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Page 42
"Why so?"
"I know not whether I dare tell you. Papa and Magde, consider me a mere
child, yet I can understand that Mr. H---- has sought her with wrong
motives, and if I can believe my brother, Carl--"
"What then?" interrupted Gottlieb eagerly.
"Then I can believe that all of our troubles have originated in the fact
that Magde refused to give that gentleman a kiss when he requested it."
"What, did he wish to purchase a kiss?"
"Yes, for Carl's pardon," and now Nanna related every circumstance
connected with the theft of the game, in nearly the same words in which
she had heard it from Carl.
After a short season of reflection, during which he compared the
different circumstances, Gottlieb arrived at the same conclusion that
Carl had expressed to his sister; and at the same time he also fancied
that he had discovered a method for old Mr. Lonner's release, which
could not fail of success. In the meantime he merely inquired whether
Mr. Fabian H---- had visited the cottage since his discomfiture.
"I have several times observed him prowling about the premises," replied
Nanna; "he probably hoped to have an opportunity of seeing Magde alone,
which however he has never had, for even should he offer his assistance,
she would not have dared to accept it, for if she did, Ragnar would be
very angry."
When Gottlieb returned to Almvik, he learned that his worthy uncle, whom
as he before knew had left the house early that morning, was not
expected to return until late in the evening. In consequence of this
unfortunate circumstance, Gottlieb saw nothing before him except a
vexatious delay in his intended operations; but it soon entered his mind
that Mr. Fabian's absence might be connected in some degree with his
wayward love. The day on which he had visited Magde, in order to take
advantage of Carl's theft, he had also departed from Almvik in the
morning, for during the evening hours his wife was invariably on the
watch.
The more Gottlieb considered this circumstance the more he was convinced
that if his uncle had sown the seed it was done for his own benefit, and
undoubtedly the time was now at hand when he should reap the harvest.
"Ah!" thought Gottlieb, "if I should only be so fortunate as to obtain a
power over my uncle, my suspicions and conjectures would exert a
powerful influence upon his yielding disposition, especially, if I
should place his wife in the back-ground. But to surprise him, with my
own eyes in forbidden grounds, would be as good as to have old Mr.
Lonner safe back in his cottage again."
CHAPTER XIV.
THE PRISONER.
While the incidents last narrated were transpiring on the one side of
the lake, Magde's boat had reached the other, and the occupants of the
boat were about landing, yes, Carl had even secured the boat to the
stake, when one of the little ones in attempting to reach the landing,
fell overboard with a loud cry.
The young and always self-possessed mother, answered the boy's cry, not
by crying out herself, but by springing into the water after him, and
when Carl turned to learn the cause of the confusion, she had already
reached her little boy, and was holding him up at arm's length out of
the water. It was all done in a moment, without the least unnecessary
confusion.
"Carl," said she quietly, "take the boy."
But Carl had lost his self-possession entirely. After he had literally
thrown the boy on the landing, he inquired with a trembling voice:--
"Could you not wait for me? The boy would not have sunk immediately."
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