d spat contemptuously on the
boards in front of him. Then she fled from the room.

He looked after her stupefied.

"So she's gone!" he muttered. Well, it was no use being too tragic over
it. Either Lisbeth would be reasonable again, or----he was free of her.

There was a third possibility.

Countess Miramara had assured him that he could make an enormous
fortune if he would go on the stage as a cornet-player. To-morrow she
was going off to Bohemia. Suppose he were to join her? He did not
trouble himself about desertion: he had got his papers all right, and
desertion was not a crime for which one could be extradited. Austria
was a big place and a merry; so the countess asserted. And there was
Hungary too.

Really that would be the best thing to do.

Next day Henke was over the border. He had already converted all his
property into gold, and only took his trumpet with him. In place of his
artilleryman's coat he wore a gorgeous fancy uniform, which showed off
to the best advantage the excellences of his person. Evening after
evening he performed his most admired pieces.

And he became a favourite with all the ladies.

Frau Lisbeth, however, obtained the dissolution of her marriage on the
ground of malicious desertion.

At first she thought of furnishing a little shop in the town and
setting up a laundry; but Trautvetter begged her rather to go into
service for a time.

"Why?" asked she.

He found some difficulty in answering her. At last he came out with:

"I am very fond of you, Frau Lisbeth; and if you could make up your
mind to it I should like to ask you if you would have me."

Lisbeth smiled a little, and then said, "You may ask me that now!"

Her voice sounded honest and friendly.

Trautvetter took her hand in his and said: "Then that's all right!"

But she continued gaily and cheerfully: "Besides, in any case, I should
have ended by being your mistress."

"Oh, no!" said Trautvetter. "Under certain circumstances I prefer a
wife."

Despite the warmth of the August sun, Julie Heppner grew worse day by
day; but this was nothing to her in comparison with the burden of
mental suffering which almost overwhelmed her.

She watched her husband and sister with a gaze that never faltered. She
saw with horror how Ida became less shy of her and abandoned herself
more and more to her passion. Nor was this hidden from her husband. He
noticed with cynical satisfaction how the young girl's power of
resist