‘Tell me what to do,’ she concluded. ‘You have been my guide for so long; I trust you so implicitly that I feel lost without you. Send me one word, Sara, for whatever you say or do must be right.’
‘Poor child!’ thought her friend, sorrowfully. ‘This must be answered at once. I must set her mind at rest. And, I suppose, when I tell her what I have done, she will change her opinion as to all I do and say being right. Perhaps it is as well that her illusion should come to an end betimes.’
She determined to make her first essay in letter-writing since her illness, and began by writing that afternoon to Avice and to Frau von Trockenau. To Avice she wrote explaining why she had not been able to answer her letter earlier. Then she told her of her marriage, calmly, and in a matter-of-fact way, with the remark that she could not enter into her reasons for the course she had taken, and that Avice would probably not understand them if she did. Of Jerome she made not the slightest mention, but she urged Avice to do all in her power to love and be kind to her sister-in-law. ‘From what you tell me, I am sure she is good. In being her friend, and doing all you can to make her happy, you will grow happier yourself. It is the only thing you can do–the only right thing, that is.’
She felt that she had at least been right in urging this upon Avice; and then she wrote a brief note to Countess Carla, thanking her for her good wishes, and adding that she knew absolutely nothing of any plans for the future–she left everything to Herr Falkenberg; she excused the brevity of her letter on the plea of illness, and fastened it up.
She had expected to be exhausted by this exertion, but found to her surprise and pleasure that she was less tired than before. Ellen had lighted the lamp, and the room was warm and cheerful. Sara began slowly to pace up and down the room, her thoughts running intently on the letters she had received, and the ideas they had conjured up. Her long, plain dress hung loosely upon the once ample and majestic figure, now wasted to a shadow of its former beauty.
‘The loose train of her amber-dropping hair’
was gathered up into a knot upon her neck; there was a faint glow–the harbinger of returning health–upon her wasted cheek. While she thus slowly promenaded to and fro some one knocked at the door.
‘Herein!’ she answered, turning to see who it was, and confronting Rudolf Falkenberg.
She stood suddenly still, colouring highly.
‘You did not expect me,’ he said, pausing, with the door-handle in his hand. ‘Perhaps I intrude!’