o speak to her. She
intentionally sat at some distance from the windows, near the bedroom
door. The old man did not perceive that she was as uneasy as he, and
that his presence made her even more so. He apologized for his
intrusion. When she made a movement to leave the room, he assured her
that he would not remain long and that he would not have forced
himself upon her had he not been impelled to do so by something which
was perhaps very important. He hoped that it was not so, but still, it
might be. She listened and looked more and more anxiously now at the
windows, now at the door. Her demeanor showed plainly that she hoped
if he had anything to say to her he would say it as quickly as he
could.

Valentine began: "Master Fritz is on the roof of St. George's. I saw
him just now in the church-yard."

"And did he look this way? Did he see you coming into the house?"
asked Christiane breathlessly.

"God forbid!" replied the old man. "He is working like the devil
today, not even thinking of anything to eat and drink. When a man
works like that--" Valentine stopped and completed the sentence to
himself--"he has some end in view." Christiane was silent. She was
struggling with the desire to confide her whole anxiety to the
faithful old soul. He saw nothing of this. "Our neighbor, over there,"
he continued, "has times, you know, when he cannot sleep at all. The
night before Master Apollonius went to Brambach he was at his kitchen
window and saw somebody sneaking from the back of our house into the
shed." He did not say whom the neighbor had seen, he probably expected
the young wife to ask. But she had not even heard his story. "The
previous evening," he went on, "before Master Apollonius left for
Brambach, he tried to get together the things he wanted to take with
him; he examined everything, as he always does, but he could not make
up his mind what to take. And it is so strange that Master Fritz has
become so industrious all of a sudden."

Apollonius' name roused Christiane; she listened as the old man
continued: "It occurred to me for the first time, just now, when our
neighbor told me that somebody had crept into the shed. I wondered
what he could be wanting there, and at night too. And when I looked up
and saw Master Fritz working so hard, an uneasy feeling came over me
and drove me into the shed as if I were being chased with a stick.
There, I imagined what any one who had sneaked in there might have
done. First I