"I was silent and so were the others; we finished the meal in silence, and then sat silent about the table in the sitting-room, without a suspicion of what was happening meanwhile. Each was occupied with his own thoughts, and without the monotonous rain still fell splashing on the roof and poured from the animals' heads on the gutters upon the pavement of the court. There was an incessant drizzle and splash, and the storm, coming over the heath, swept together the rain-drops, and drove them pelting against the well-protected windows.
"All at once Brockelmann entered the room; frightened and startled her eyes sped about. 'Is not Fräulein Mattoni here?' she asked excitedly.
"'Susanna?' we all three cried with one voice, and Klaus sprang up.
"'She is not in her room! Merciful Heaven, where can she be!' she continued. 'Before supper she got up and dressed herself, laughing and tittering; she meant to go down-stairs to surprise the family. I scolded, but what good did it do? Oh, she must be hiding somewhere!' The old woman's voice was choked with anxiety; Anna Maria had hurried out of the room, and her flying steps reëchoed from the corridor, fear lending her wings. Brockelmann took a candle from the table and began to search the adjoining garden-parlor, and Klaus stood, pale as a corpse, as if rooted to the spot.
"'She must be here!' said I.
"He did not hear. His whole attention was concentrated upon Anna Maria, who was just crossing the threshold, and looked at her brother's serious face with eyes that seemed twice their usual size.
"'She is gone, Klaus,' she said, tremulously; 'I know not whither—why?'
"He stepped past her without a word.
"'Klaus!' Anna Maria called after him, 'take me with you!' But she received no answer. 'She heard it, my God, she heard what I said to him,' she whispered. 'Aunt, I beg you, go with him, do not let him go alone!' She hastened away and came back with shawls and wraps. I could hear from the court the hasty preparations for departure—indeed, how I got to the carriage, where Klaus was already sitting on the box, I do not know to this day.
"It was a half-covered chaise in which we rolled out on the dark highway; the rain beat against the leather hood, and the wind assaulted us with undiminished strength; Klaus's coat-collar flapped in the light of the carriage lamps, whose unsteady light was reflected in the water of the one great puddle into which the whole road was transformed. Klaus drove frantically; to this day I do not understand how we came, safe and sound, in the pitch-dark night, before the Dambitz blacksmith's shop. The little house lay there without a light. When Klaus pounded on the door with his whip-handle the watch-dog gave the alarm, upon which a man's voice soon asked what we wanted, and if anything had happened to the carriage. It happened sometimes, doubtless, that the man was called from his sleep because of an accident.