First came dread, the same senseless dread that had dominated Lilly's being before her engagement. It stiffened her limbs, bound her arms to her body, crippled her knees, beat against the walls of the veins in her neck and created a black void in her brain.

But after she had gone through the first meeting with Von Prell and nothing fateful occurred, her fear died down and what remained was a searching attentiveness, a readiness to jump aside at the least sign of danger, a tense anticipation of ticklish questions to be answered properly and pitfalls to be avoided with a crafty assumption of innocence.

The colonel noticed nothing—he, the most suspicious of married men, with the keenest scent, who harboured the least illusions concerning the opposite sex, he noticed nothing. He even believed the headache myth and lavished mocking yet tender pity upon her, while he sat at her bedside laughing and helping her change the compresses that Miss von Schwertfeger had solicitously prepared.

It was more difficult for Lilly to endure the woman's caresses. Behind them lurked a squinting pair of eyes, shy, heedful, and endeavouring to look harmless, while, in spite of themselves, revealing a greedy desire to know.

The anxiety that so far as the colonel was concerned gradually lulled itself to sleep, grew sharper with regard to the self-sacrificing friend, who at any moment might become her enemy and betrayer.

Lilly did not dare to cry until night time, when she felt sure of being alone. She would jump out of bed to wash her eyes, go back to bed again and cry until sleep took her in its soothing arms.

It was not shame, nor regret, nor longing love. It was a feeling of infinite solitariness, it was a straying about in perplexity.

"What will happen now?"

For something must surely happen—confession, convent, flight together, suicide together, or one of all those events described in Mrs. Asmussen's books as following upon so atrocious a deed.

The week passed.

Lilly had arisen from her sick bed several days before, but she had not seen Von Prell. She could discover no signs of him, even when she locked all the entrances to her room and rushed to the window for a glimpse of him.

All the while the colonel kept recommending horseback riding. There was Von Prell to take her and the exercise would do her good.

At last, Saturday at dusk, she felt she had to yield—they would meet at dinner the next day at any rate.

The horses were pawing before the door.

The moment for the meeting before which she had recoiled had arrived with its threat of fresh dangers.

When she saw her friend ascend the terrace steps in his high, shiny riding boots, looking pale and thin, and moving as if by springs to display his counterfeit respect, something within her suddenly turned numb.

"Why, that young man there is an utter stranger," she felt. "He doesn't concern you in the least—you are looking upon him for the first time in your life."

They rode out of the gate.

The colonel had gone to the stables, but Miss von Schwertfeger stood on the terrace with her hands clasped and looked after them.

The road, muddy with recent rains, plashed under the horses' hoofs and a cold evening wind crinkled the winter wheat. A yellow sheen hiding the poverty-stricken sun glimmered behind the ragged birch boughs. Everything looked sad and weary. It even seemed a vain task to have sowed the winter wheat.

They trotted on side by side in silence—a long, long series of anxious moments.

"He must speak some time," thought Lilly, biting her tongue till it bled.

He kept his eyes fixed undeviatingly upon the road ahead, making only slight movements of his right hand from time to time to adjust his reins.

"He'll call me 'my lady' again," she thought, and felt ashamed in advance for both of them.

Finally she took heart and spoke to him.

"Do walk your horse," she said, almost crying.

"Of course, comrade," he replied, and reined in his chestnut.

"Comrade! Comrade!" she burst out, and passionately searched his eyes with hers.

He shrugged his shoulders, as always when he feared a scolding, and said nothing.

"Say something, won't you?" she screamed, quite beside herself.

"What should I say?" he queried, making a little gesture, as if to scratch his head. "It's a nasty business. We know it." And muttering to himself, he repeated, "Nasty business, nasty business!"

"Is that all you have to say to me?" she cried.

"My dear friend," he replied, "I am small, my heart is small. It's not a suitable spot for harbouring great anguish of the soul."

"Pshaw, who's speaking of anguish of the soul? But what's to become of us, that's what I should like to know."

