Yes, everybody knew the sad story by this time. Gertrude Baumhagen was separated from her husband. In the coffee parties one whispered to the other, people spoke of it at the cafés and at dinner-parties, and at the table d'hôte in the hotel it was the standing topic of conversation. No one knew exactly why this had happened. There were a thousand reports of a most wonderful nature.
"He did something disagreeable about his wife's dowry--"
"She went away because he lifted his hand to strike her--"
"The mother-in-law made mischief between them--"
"Nonsense! She was jealous--there is a little brown cousin in the house--"
"No, it was not that--she heard that before they were engaged he consulted an agent about her fortune. It is not so very unusual now-a-days."
"Ah, bah, no woman would run away for that!"
"That shows that you don't know Gertrude Baumhagen very well. It is a fact that she has gone away."
Yes, it was a fact, and Gertrude sat in her lonely house like one buried alive in that ever gloomy room. She could no longer read; it seemed as if she slept with open eyes. Sometimes Johanna brought her her child, and the young wife's eyes mechanically followed the little creature as it crept awkwardly over the floor or tried to raise itself by a chair, but she would not touch it even when it fell and cried.--Towards evening, however, the same unaccountable restlessness always came over her; then she walked hurriedly up and down the garden for a long time till she reached the top of the little hill; there she would remain for hours, gazing at the Thurmberg till her hair and dress were wet with dew.
"Believe me," she said to Johanna, "I shall be ill--here," and she pointed to her head.