"How shall I get away?" she kept asking herself, and thought with horror of the time, that for decency's sake she must still stay. But her deliverance was nearer than she expected, although the manner in which it was effected filled her with new terror.
Meta, in the middle of her chatter, turned suddenly pale, gasped for breath, and then tumbled off her chair in a dead faint. Hertha rushed to her with a cry of alarm, seized the water-jug, and poured a stream of water on her face. Meta made a low gurgling sound, breathed heavily through her nose, and then came to herself again.
"Lord have mercy!" cried Hertha, kissing the wet forehead of the reviving girl. "I will go and tell them to send for the doctor at once."
But her friend stopped her. "No, don't go," she said, calmly raising herself. "You can't understand, but it must happen."
"To be married is like being in another world," thought Hertha, startled, "where fainting dead away is quite an everyday event."
Then she reflected how gladly she would have fainted a hundred times a day for the sake of one who despised and spurned her.
"I will go home at once; you ought to rest," she murmured, controlling her excitement with difficulty, and her friend did not press her to stay.
An hour later, when she appeared in the living-room at Halewitz, grandmamma exclaimed, horrified--
"What is the matter with you, child? You are as pale as death."
"Oh, it's nothing, grandmamma," she replied, and tried to laugh. "I have been such a goose as to powder myself."