Frau Schmidt and the Captain valiantly battled Maria's fever for the entire night, and at last, with copious cold compresses and hefty doses of medication, managed to get it slightly down. It was quite clear, however, that they were far from winning the war.
Exhausted by the lack of sleep and worry, the Captain barely noticed the first light of dawn. However, he did have enough presence of mind to realize that he would soon have to figure out what, exactly, he was going to tell his poor children. They had already been through so much – the loss of their mother, followed by years of his own coldness – how would they bear the idea of their favorite governess lying on death's doorstep?
He thought that he had a few hours to figure out what to say to them. But, alas, he did not know that his youngest daughters had developed a habit of rising with the sun, invading the Fräulein's room and spending the remaining hours before breakfast snuggling in her bed. Therefore, he was caught completely unawares when the bedroom door was suddenly flung open and Marta and Gretl skipped into the room, before stopping short at the unexpected sight of him.
"Father?" Marta asked in a trembling voice as she looked at Maria's flushed, unconscious face, "what is happening?"
The Captain rose, came toward his daughters, and knelt on the floor so that he could look into their eyes when he spoke to them.
"Fräulein Maria is sick this morning," he said softly. "She will need to stay in bed, and cannot play with you today. If you wish to help her, you must be very quiet, so that she can rest. Do you understand?"
The little girls nodded uneasily, sensing that, despite their father's collected response, something very bad was happening.
"Go and get dressed and get your breakfast," the Captain said, giving them a gentle nudge toward the door.
They obeyed. However, it was clear that they wasted no time in informing their siblings about the state of affairs, because, before ten minutes had elapsed, the Captain heard footsteps running in the hall, followed by a quick knock at the door and the entrance of his eldest daughter.
He turned to face her, waiting for her to repeat the questions her younger sisters had raised. But Liesl only looked around the room with an intelligent gaze, and said,
"I will help the little ones get dressed, and then I will come and sit with Fräulein Maria so that Frau Schmidt can get some rest. I will also call the Abbey and let them know about her illness so that they can start praying for her; and besides, they ought to know, for it sounds like the nuns are the closest thing to a family which Fräulein Maria has."
Her father found himself nodding, astonished at her maturity. Maria's voice echoed through his mind:
"Take Liesl - one day you'll wake up and realize that she is a woman! You won't even know her!"
Again, the governess had been right. He could barely recognize the lady who stood in front of him as his little girl.
Liesl slipped out of the room, and he sat down again on the bed and replenished the cold flannel compresses for the hundredth time. He was so preoccupied with Maria's heavy breathing that he completely missed the next visitor to the bedchamber.
A blond woman, who had been informed of the governess's illness by the servants, opened the door and peered in. She saw the Captain bending over Maria, tenderly stroking her hair. She gave a very small sigh and went away as quietly as she had come.
The Baroness knew defeat when she saw it.