e was certain, that all the truth he had given her
had had the sole purpose of whitewashing a lie, by which she was to be
made to believe that her existence was a necessity to him. She was
convinced that the weight of this lie was crushing the very life out of
him. She wished to free him from it and its consequences. But how she
was to do this she did not know. She knew that if Daniel and Eleanore
could belong to each other in a legal, legitimate way, they would be
vindicated in the eyes of God and man. But how this was to be brought
about she did not know.

She sought and sought for a way out. Her ideas were vague but
persistent. She felt that she was running around in a circle, unable to
do more than stare at the centre of the circle. Every morning at five
o'clock she would get up and go to church. She prayed with a devotion
and passion that physically exhausted her heart.

One morning she knelt before the altar in unusually heart-rending
despair. She thought she heard a small voice crying out to her and
telling her to take her life.

She swooned; people rushed up to her, and wet her forehead with cold
water. This enabled her to get up and go home. A peculiarly sorrowful
and dreamy expression lay on her face.

She wanted to do some knitting, for she recalled that when she was a
girl she was always able to dispel care and grief by knitting. But every
stitch she made turned into the cry: "You must take your life."

She knelt down by the cradle of little Agnes, but the child said to her
only too distinctly: "Mother, you must take your life."

Eleanore came in. On her brow was the light of enjoyed happiness; her
whole body was happiness; her lips trembled and twitched with happiness.
But her eyes said. "Sister, you must take your life."

Philippina stood by the kitchen stove, and whispered to the coals:
"Gertrude, you must take your life." Her father came in, got his dinner,
expressed his thanks for it, and went out murmuring, "Daughter, you must
take your life; believe me, it will be for the best."

If she passed by the well, something drew her to the edge; voices called
to her from the depths. From every beaker she put to her lips to drink
shone forth her image as if from beyond the tomb. On Sunday she climbed
up the Vestner Tower, and let her eyes roam over the plains below as if
in the grief of departure. She leaned forward out of the little window
with a feeling of assuaging horror. The keeper, seeing what sh