ated them softly, and this time they sounded like a mockery of
Apollonius, like mocking regret at the failure of a sly trick.

Christiane had rushed into the living-room and bolted the door behind
her. She was not thinking of Fritz; but Apollonius might come in. She
turned over and over the feverish thought of fleeing out into the
world. But wherever she thought of herself, on the steepest mountain,
in the deepest valley, he met her and saw what it was that she wanted
and he had to despise her. Little Annie was in the room; she had not
noticed the child. All the mother's life was engaged in her inward
struggle; Annie could not tell from her mother's look what was going
on within her. She drew her mother onto a chair, threw her arms round
her in her usual fashion and looked up into her face. Her gaze struck
her mother as if it came from Apollonius' eyes. Little Annie said:

"Do you know, Mother, Uncle 'Lonius"--the mother jumped up and pushed
the child away from her as if it had been he himself. "Don't tell me
anything more about--don't tell me anything more about him!" she said
with such angry fear that the little girl stopped speaking and began
to cry. Little Annie did not see the fear, she saw only the anger in
her mother's action. It was anger at herself. The little girl lied
when she told her uncle of her mother's anger at him. He did not need
to be told. Had he not seen her red cheek himself, when she fled from
his and his brother's question; the same red of angry dislike with
which she had received him when he came home? Oh, from then on life
was curiously sultry in the house with the green shutters for days and
weeks.

Fritz Nettenmair was very little at home. From early in the morning
till late at night he sat in a public house from which the door in the
church roof and the hanging seat on the tower could be seen. He was
more jovial than ever, and treated everybody in order to forget
himself in their insincere admiration.

In the shed and in the slate quarry the disagreeable-looking workman
took his place. Until he came home late at night, the workman wandered
back and forth in the passage leading from the living-room to the
shed. There had been some cases of theft in the neighborhood, and the
workman stood watch; Fritz Nettenmair had become a very anxious man
about his home. Other people wondered at Fritz Nettenmair's confidence
in the workman. Apollonius warned him repeatedly. Of course! He had
good reason