"You are certain?" Georg Von Trapp demanded.

"Perfectly so," the physician confirmed.

For the next three hours, the Captain simply held Maria's hand, his heart dancing from joy and his lips moving in silent prayers of thanksgiving. He heard, from a distance, his children's joyful shouts when Frau Schmidt went to their rooms in the morning and informed them of the good tidings. When the dawn was well advanced, the Captain stood up, and all of a sudden, felt his own exhaustion keenly. The doctor must have seen it too, for he commanded,

"Now, go and rest, before you become my next patient."

Nodding, Georg went out of the room. Pausing only for a few minutes in the hall to embrace his gleeful children and to laugh out loud with them and assure them that their governess would indeed be alright, he made his way to his own chamber, and without even pulling off his jacket or taking off his shoes, flung himself on the bed. For the next twelve hours, he was unconscious to the entire world.

….

It was early evening when Maria opened her eyes. For the first time in days, her mind was clear.

Feeling very weak and very confused, she looked around the room as best she could. Frau Schmidt was sitting in a chair by her bedside, knitting, but had not yet noticed her patient's awakening.

What time is it? What day is it? Maria wondered bewilderedly.

She tried to piece together her recent memories…and ended up even more confused. To divide reality from dreams seemed like an impossible task. She remembered preparing for a party with the children, and of feeling hot and flushed. She then seemed to remember dancing with the Captain – but that was unlikely to have happened – what man would dance with his governess in plain view of his prestigious guests and the woman he was courting? Then it seemed that the Baroness had told her something that made her realize that she must go, must leave, must flee back to where she came from…and she had tried to obey. But surely that could not be true either. If it was, she would have been back at the Abbey, and not in her room in the Von Trapp household. Perchance her conversation with the Baroness had only been a bad dream, after all. The things that followed that shady memory were certainly dreams, for they included visions of the Captain bending over her, stroking her hair, murmuring encouraging and tender things.

She finally summoned enough strength to get the attention of Frau Schmidt with a soft whisper.

"Thank heavens!" the housekeeper exclaimed softly as she put down her handiwork and came nearer to the bed. "Fräulein Maria, you have given us such a fright!"

"What happened?"

"The worst case of scarlet fever I have seen in years, that's what. But thankfully, it is all over now. You will be perfectly alright in a few days, so the doctor says."

"When…when did I take ill?" Maria asked, trying to ascertain that it was still before the party, that all those horrid 'memories' floating around her head were but figments of her imagination.

"Right after the Baroness's party ended. The Captain found you, travelling clothes and bag and all, unconscious in the hallway."

Maria's heart, already weak from the days of fighting fever, almost stopped. So it was true. She had behaved improperly toward her employer. The Baroness did want her gone. Oh, if only she had managed to make it back to the abbey before her illness took hold!

There was only one thing to do. To recover as quickly as possible, and to finish what she had started. She would leave the villa, and him, as soon as she was able to walk. In the meantime, she would start making what amends she could from her sickbed.

"I'm alright, Frau Schmidt," she said. "Please, go and see to the house. There must be many things to do, with the Baroness visiting."

"Never mind that. The Baroness and Herr Detweiler left days ago, and went back to Vienna."

Maria paled even further. Had she caused the abbreviation in the Baroness's visit? Had that lady thought her illness a ploy to stay at the villa longer, and stormed off as a result? Had she unwittingly denied the Captain and his children a chance of happiness?

"I am sorry," she murmured, every contritely. "I was hoping that the children would have more time to know their new mother."

Frau Schmidt took a sharp look at Maria's face, guessed what she was thinking, and decided that it would be most prudent to give her a hint as to what had been brewing while she lay insensate with fever.

"Well, the Captain doesn't seem to be sorry in the least," she said. "He barely noticed her presence, and certainly did not notice her absence, as he nursed and worried over you."

Maria gaped at the housekeeper. So the Captain had been in her bedroom during her illness? Why on earth had he done such a thing?!

The Baroness's voice echoed mercilessly inside her head: 'He thinks he is in love with you.' How terrible it would be when the Captain realized that he actually wasn't in love with her scrawny, impertinent self, and had foolishly let the woman meant for him – Elsa Schraeder– slip through his fingers!

And it was all her fault. The Baroness had said that there was nothing as irresistible to a man as a woman who was in love with him. Oh, why had she not realized that her emotions were going awry? Why had she not built a wall and dug a moat around her heart while there still was time?

Frau Schmidt, seeing that her patient was becoming whiter than the pillows under her head, forbade her from talking any more, gave her a few sips of sweet tea, and strongly suggested that she go to sleep. But Maria could not. She stared at the ceiling with unseeing eyes, wishing that she had never come to the villa, that she had been blessed with a more sedate nature which would have allowed her to be a perfect novice and nun. And she prayed. She apologized to the Lord for the mess she had made of His errand. She begged Him to help her out of the calamity she presently found herself in.