a
moon, and the room was flooded with pale light. She did not put on boots,
skirt, or cloak, but deposited these in a heap on the corridor floor.
Then she approached her mother's door, and listened once more; the
regular breaths were quite audible now. Softly she lifted the latch, and
passed into the room. The moon was hidden for a moment, and the room was
in utter darkness. She crouched, and carefully drew the door to behind
her; it creaked, and Frau von Graevenitz moved in her sleep. Wilhelmine
crouched lower, and taking a kerchief from her breast pushed it beneath
the door, to steady it. She waited motionless till her mother's breathing
told her that she was really asleep, and then, with noiseless tread, she
approached the sleeper. The clouds shifted and the moon shone in, showing
Frau von Graevenitz's face livid and deathlike in the luminous moonshine.
The girl shuddered; it was like robbing a corpse, she thought. But her
hesitation was momentary; she pushed her flexible hand beneath her
mother's pillow, and her fingers closed on the cold iron of a key. She
drew it out, but she felt rather than saw that it was not the one wanted.
She was stretching out her hand to seek for the other key, when the
sleeper stirred uneasily, murmuring some incomprehensible word, and
Wilhelmine cowered down once more. The old woman turned round in bed, so
that she faced the crouching girl; her face was now in shadow, and
Wilhelmine could not see whether the eyes were open or shut. She waited
for what seemed hours in that hunched-up position. After some time, the
even breathing recommenced, and Wilhelmine ventured to kneel up beside
the bed, but now a fresh difficulty confronted her: to reach the other
key, provided it lay beneath the pillow, she must pass her hand under
that portion of the pillow upon which Frau von Graevenitz's head rested.
She wriggled her hand in, and the point of her fingers touched the key;
but it was too far away for her to grasp it, and her efforts only pushed
it further. She withdrew her hand, and waited till the clouds floated
over the moon. When the welcome darkness came, she bent over her mother,
and lifting the further edge of the pillow quickly found the key. Then
she crept noiselessly to the threshold, took her kerchief, and shut the
door silently. Safe in the corridor, she caught up her bundle of garments
and groped her way down the stairs, which creaked under her, but she
heard no movement in the house, th