looking at the door, in constant dread of some one coming to announce that the baron was no more. She sat so for more than an hour. No one thought of her, no one offered the worn-out young girl even a glass of water. At last she stood up and went to the passage leading to the baron’s apartments. All was as still and quiet there as if it were midnight. She stood at a window and waited till some one should come out of the baron’s room. No one came. She was distracted with impatience and uncertainty. At last the door opened, and the overseer, Rambousek, came out. Jenny hastened towards him and asked—
“How is the baron? Will his life be spared?”
“Well, he is badly bruised, my dear young lady; his left arm is broken in two places—here—below the shoulder. But that is nothing; I’ve just set it for him. The wound on his head the doctor has sewed up and patched already—that would not signify much either; but ’tis his brains that I’m afraid of. You see, the brains are a curious and ticklish part of the body, and when they get shaken by such a fall as this was, it often happens that sense and reason are lost.”
“How dreadful! But is there no hope? Will he die?”
“Oh no, there is no fear of that. The doctor is shaking his head, it is true; but that is always the way with these learned men, that they may be able to brag afterwards what a fine cure they have made. But I’m no youngster, miss, and I’d bet the best tooth in my head that the baron will be all right in the course of three or four weeks.”
A weight fell from Jenny’s mind, her heart bounded with joy; Rambousek’s words filled her with hope, for they sounded like simple, undoubted truth.
