eart, while with the other he took her right
from the keyboard, holding her as he always held _Sieglinde_ when he
drew her toward the window. She had been wonderfully the mistress of
herself at the time; neither repellent nor acquiescent. She remembered
that she had rather exulted, then, in her self-control--which he had
seemed to take for granted, though there was perhaps the whisper of a
question from the hand under her heart. _"Thou art the Spring for which
I sighed in Winter's cold embraces."_ Caroline lifted her hands quickly
from the keyboard, and she bowed her head in them, sobbing.

The storm broke and the rain beat in, spattering her nightdress until
she rose and lowered the windows. She dropped upon the couch and began
fighting over again the battles of other days, while the ghosts of the
slain rose as from a sowing of dragon's teeth, The shadows of things,
always so scorned and flouted, bore down upon her merciless and
triumphant. It was not enough; this happy, useful, well-ordered life
was not enough. It did not satisfy, it was not even real. No, the other
things, the shadows-they were the realities. Her father, poor Heinrich,
even her mother, who had been able to sustain her poor romance and keep
her little illusions amid the tasks of a scullion, were nearer happiness
than she. Her sure foundation was but made ground, after all, and the
people in Klingsor's garden were more fortunate, however barren the
sands from which they conjured their paradise.

The lodge was still and silent; her fit of weeping over, Caroline
made no sound, and within the room, as without in the garden, was the
blackness of storm. Only now and then a flash of lightning showed a
woman's slender figure rigid on the couch, her face buried in her hands.

Toward morning, when the occasional rumbling of thunder was heard no
more and the beat of the raindrops upon the orchard leaves was steadier,
she fell asleep and did not waken until the first red streaks of dawn
shone through the twisted boughs of the apple trees. There was a moment
between world and world, when, neither asleep nor awake, she felt her
dream grow thin, melting away from her, felt the warmth under her heart
growing cold. Something seemed to slip from the clinging hold of her
arms, and she groaned protestingly through her parted lips, following
it a little way with fluttering hands. Then her eyes opened wide and she
sprang up and sat holding dizzily to the cushions of the c