"As soon as I come into possession of an unencumbered manorial estate," he replied with a gesture of invitation, "a castle, stables, vehicles and other animate and inanimate things thereunto appertaining, I shall take the liberty of applying to your husband for your hand."

This completely robbed Lilly of her self-control.

"If you keep on making such jokes," she screamed, bursting into tears, "I'll ride to death, now, before your very eyes."

"A difficult thing to do with that well-behaved nag of yours."

Lilly was at her wits' end and simply let the tears course down her cheeks in silence.

At last he changed his tone.

"Well, well, child," he said, "be sensible for a change. All I want to do is tickle the superfluous tragedy out of your soul. And as soon as you make a glad face again I'll try to give the matter most serious consideration."

Lilly wiped her tears away with the flap of her riding gauntlet and smiled at him obediently.

"Fine," he praised her. "'Twas not idle in the poet to write 'O weine selten, weine schwer. Wer TrÄnen hat, hat auch Malheur.' I'll tell you something. We two pretty orphans were exactly meant for each other and we've been brought together here in this enchanted castle. But we should have had to meet, no matter where, even if we hadn't been two hearts that beat as one long before. To be accurate, the colonel married us right at the beginning, and the only shame is that your marriage contract with him wasn't drawn up accordingly. But that's not to be altered, and we shall have to get around the matter in secret ways. See here, child, we both are headed in the same direction on the sea of life. We have the same to win and the same to lose. So cheer up! Go it! We're ragtag and bobtail both of us, at any rate."

"I'm not ragtag and bobtail!" cried Lilly, flaring up. "I have pride and a sense of honour, and even if I have sinned a thousandfold, I know how to die for my sins."

"It's not so easy to die. Usually the opportunity is lacking, and when the opportunity once presents itself we show it a clean pair of heels."

Lilly felt a hot desire to protect him against the self-degradation in which he indulged.

"You don't believe what you say," she cried. "You are the boldest, the most daring of men. I know you are. Without a moment's hesitation you would face death for the sake of your honour. If you would only summon all your strength the whole world would lie at your feet. I will always keep reminding you of that. I will work over you until you get back belief in yourself, until you feel you are on the upward road. I will share all your hardships, all your temptations, and I will protect you from all evil. For what should I be here if not for you?"

She felt she was so completely his that she could have thrown herself at his horse's hoofs; and when she recalled the first moments of their meeting that day she could scarcely realise why he had seemed so repulsive and alien.

"You're a touching creature," he replied. "It's really lucky the creepers on your balcony are so thoroughly knit together."

She started.

"What do you mean by that?" she faltered, oppressed by a foreboding of ill.

"And lucky the ladder was left there. It can be leaned against the balcony and the vines can break all they want to, even Miss von Schwertfeger wouldn't notice anything amiss. Well?"

He blinked his silvery lids at her enticingly.

She did not know where to turn to hide her face from his gaze, she felt so ashamed.

"I'll never belong to you again," she cried. "I swear I won't by all the saints! I should be a thing of loathing to myself. As for you, I should utterly despise you. Pah!"

He shrugged his shoulders.

"Pity to lose the opportunity," he observed, and turned the horses' heads.

He appeared at dinner the next day, virtuous in his frock-coat and black necktie. He strutted and scraped and bowed, pursed his lips in extravagant respect, and scarcely dared to take the demitasse from her hand.

But Miss von Schwertfeger's eyes passed between the two, watching and questioning.

Late that Sunday night the following occurred:

The colonel had gone off to town, Miss von Schwertfeger had retired to her room, and Lilly sat on the edge of the bed in her nightgown brushing her hair.

Suddenly she heard a gentle tapping at the window, as if the autumn wind were blowing a twig against the closed shutter. But the action of the wind is irregular, and this sound kept time—now a little louder, now a little softer—and recurred at even intervals.

It frightened her, and she wanted to run down to Miss von Schwertfeger; but she bethought herself in time. She hastily put on her dressing gown, cautiously raised the window, and opened the shutters the least bit.

At first she saw nothing.

There were no stars in the heavens and the whole of the lodge seemed buried in darkness. Then she thought she saw a staff waving up and down close to the shutter.

