"I hope it has nothing to do with Arthur and Jenny. They were very
strange to each other, yesterday."

Gertrude looked at him and shook her head. "No, no, they were always
like that."

"Then I am surprised that he did not run away long ago," he said,
drily.

"Or she," retorted Gertrude tying her bonnet.

"I could not stand such everlasting complaints, Gertrude," said he,
buttoning her left glove.

"Nor I, Frank. Good-bye. You must make my excuses at dinner. God grant
it is nothing very bad."

She looked round the room once more, then went quickly up to her
work-table and thrust the note-book into her pocket.

When a few minutes later the landau passed out of the great iron gate
she put her head out of the window. He stood on the steps looking after
her. As she turned he took off his hat and waved it.

How handsome he was, how stately and how good!

She leaned back on the cushions. She felt a vague alarm--it was the
first time she had left the house without him. Strange thoughts came
over her--how dreadful it would be if she should not find him again, or
even--if she should lose him utterly. Could she go on living then?
Live--yes--but how?

It would be frightful to be a widow! Still more frightful if they were
to part--one here, the other there, hating each other, or indifferent!

Could Arthur and Jenny, really--? Oh, God in Heaven preserve us from
such woe!

She looked out of the window. The coachman was driving at a dizzy pace.
There lay the city before her in the mist. Again her thoughts wandered,
faster than the horses went. She took the note-book out of her pocket
to read the verses, but the letters danced before her eyes, and she put
it away again.

In the attic at home stood the old cradle in which her father had been
rocked, and Jenny, and she herself. The grandmother in the narrow
street had had it as part of her outfit. She would get it out for
herself if God should ever fulfil her wish. Jenny's darling had lain in
another bed, the clumsy old cradle did not seem suitable in the elegant
chamber of the young mother, but in the modest room at Niendorf, where
the vines crept about the windows and the big old stove looked so cosy
and comfortable, it would be quite in place, just between the stove and
the wardrobe in a cosy corner by itself. She smiled like a happy child.
She could not believe that her life could be so beautiful, so rich.

The carriage was now rattling through the city gate; she