Ilse went on: “I should feel so relieved if he could see you as an ordinary physician this time. I know that he greatly wishes it and I should like to have his advice about your going home.”

I said I would see him, and she wrote to him that day. His reply came.

He would be with us in two days’ time.

I had had a few more dizzy spells on rising and I was wondering if I was going to be ill. Ilse asked how I was solicitously every morning; she seemed very concerned.

“I think I ought to get home soon,” I said.

“Everything will be different then.”

I was thinking that if Maximilian had really married me he would have come to claim me by now. Each passing day was confirmation that the marriage had never taken place.

If I could get away I would perhaps forget. Home seemed so remote from all that happened; so presumably when I was home, this would be remote.

I could start again.

I wrote to Aunt Caroline and Mrs. Greville to tell them I should be coming home shortly. The evenings I had spent at the Grevilles’ house had been the most enjoyable of that period. I remembered how amused I had been because of their admiration for Anthony and how Anthony talking above our heads had a pleasant way of assuming that we understood. It was all so cosy. The last word I could apply to this place; and I was beginning to see the virtues of that cosiness from which I had wanted to escape.

Dr. Carlsberg came as arranged. I was in the little garden when he arrived and did not hear him come. He must have been with Ilse for a quarter of an hour when I walked into the house and found him there.

When he saw me his face lit up with pleasure. He rose and took both my hands in his.

“How are you?” he asked.

When I told him that I felt I was getting back to normal he smiled with pleasure and gratification. Ilse left us together and he wanted to know every detail of what had happened. What dreams had I had? Had I suffered from nightmares? Every little item seemed of the utmost importance to him.

Then he asked about my physical health and I told him that I often felt unwell on rising.

He said he would like to examine me. Would I agree?

I did.

I shall never forget what followed. It was one of the most dramatic moments in my life.

“I have to tell you that you are to have a child,” he said.

TWO

I was deeply moved by the manner in which Ilse received the news. She was stricken with horror and dismay.

“Oh God!” she cried.

“This is terrible.”

I found myself comforting her, for to tell the truth I could only feel exultation. I was to have a child-his child. I was not mad. He had existed. From the moment I realized this I started to emerge from the depth of my unhappiness.

My own child! I did not think of the difficulties which must inevitably lie ahead simply because I could see nothing beyond the wonder of having our child.

I knew then that deep in my heart I must always believe that Maximilian had loved me; I could not associate him with a criminal in the forest; the prospect of bearing his child could do nothing but fill me with a fierce exhilaration.

When the doctor had gone Ilse said to me: “Helena, do you realize what this means?”

“Yes, I do.” I could not help it if my delight was obvious. I possessed what my father had called a mercurial temperament.

“Up and down,” said my mother.

“Irresponsible,” Aunt Caroline called it. And I was sure Ilse thought me odd and illogical. I had been sunk in depression when I had had every chance of putting an ugly incident behind me and starting a new life; and now that would be impossible because there would be a living reminder. I was rejoicing. I couldn’'t help it. The wonder of having a child subdued all else.

“This is shattering,” said Ilse at length.

“That this should have happened as well as everything else ! What can we do now? You can’t go back to England. Helena, have you thought of what this is going to mean?”

But all I could think was: I am going to have a child.

“We must be practical,” she warned me.

“Can you go back to your aunts and tell them that you are going to have a child? What will they say?

You would be disgraced. They might not even receive you. If I wrote to them and told them what had happened . No, they would never understand. You will have to stay here until the child is born. It’s the only way. Yes, we shall have to arrange that. “

I had to confess I had not given much consideration to the months between only the arrival of the child. I should like a boy but I would not think about that until it came. If it were a girl I should not wish her to think that I was not completely delighted with her.

But I was right. I must try to be practical. What was I going to do?

How was I going to keep a child, educate it, bring it up in the best possible way? It would have no father. And what should I do while I waited for the child to be born?

The first exultation had passed.

Ilse seemed to have come to a decision.

“You must stay with us, Helena, and I shall look after you. I shall never forgive myself for going out that night without Ernst and then losing you in the crowd. Yes, we will arrange something. You’ll be all right. You can trust us.”

She seemed to have grown calmer; the first horror had passed and characteristically she was making plans.

The first feeling of triumphant joy had passed. I had had a glimpse of how I should have felt if I had been truly married to Maximilian and he had been with me so that we could have shared the joy of prospective parenthood. I asked myself if there was not something I could do to find him. He was the father of my child. Yet what could I do? If I talked this over with Ilse I would see that sad, patient look come into her face. I had given up trying to make her understand that no matter what evidence they showed me I could never believe that I had dreamed my life with Maximilian. I began to make wild plans. I would travel the country looking ‘for him. I would call at every house seeking information concerning him. Now that I was going to have a child I must find him.

I said to Ilse: “Could I put an advertisement in the newspapers? Could I ask him to come back to me?”

Ilse looked horrified: “Do you believe that a man who did that would answer such an advertisement?”

“I was thinking ” I began; and saw how hopeless it was to talk to Ilse, for she insisted that the Maximilian I had known had never existed.

She was patient with me.

“Suppose you mentioned Count Lokenberg. You would be deemed mad. There could even be trouble.”

So whichever way I looked I could do nothing.

I knew that she was right about my not going home. The aunts would be horrified at the prospect of sheltering an unmarried pregnant niece. I could imagine the scandal. No one would believe the story of the attack in the forest any more than they would believe that other version of my unusual marriage.

I needed Use’s kindnesses and ingenuity to help me in my difficult situation, and I knew I could rely on her. She was very soon her calm and practical self.

“You will certainly have to stay here until after the child is born.

Then we shall have to decide from there. “

“I have a little money, but it is not enough to keep us and educate the child. “

“We’ll think about that later,” she said.

Ernst came back. His health seemed much better and when he heard the news he shared rise’s horror and compassion. They were both very gentle with me and very anxious because they assumed guilt for what had happened.

He and Ilse, I know, discussed my affairs continuously, but for me the state of euphoria persisted and every so often I would forget my circumstances and think solely of the delight of having a child.

Sometimes I wondered whether Dr. Carlsberg had given them something to put into my food to make me happy. I had a terrible thought once that he might have made me imagine I was going to have a child. I didn’`t think this was so as Ilse and Ernst seemed to think it such a tragedy. But once one has been the subject of such an experiment one becomes suspicious.

We all decided that for the time being we would not tell the aunts, and during the next months would think very carefully what we should do.

In the meantime an excuse must be made to keep me with my cousin. Ilse took that into her own hands and wrote to Aunt Caroline to tell her that I was staying on because Ernst had taken a turn for the worse and she needed my help.

“A little white lie,” she said with a grimace.

So I stayed on in Denkendorf and the weeks began to slip by. I no longer felt ill when I arose; and I thought constantly of the baby. I bought material and started making a layette. I would sit for hours stitching and thinking.

Dr. Carlsberg came to me. He said he was going to pass me over to Dr. Kleine, a doctor friend of his who had a little nursing home in Klarengen, not very far away, and soon he would drive me over and introduce me to his colleague. There, in Dr. Kleine’s clinic, I should have the child.

I wondered about the cost but they wouldn’`t discuss it and in my present state I was content to let things go.

Ilse said one day: “When the child is born you can stay with us for a while and perhaps later on you could take a post teaching English in one of our schools. It might just be possible to have the child with you.”