l for him to tell me to sit and think, but I must quiet my child."

She took the little girl out of bed and fondled her more tenderly than
usual. The child helped to drive away her solitary thoughts.

She suddenly remembered the tune that Lenz had played the first time
she was at the house, and she sang her baby to sleep by it now: "Love
it is the tender blossom." She still sang on after the child was asleep
and lying quiet in her arms, and as she sang the words she thought:
Whom have I ever loved? whom?--I wanted to marry the landlord's son and
the engineer in order to have a good position; but as for loving any
man with my whole heart, I never did. And my husband? I married him
because one of the doctor's daughters would have taken him, and because
I wanted to get away from home, and because he was good-tempered and
everybody spoke well of him.

Annele started as the child turned in her sleep. She quieted her again,
but felt uneasy at being thus alone with her thoughts. There seemed
ghosts lurking in all the corners, even in broad daylight. If only some
one were here to cheer me up! Come, Lenz; come home! Be kind, and all
will go well. We need no priest to help us; we can help ourselves. We
are helped; I love you.

It was noon, and the sun was shining warm out of doors. Annele wrapped
the child carefully up and carried it out in front of the house.
Perhaps Lenz was on his way home; she would give him a cordial
greeting, bid him the good morning he had forgotten to say, and tell
him all should henceforth be peace between them. At this hour, five
years ago, they had been married, and now they would be married again.

The figure of a man, still too far off to be recognized, was seen
coming up the hill. "Call father!" she said to the child.

"Father! father!" the little thing cried.

The man came nearer. It was not Lenz, but Faller, hurrying up with an
extra hat in his hand. "Is Lenz at home yet?"

"No."

"Good Heavens! this is his hat. My brother-in-law picked it up in the
gully where he was cutting wood. If Lenz should have done himself any
violence!"

Annele's knees shook; she pressed the child to her till it cried. "You
are mad, and want to make me mad!" she exclaimed. "What do you mean?"

"Is that not his hat?"

"Good Heavens, it is!" she shrieked, and fell to the ground with the
child.

Faller raised them both.

"Has he been found? dead?" asked Annele.

"No, thank Heaven! Come into the house. Let