‘Yes,’ replied Sara, with a voice and a face like stone.
‘Du mein Himmel! And–was it from pique that you married Falkenberg?’
‘It was something like that–and because he made me do it,’ said Sara, the anguish she felt breaking uncontrollably forth in her trembling voice. ‘Don’t let us speak of it. Perhaps it may sometime come right. But meantime, my dear Carla, don’t tell everyone as if it were the most joyful news imaginable.’
‘What must you have thought when you got my letter?’ exclaimed the countess.
The little lady looked thoughtful, but parted from Sara with a tender embrace, and asked if she might come again, ‘quite alone.’
‘Oh, if you would!’ cried Sara. ‘It would be so kind, and–and I know Rudolf would approve of it.’
‘Yes, I have little doubt on that point. I believe I may safely say that he has a high opinion of me,’ replied Countess Carla, darting a keen side-glance from under her drooped eyelids at her friend, while she appeared absorbed in fastening her glove.
‘Indeed he has!’ echoed Sara, fervently.
‘Well, we shall be at Trockenau for some little time now, and I will drop you a line to say when I am coming again.’
They parted. Frau von Trockenau shook her head several times as she waited with her servant at the Lahnburg station, for the train to Ems.