lone. Besides, it wearied her to remain
so long in the same place, and the confession forced the girl, who had
never shrunk from honestly expressing what she felt, into deception.
The priest to whom she was taken was a frequent visitor at the Schurstab
house, and she would have died ere she would have confided to him the
secret of her heart. Besides, to her the feeling which animated her was
no sin. She had not summoned it. It had taken possession of her against
her will and harmed no one except herself, not even the wife who was so
sure of her husband. How could she have presumed to dispute with her the
possession of Herr Lienhard's love? Yet it seemed an insult that Frau
Katharina had no fear that she could menace her happiness. Could the
former know that Kuni would have been content with so little--a tender
impulse of his heart, a kiss, a hasty embrace? That would do the other
no injury. In the circles whence she had been brought no one grudged
another such things. How little, she thought, would have been taken from
the wealthy Katharina by the trifling gift which would have restored to
her happiness and peace. The fact that Lienhard, though he never failed
to notice her, would not understand, and always maintained the same
pleasant, aristocratic reserve of manner, she sometimes attributed
to fear, sometimes to cruelty, sometimes to arrogance; she would not
believe that he saw in her only a person otherwise indifferent to him,
whom he wished to accustom to the mode of life which he and his friends
believed to be the right path, pleasing in the sight of God. Love,
feminine vanity, the need of approval, her own pride--all opposed this
view.

When the last snow of winter had melted, and the spring sunshine of
April was unfolding the green leafage and opening bright flowers in the
meadows, the hedges, the woods, and the gardens, she found the new home
which she had entered during the frosts of February, and whose solid
walls excluded every breath of air, more and more unendurable. A gnawing
feeling of homesickness for the free out-of-door life, the wandering
from place to place, the careless, untrammelled people to whom she
belonged, took possession of her. She felt as though everything which
surrounded her was too small, the house, the apartments, her own
chamber, nay, her very clothing. Only the hope of the first token that
Lienhard was not so cold and unconquerable as he seemed, that she would
at last constrain him to