had finished, the sharpest eye could no longer have
perceived the slightest tremor in the tall, stately figure. The old
gentleman had the firm ground of reality under his feet once more; he
was again the old gentleman in the blue coat. He stood as austere as
of yore before his servant; so austere and so quiet was he that his
bearing inspired Valentine with courage. "Imagination!" he exclaimed
in his old grim manner. "Are none of the journeymen around?" Valentine
called one who was just about to fetch slate. The old gentleman
despatched him to Brambach to bid Apollonius return home at once. "If
you think he won't go quickly enough for you, you fussy old woman,
tell him to hurry so that you may soon learn that you've worked
yourself into a state about nothing. But no word of this to anybody
and lock up the wife so that she can't do anything silly." Valentine
obeyed. The old gentleman's assurance, and the fact that something had
really been done, had a more powerful effect upon him than a hundred
good arguments. He imparted his encouragement to Christiane. He was in
too great haste to tell her upon what grounds it was based. If he had
had time for that he would probably have left her less reassured.
Nothing was further from himself than the suspicion that the old
gentleman, while characterizing his fears as idle fancies, and
pretending to send the messenger only to reassure him and the young
wife, was inwardly convinced of the guilt of his elder son and of the
danger, if not actual death, of his younger son.

"Now," said Herr Nettenmair, when Valentine had returned to him, "the
old fool has of course told our neighbor the fairy-tale that he spun
out of thin air, and the young wife has confided it to all the gossips