ed
the door from the outside and stuck the key in her pocket--nobody must
go in.

Should she go to bed now? She could not sleep--oh, she was too
restless--but she would have to lie down, oh yes, she must do so,
or what would the maids think, and Paul? Then she would have to
get up again as she did every day, wash herself, dress, sit at the
breakfast-table, eat, talk, smile as she did every day, as though
nothing, nothing whatever had happened. And still so much had
happened!

She felt so hopelessly isolated as she lay in bed beside her
husband. There was nobody to whom she could complain. Paul had not
understood her before, he would understand her even less now; he had
changed so much in the course of time. Besides, was he not quite
infatuated with the boy now? Strange, formerly when she had loved
Wolfgang so, her love had always been too much of a good thing--how
often he had reproached her for it!--and now, now!--no, they
simply did not understand each other any longer. She would have to
fight her battles alone, quite alone.

When Kate heard the first sounds in the house, she would have liked
to get up, but she forced herself to remain in bed: it would attract
their attention if they saw her so early. But a great fear tortured
her. If that person--that, that intoxicated person over there should
awake, make a noise, bang on the locked door? What should she say then
to make excuses for him? What should she do? She lay in bed quite
feverish with uneasiness. At last it was her usual time to get up.

"I suppose the boy came home terribly late--or rather early, eh?"
said Paul at breakfast.

"Oh no. Just after you went upstairs."

"Really? But I lay awake quite a long time after that."

He had said it lightly, unsuspiciously, but she got a fright
nevertheless. "We--we--he talked to me for quite a long time," she said
hesitatingly.

"Foolish," he said, nothing more, and shook his head.

Oh, how difficult it was to tell lies. In what a position Wolfgang
placed her.

When Schlieben had driven to town and the cook was busy in the
kitchen and Friedrich in the garden, Kate kept an eye on the housemaid.
What a long time she was in the bedroom to-day. "You must finish the
rooms upstairs more quickly, you are excessively slow," she said in a
sharp voice.

The maid looked at her mistress, quite astonished at the unusual way
in which she spoke to her, and said later on to the cook downstairs:
"Ugh, what a bad temper th