she has done was right--she
had done right instinctively--as all good people do. If she had stayed
she would have been discovered by this time. The doctors would question
her. And all the papers would report it next morning; she would have
been ruined forever, and yet her ruin could not bring him back to life.
Yes, that was the main point, her sacrifice would have been all in
vain. She crosses under the railway bridge and hurries on. There is the
Tegethoff Column, where so many streets meet. There are but few people
in the park on this stormy evening, but to her it seems as if the life
of the city was roaring about her. It was so horribly still back there.
She had plenty of time now. She knows that her husband will not be home
before ten o'clock. She will have time to change her clothes. And then
it occurs to her to look at her gown. She is horrified to see how soiled
it is. What shall she say to the maid about it? And next morning the
papers will all bring the story of the accident, and they will tell of a
woman. Who had been in the carriage, and who had run away. She trembled
afresh. One single carelessness and she is lost, even now. But she has
her latch-key with her; she can let herself in; no one will hear her
come. She jumps into a cab and is about to give her address, then
suddenly she remembers that this would not be wise. She gives any number
that occurs to her.

As she drives through the Prater street she wishes that she might feel
something--grief-horror--but she cannot. She has but one thought, one
desire--to be at home, in safety. All else is indifferent to her. When
she had decided to leave him alone, dead, by the roadside--in that
moment everything seemed to have died within her, everything that
would mourn and grieve for him. She has no feeling but that of fear for
herself. She is not heartless--she knows that the day will come when her
sorrow will be despair--it may kill her even. But she knows nothing now,
except the desire to sit quietly at home, at the supper table with her
husband and child. She looks out through the cab window. She is driving
through the streets of the inner city. It is brilliantly light here,
and many people hurry past. Suddenly all that she has experienced in
the last few hours seems not to be true, it is like an evil dream;
not something real, irreparable. She stops her cab in one of the side
streets of the Ring, gets out, turns a corner quickly, and takes another
carriage, givi