onate?" she
asked under her breath. Then she slipped down on to the floor, and put
both her arms round Letty. "Don't tell me," she cried, laying her face
on Letty's knees, "I don't want to know. Suppose you had been dreadfully
hurt just now, burnt, or--or dead, what would it have mattered? Oh, we
will forget all that ridiculous nonsense, and only never, never be so
silly again. Let us be happy together, and finish with Herr Klutz for
ever--it was all so stupid, and so little worth while." And she put up
her face, and they both began to cry and kiss each other through their
tears. And so it came about that Letty was in the same hour relieved of
the burden on her conscience, of most of her hair, and was taken once
again, and with redoubled enthusiasm, into Anna's heart. Logic had never
been Anna's strong point.

CHAPTER XXV

When Axel came in two hours later, bringing Dellwig and Manske and two
or three other helpers, farmers, who had driven across the plain to do
what they could, he found his house lit up and food and drink set out
ready in the dining-room.

Letty and Anna had had time to recover from their tears and vows, sundry
small blisters on the back of Letty's neck had been treated with cotton
wool, and they had emerged from their agitation to a calmer state in
which the helping of the princess in the middle of the night to make
somebody else's house comfortable was not without its joys. The Mamsell,
no more able than the Kleinwalde servants to withstand the authority of
the princess's name and eye, had collected the maids and worked with a
will; and when, all danger of the fire spreading being over, Axel came
in dirty and smoky and scorched, prepared to have to hunt himself in the
dark house for the refreshment he could not but offer his helpers, he
was agreeably surprised to find the lamp in the hall alight, and to be
met by a wide-awake Mamsell in a clean apron who proposed to provide the
gentlemen with hot water. This was very attentive. Axel had never known
her so thoughtful. The gentlemen, however, with one accord refused the
hot water; they would drink a glass of wine, perhaps, as Herr von Lohm
so kindly suggested, and then go to their homes and beds as quickly as
possible. Manske, by far the grimiest, was also the most decided in his
refusal; he was a godly man, but he did not love supererogatory
washings, under which heading surely a washing at two o'clock in the
morning came. Axel left them in