How
was she to warn her father of this danger?
She looked at the sun; it was still high up in the sky, so she had some
hours before her. There was no other way to Malans but this one, unless
by going back half-way to Seewis, to where a path led down to Pardisla,
and thence into the Landquart valley, where the high-road went on to
Malans, past the corner where the Landquart falls into the Rhine. Anna
had learned all this as a child from the big map which hung in the
dining-room at the inn. But on the map it looked a long, long way to the
Rhine valley, and she had heard her father tell her Aunt Christina that
she must take the diligence at Pardisla; it would be too far, he said,
to walk to Landquart, and Anna knew that Malans was farther still. She
stood wondering what could be done.
In these last four years she had become by degrees penetrated with a
sense of her own utter uselessness, and she had gradually sunk into a
melancholy condition. She did only what she was told to do, and she
always expected to be told how to do it.
Her first thought now was, how could she get help or advice? she knew
only two people who could help her--Gretchen and Andreas. The last, she
reflected, must be already at some distance. When she saw him, he was
carrying a basket, and he had, no doubt, gone to Seewis, for it was
market-day in that busy village. As to Gretchen, Anna felt puzzled.
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