"She bent down to the unconscious girl and raised her in her arms, and the beautiful head with the dark curls rested on her breast. Anna Maria looked for an instant at the pale, childish face, and then carried her over to her room and laid her on the bed.
"'Take care of Susanna,' said she to Isabella, who stood before the bed, wringing her hands. 'If it is necessary, send for the doctor.' She went past me out of the room; I hurried after her; what did I care for Susanna at this moment?
"'Anna Maria,' I begged, 'where are you going? Come into my room, speak out, have your cry out; do not stay alone, my poor, dear child!'
"She stood still. 'I do not know what I should have to speak about, aunt—and cry? I cannot cry. Don't worry about me; nothing pains me, nothing at all. I would like to be alone, I must think about myself. Do let me.'
"She went away with as firm a step as ever; she even turned down a smoking lamp in passing, and the sound of her deep, pleasant voice came up to me from the stairs as she spoke to Brockelmann; then I heard her steps die away in the hall.
"What sort of storm may have shaken her in her solitary room I know not. When, late in the evening, I listened at her door there was no sound of movement within; but that she watched through the saddest hours of her life in that night, her pale face, her sunken eyes, and the expression about the corners of her mouth told me the next day.
"Ah, and over it all lay, like a veil, that old coldness, and her fair head was poised just as obstinately as before, and her words had an imperious sound. Anna Maria was not desperate, Anna Maria had no passionate complaints to make. With her maidenly pride she had subdued the sick heart; no one saw, now, that it was mortally wounded. The pain within, the struggles, they were her affair. Who would dare even to touch that closed, strongly guarded door?
"And so the next morning she went up to the bed in Susanna's room, where the sobbing girl lay. Susanna had begun to cry on regaining consciousness the day before, and kept on crying, as if she would dissolve in tears. Isabella sat by the bed, with a red face; she had doubtless talked herself hoarse with consolatory arguments during the night; now she was silent and feigned ignorance of all that had passed. 'I don't know, Fräulein Anna Maria,' she whispered, 'what is the matter with Susanna—these unfortunate nerves; I don't understand it!' She looked very much cast down, the little yellow woman.
"'Susanna,' said Anna Maria, clearly and severely, 'stop crying, and tell me the cause of your trouble; perhaps I can help you.'
"'Oh, heavens! no, no!' screamed Isa, vehemently, pressing close up to Anna Maria. 'She is so excited; don't listen to her words, she doesn't know what she is saying!'