The next day Leonhard sat staring at Wilberforce’s letter with a face as wrinkled as a young ape’s in a cold morning fog.  After one long serious effort he sprang from his seat, and I am afraid swore that he would go down to Philadelphia that very afternoon.  Therefore (and because he clung to the determination all day) at six o’clock behold him passing with his satchel from the steps of the Granby House to the Grand Division Depot.  He was always going to and fro, so his departure occasioned no remark.  He supposed, for his own part, that he was going to talk with his friend Wilberforce, and his ticket ensured his passage to Philadelphia; and yet at eight o’clock he found himself standing on the steps of the Spenersberg Station, and saw the train move on.  At the moment when his will seemed to him to be completely demoralized the engine-whistle sounded and the engine stopped.  Utterly unnerved by his doubts, he slunk from the car like an escaping convict, and looked toward the narrow moonlit valley which was as a gate leading into this unknown Spenersberg.  The path looked obscure and inviting, and so, without exchanging a word with any one, he walked forward, a more pitiable object than is pleasant to consider, for he was no coward and no fool.

CHAPTER II.

IN THE HAPPY VALLEY.

About the time that Leonhard Marten was paying for his ticket in the depot at A——­, how many events were taking place elsewhere!  Multitudes, multitudes going up and down the earth perplexed, tempted, discouraged.  What were you doing at that hour?  I wonder.

Even here, at this Spenersberg, was Frederick Loretz—­with reason deemed one of the most fortunate of the men gathered in the happy valley—­asking himself, as he walked homeward from the factory, “What is the use?”

When he spied his wife on the piazza he seemed to doubt for a second whether he should go backward or forward.  Into that second of vacillation, however, the voice of the woman penetrated:  “Husband, so early?  Welcome home!”

The voice decided him, and so he opened his gate, passed along the graveled walk to the piazza steps, ascended, wiping the perspiration from his bald head, dropped his handkerchief into his hat and his hat upon the floor, and sat down in one of the great wide-armed wooden chairs which visitors always found awaiting them on the piazza.

His wife, having bestowed upon him one brief glance, quickly arose and went into the house:  the next moment she came again, bringing with her a pitcher of iced water and a goblet, which she placed before him on a small rustic table.  But a second glance showed her that he was suffering from something besides the heat and fatigue.  There was a look on his broad honest face that told as distinctly as color and expression could tell of anguish, consternation, remorse.  He drank from the goblet she had filled for him, and said, without looking at his wife, “I have brought you the worst news, Anna, that ever you heard.”  She must have guessed what it was instantly, but she made neither sign nor gesture.  She could have enumerated there and then all the sorrows of her life; but for a moment it was not possible even for her to say that this impending affliction was, in view of all she had endured, a light one, easy to be borne.