s heart had never throbbed so loudly. If Lienhard came now, her fate
would be decided, and she knew that he must come. Just before noon, he
really did rap with the knocker on the outer door. He wanted the
christening gift, which Frau Schurstab had forgotten to take for the
infant. The money was in the chest in the matron's room. Kuni led the
way. The house seemed to reel around her as she went up the stairs behind
him. The next moment, she felt, must decide her destiny.

Now he laid his hand upon the doorknob, now he opened the door. The
widow's chamber was before her. Thick silk curtains shut out the bright
May sunshine from the quiet room. How warm and pleasant it was!

She already saw herself in imagination kneeling by his side before the
chest to help him search. While doing so, his fingers might touch hers,
perhaps her hair might brush against his. But, instead of entering, he
turned to her with careless unconcern, saying:

"It is fortunate that I have found you alone. Will you do me a favour,
girl?"

He had intended to ask her to help him prepare a surprise for his aunt.
The day after to-morrow was Frau Sophia Schurstab's birthday. Early in
the morning she must find among her feathered favourites a pair of rare
India fowls, which he had received from Venice.

As Kuni did not instantly assent, because the wild tumult of her blood
paralyzed her tongue, he noticed her confusion, and in an encouraging
tone, gaily continued:

"What I have to ask is not too difficult." As he spoke he passed his hand
kindly over her dark hair, just as he had done a few months before in the
Town Hall.

Then the blood mounted to her brain. Clasping his right hand, beneath
whose touch she had just trembled, in both her own, she passionately
exclaimed:

"Ask whatever you desire. If you wanted to trample my heart under your
feet, I would not stir."

A look of ardent love from her sparkling blue eyes accompanied the words;
but he had withdrawn his hand in astonishment, and raised a lofty barrier
between them by answering coldly and sternly, "Keep the heart and your
dainty self for the equerry Seifried who is an honest man."

The advice, and the lofty austerity with which it was given, pierced Kuni
like the thrust of a dagger. Yet she succeeded controlling herself, and,
without a word reply, preceded the harsh man into the sleeping room and
silently, tearlessly, pointed the chest. When he had taken out the money,
she bowed hastily a