She opened the shutter an inch wider and recognised—the pea-shooter.

Now she knew what was up.

She jumped back and drew the bolt. Then threw herself back in bed, where she lay holding her fingers in her ears. But when she withdrew them she again heard that short, regular tapping, which now rose almost to a knocking.

The nightwatch, who made the rounds of the court and park once an hour, need only find the ladder leaning against the balcony and all was lost.

Her fright deprived her of her senses.

Trembling in every limb, she ran into her dressing room, where there was no light, and opened the balcony door about half an inch. Through the crack she whispered into the darkness:

"Go away, and never try such a thing again."

Then she listened with her ear to the opening.

Nothing to be seen or heard.

But when she wanted to close the door it would not go shut. She groped along the crack in search of the obstacle, and came upon a round, hollow, wooden something, which an invisible hand had shoved there.

The wretched pea-shooter!

She moaned and covered her face with her hands, and the next moment was hanging in his arms in a half swoon.

After that evening he had her completely in his power—defenceless, without a will of her own, at the mercy of his wishes and whims.

It was not happiness. She experienced scarcely a single transport of feeling. That came later, when she had conquered her horror of the monstrous deed, and her fear of discovery had weakened. Nothing occurred to disturb them, and Lilly expanded in a sense of defiant security.

Then it was a blissful sailing over awful abysms, a delirium of the senses, a nebulous ecstasy, a delightful writhing under lacerating blows, an ebb and flow of magnanimous scorn of self and blasphemous prayers.

Laughter came again. Not the old simple laughter that had dominated the play of her spirit until within a short time before. No, this laughter was sardonic exultation, the exultation of the hounded thief, who carries his booty off to security, behind the backs of his pursuers.

Lilly also found reasons for justifying herself.

"I am merely fulfilling my destiny. I am now getting back the possession which fate promised to me and which the old man so long kept from me."

In addition there was a redeeming element in all she did, consecrating the most arrant deception and endowing it with purity. This was the consciousness that he was being saved. Under the spell of a lofty love he would learn to scorn vulgar escapades and, borne on the wings of a woman's expiating favour, he would rise to the heights on which men and heroes dwell.

With these thoughts she drugged her conscience each time; and when he lay in her arms she gave them whispered expression—the doors were not heavy and all sounds must be muffled.

He laughed and kissed the words from her mouth. If she grew uneasy and demanded pledges, he vowed the stars out of the heaven.

Miss von Schwertfeger now never stayed in Lilly's room later than eleven o'clock. This was the hour he might come, and by half past one he had to be gone.

Of course he had to confine his visits to the evenings when the colonel went to town. On account of the time the trains ran, the colonel could not possibly return before two. Besides the carriage could be heard at some distance.

Before Walter left he had to unlock the door to the colonel's room, and smoke a cigarette to rid the atmosphere of the stable and leather smell he brought with him from his own room. For it often happened that the colonel stuck his head in before going to bed; or, if the wine had loosened his tongue, he would even awaken Lilly, seat himself at her bedside, laugh, cast about his dagger glances pick his yellow teeth, and tell the juiciest stories which had arrived fresh from the Berlin centres of obscenity and made the rounds of his club in town.

Lilly played the drowsy pussy, and purred and yawned She began to feel so secure that once she actually fell asleep right in the middle of a laugh.

Oh, if only there had been no Miss von Schwertfeger!

Not that Miss von Schwertfeger had noticed anything. The horrors of such a possibility were inconceivable. But her restless, hasty comings and goings, the almost anxious greed with which she pried about, gave sufficient cause for concern.

She looked very pale and worn, while the fleshy region about her mouth and her sharp, scenting nose glowed a still deeper red.

You might suppose she tippled in secret. But such thing would be bound to leak out, and at table scarce a drop passed her lips.

"Let her do whatever she wants to," thought Lilly, "if only she doesn't come spying on me as she did on Katie."

And sometimes it occurred to Lilly that she herself was no better than the poor maid Katie, whom they had chased from the castle.