ised, he said, that Monsieur le Docteur had
not answered, and proceeded to inform him of a new turn in the affair.
They had discovered that Madame la Comtesse injected herself secretly
with morphine, pricked herself, Auguste said, and two Sisters of Mercy
had to watch her day and night to prevent it. Schrotter judged it
unnecessary to inform Wilhelm of the contents of this letter.

Schrotter's visit had had an extremely salutary effect on Wilhelm. His
self-torture grew less poignant, the memory of Paris receded into the
background, and in proportion as it paled the red returned to his
cheeks and the light to his dull eyes. He still held aloof from the
busy turmoil of the world, and was still dominated by a profound
consciousness of the aimlessness of his life, and yet, for the first
time for years, perhaps since he took his degree, he entertained a
desire, a hope, that he might be permitted to return to Berlin.

On the last Sunday in April Wilhelm was spending the afternoon at the
Uhlenhorst. The family were preparing to remove shortly to Friesenmoor,
and Paul had gone over to the estate to make some arrangements. He was
expected back in the evening, when they were all to go for a row on the
Alster.

Spring was unusually early that year; the trees showed gay sprigs of
green already, the air was wonderfully mild and balmy, and in the
exhilarating blue of the sky feathery white cloudlets were floating,
whose course one was fain to follow with sweet dreams and fancies. It
was a sin to stay indoors on such a lovely afternoon, Malvine declared,
and so proposed that they should go out to the terrace overlooking the
water and sit there till Paul came home.

The terrace belonged to the villa in the Carlstrasse, laying on the
path round the shore which bears with perfect right the name "An der
schonen Aussicht"--the beautiful view--and was built out in a square
into the Alster. A low stone parapet surrounded it on three sides, the
fourth--that toward the pathway--being formed by an iron paling with a
locked gate in it. One corner of the terrace, which was otherwise paved
with asphalt, was laid out in a round flower bed, in which the
primroses and violets were just beginning to come up. Near the
balustrade at the waterside, under a large tentlike umbrella, stood a
garden table and a few chairs. Here Malvine and Wilhelm seated
themselves, while Willy played about with Fido. To the right of the
terrace was a narrow little bay w