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Yet her misery had not yet reached its climax. When Melchior’s wife discovered her condition she became more wicked than ever. Vefela bore all this with patience; the double life within her seemed to give her strange new powers of mind and body, which bore her safely through her troubles. But when she heard her sister-in-law reproach Melchior and curse the day in which she had entered a family that had such a stain upon it, then the heart of the poor unfortunate bled deeply. She, the angel of peace, to be the disgrace of such a dragon! This was too much to bear.

It was the sad fate of poor Vefela that a phalanx of bad or weak men and women, clad in the dismal garb of gloomy passions, lined the path on which her journey through life had been cast. This prevented her from recognising those bright exceptions who do not press forward hastily, because their unostentatious dignity holds them back, and because they have a right to suppose that they will be detected without it.

As Vefela sat weeping on the kitchen-hearth one day, Wendel came in and said, “‘Mustn’t cry: don’t you mind how I told you there were plenty of good farmers’ boys in the world, though they don’t know how to make bows and shambles?”

Vefela looked up with tearful eyes, astonished at the speech. But she said nothing, and after a while Wendel went on:–

“Yes, look at me: what I say is as true as if the parson said it in the pulpit.” He took Vefela’s hand and said, “To make it short, I know all about it: but you are better than a hundred others for all that; and, if you will say the word, we shall be man and wife in a fortnight; and your child shall be my child.”

Vefela quickly drew away her hand and covered her eyes. Then, rising, she said, with a burning blush, “Do you know that I am as poor as a beggar? You didn’t know that, did you?”

Wendel stood still a while, anger and pity contending for the mastery within him. He was ashamed of Vefela’s words for her sake and for his own. At last he said, “Yes, I know it all. If you were rich yet, I would never have opened my mouth. My mother has a little lot, and I have saved a little money: we can both work and live honestly.”

Vefela looked up to heaven with folded hands, and then said, “Forgive me, Wendel: I didn’t mean to speak so wickedly. I am not so bad; but the whole world seems so wicked to me. Forgive me, Wendel.”

“Well, do you say the word?” he inquired.

Vefela shook her head, and Wendel, stamping the ground, asked, “Why not?”

“I can’t talk much,” said Vefela, breathing hard; “but, forgive me, I can’t. God will reward your good heart for this: but now please don’t let us speak another word about it.”

Wendel went out and gave Melchior warning against next Martinmas.

At last the worst came. The squire of the village had heard of her condition, and now gave full scope to the spite he had so long harbored. He sent the constable to tell her that she must leave the village, as otherwise her child, if born there, would have a right to claim a settlement and come upon the parish.

Vefela would not allow any resistance to be made to this act of cruelty. In a stormy autumn night she got into the little wagon, and Wendel drove her to Seedorf. On the road Wendel tried to comfort her as well as he could. He said he could never forgive himself for not having pitched Brenner down the Bildechingen steep, as he once intended, and mashed him to a jelly. Vefela seemed almost glad to find no chance to live at Seedorf. Wendel begged and implored her to go with him to his mother in Bohndorf. But she was deaf to all his prayers, sent him back next morning, and went on her way on foot to Tuebingen, as she said. Nero had gone with them too, and would not be separated from Vefela. Wendel had to tie him with a rope under the little wagon.