thought had buried him too deep. Hope and trust were
alien to the thought; hate was more akin to it. And it was hate that
he called to his aid.--Outside the workman's feet shuffled on the
sanded floor of the hall. The house was safe from thieves: he could
leave it again.

Fritz Nettenmair was as jovial in the tavern that night as he could
possibly be. His flatterers were thirsty, and pleased with his
condescension. He drank, pushed the guests' hats down over their ears,
performed many another tender caress with his stick and his hand, and
laughed admiringly at them as brilliant jokes. He did everything to
forget himself; but he did not succeed.

If he could only have changed with his wife, who during this time was
sitting solitary at home! The thing for which he longed--to forget
himself--was the very thing against which she must be on her guard.
What he must do, what he could not avert by any effort, was the thing
for which she strove unavailingly--to remember herself. All her
thoughts spoke to her of Apollonius. She thought she was avoiding him,
and now she saw that he had fled from her. She ought to be glad, and
it hurt her. Her cheeks burned again. It was peculiar that she herself
regarded her position more sternly or more mildly according to whether
Apollonius in her thoughts judged it more sternly or more mildly. He
had become to her the involuntary standard by which to measure things.
Did he know what she was, and despise her? He was so gentle and
indulgent; he did not ridicule Anne, did not despise her. Even before
he came, did she already have thoughts that she should not have had
and did he guess them? And he was sorry for her, and that was why he
looked after her with such a sad glance when she went? Yes! Of course!
And now he fled from her in order to spare her: the sight of him
should not arouse thoughts in her that had better sleep till she
herself slept in her coffin. Perhaps he himself had said so to her
husband, or written; and the latter had chosen dislike as a means of
curing her.

Was it chance that at this moment she glanced at her husband's desk?
She saw that he had forgotten to take the key out of the lock. She
remembered that he had never been so careless before. Usually she
would have taken no notice of it; now she remembered that if he knew
her to be there he had never left the room even for a moment without
locking the desk and taking the key with him. Apollonius' letters lay
in the top r