Ah, the humiliation was nothing to the dreadful feeling that stole over her and chilled her to the heart--the pain of wounded pride and with it the old bitter perversity. She had not felt it lately, she had been good, happiness makes one so good--and now? and now?
CHAPTER XIII.
The carriage rolled quickly down the hill to Niendorf and stopped before the house. Half-unconsciously the young wife descended and stood in the rain on the steps of the veranda. It seemed to her as if she were here for the first time; the small windows, the gray old walls with the pointed roof--how ugly they were, how strange! All the flowers in the garden beaten down by the rain--the charm that love gives fled, only bare, sober, sad reality! and on the threshold crouched the demon of selfishness, of cold calculation.
She passed through the garden hall and up the stairs to her room. In the corridor Johanna met her.
"The master went away in the carriage directly after breakfast," she announced. "He laid a note on your work-table, ma'am."
"I have a headache, Johanna, don't disturb me now," she said, faintly.
When she reached her own room she bolted first the door behind her and then that which opened into his room. And then she read the note.
"The barometer has risen and the judge insists on going up the Brocken, I go with him to Ille. I have something to do there and I shall not be very late home--Thine,
Frank."
And below a postscript from the guest: