in again. She was only to come twice a
week; and the days between would be days of torture. And when the moment
had come, and they had said good-bye with brave eyes, each telling the
other that so short a separation was nothing, that they did not mind it,
that it would be over before they had had time to feel it, and the door
was shut, and he was left behind, she went out to find misery again,
waiting for her there where she had left it, taking entire possession of
her, brooding heavily, immovably over her, a desolation of misery that
threatened by its dreadful weight to break her heart.

A sense of physical cold crept over her as she drove home with
Letty--the bodily expression of the unutterable forlornness within. Away
from him, how weak she was, how unable to be brave. Would Letty
understand? Would she say some kind word, some little word, something,
anything, that might make her feel less terribly alone? With many pauses
and falterings she told her the story, looking at her with eyes tortured
by the thought of him waiting so patiently there till she should come
again. Letty was awestruck, as much by the profound grief of Anna's face
as by the revelation. She knew of course that Axel had been
arrested--did anyone at Kleinwalde talk of anything else all day
long?--but she had not dreamt of this. She could find nothing to say,
and put out her hand timidly and laid it on Anna's. "I am so cold," was
all Anna said, her head drooping; and she did not speak again.

As they passed between his fields, by his open gate, through the village
that belonged, all of it, to him, she shut her eyes. She could not look
at the happy summer fields, at the placid faces, knowing him where he
was. Not the poorest of his servants, not a ragged child rolling in the
dust, not a wretched, half-starved dog sunning itself in a doorway,
whose lot was not blessed compared to his. The haymakers were piling up
his hay on the waggons. Girls in white sun-bonnets, with bare arms and
legs, stood on the top of the loads catching the fragrant stuff as the
men tossed it up. Their figures were sharply outlined against the serene
sky; their shouts and laughter floated across the fields. Freedom to
come and go at will in God's liberal sunlight--just that--how precious
it was, how unspeakably precious it was. Of all God's gifts, surely the
most precious. And how ordinary, how universal. Only for Axel there was
none.

When they reached the house, the hall see