"It is your affair, Mr. Schmidt, to arrange this."
He bowed without speaking. She too was silent. An oppressive stillness reigned in the room, in the whole house. It seemed to Gertrude as if she had just heard her sentence of death.
"There will be a bad storm to-day," said the judge after awhile. "I must leave you now, madam, and as I am half-way to Niendorf now, I will just drive over, to arrange the matter with your husband in person."
"To-day?" She was startled into saying it.
He hesitated and looked at her.
"You are right, to-morrow will suit me better too--let us say the day after to-morrow."
"No," she replied, hastily, "go at once, it will be better, much better."
She got up in some confusion; her headache, the consciousness that she had now set the ball rolling nearly overwhelmed her. She accompanied the lawyer mechanically to the head of the stairs; then she remained standing in the corridor, her hand pressing her throbbing temples, half unconscious.
She could hear Johanna in the kitchen, and as if she could bear the loneliness no longer she went in and sat down on a chair beside the white scoured table. Johanna was standing before it, choosing between ivy-leaves and cypress-twigs. Her eyes were red with crying, and large drops fell now and then on the hands which were making a wreath. The whole kitchen smelled of death and funerals.
"What are you doing there?" asked Gertrude.