umann.

"Nobody could tell us here for certain whether you had really gone there
or not."

"Nor could anybody give us any information as to the extent of the
disaster."

"We presumed the princess was with you, but even that was not certain."

"My dear baroness," murmured the princess, untying her shawl, "only you
would have had a doubt of it."

"The reflection in the sky faded hours ago," said Frau vein Treumann.

"And yet you did not return," said the baroness. "Where did you go
afterwards?"

"Oh, I'll tell you everything to-morrow. Good-night," said Anna, candle
in hand.

"What! Now that we have waited, and in such anxiety, you will tell us
nothing?"

"There really is nothing to tell. And I am so tired--good-night."

"We have kept the servants up and the kettle boiling in case you should
want coffee."

"That was very kind, but I only want bed. Good-night."

"We too were weary, but you see we have waited in spite of it."

"Oh, you shouldn't have. You will be so tired. Good-night."

She went upstairs, pulling herself up each step by the baluster.
The clock on the landing struck half-past three. Was it not
Napoleon, she thought, who said something to the point about
three-o'clock-in-the-morning courage? Had no one ever said anything to
the point about three-o'clock-in-the-morning love for one's
fellow-creatures? "Good-night," she said once more, turning her head and
nodding wearily to them as they watched her from below with indignant
faces.

She glanced at the clock, and went into her room dejectedly; for she had
made a startling discovery: at three o'clock in the morning her feeling
towards the Chosen was one of indifference verging on dislike.

CHAPTER XXVI

Looking up from her breakfast the morning after the fire to see who it
was riding down the street, Frau Manske beheld Dellwig coming towards
her garden gate. Her husband was in his dressing-gown and slippers, a
costume he affected early in the day, and they were taking their coffee
this fine weather at a table in their roomy porch. There was, therefore,
no possibility of hiding the dressing-gown, nor yet the fact that her
cap was not as fresh as a cap on which the great Dellwig's eyes were to
rest, should be. She knew that Dellwig was not a star of the first
magnitude like Herr von Lohm, but he was a very magnificent specimen of
those of the second order, and she thought him much more imposing than
Axel, whose quiet ways she had neve