ld repellent
sound in his voice.

But she would not allow herself to be deterred. "I thought you might
perhaps like to--well, talk a little more about it," she said
tenderly.

"What am I to do?" he cried, and he wrung his hands and started to
stride restlessly up and down the room again. "If only somebody would
tell me what I'm to do now. But nobody knows. Nobody can know. What am
I to do--what am I to do?"

Kate stood there dismayed: oh, now he had such thoughts. She saw it,
he had wept. She clung to him full of grieved sympathy. She did what
she had not done for a long time, for an exceedingly long time, she
kissed him. And shaken in the depths of her being by his "What am I to
do?" as by a just reproach, she said contritely: "Don't torture
yourself. Don't fret. If you like we'll go there--we'll look for
her--we shall no doubt find her."

But he shook his head vehemently and groaned. "That's too late
now--much too late. What am I to do there now? I am no use for that or
for this"--he threw out his hands--"no use for anything. Mother,
mother!" Throwing both his arms round the woman he fell down heavily in
front of her and pressed his face against her dress.

She felt he was sobbing by the convulsive movement of his body, by
the tight grasp of his hot hands round her waist.

"If only I knew--my mother--mother--oh, mother, what am I to
do?"

He wept aloud, and she wept with him in compassionate sympathy. If
only Paul had been there. She could not find any comforting words to
say to him, she felt so deserving of blame herself, she believed there
was no longer any comfort to be found. Before her eyes stood the _one_
agonising, torturing question: "How is it to end?" engraved in large
letters, like the inscriptions over cemetery gates.

* * * * * * * * * * * * *

Kate took counsel with herself: should she write to her husband
"Come"? Wolfgang was certainly not well again. He did not complain, he
only said he could not sleep at night and that made him so tired. She
did not know whether it was moral suffering that deprived him of his
sleep or physical. She was in great trouble, but she still put off the
letter to her husband. Why should she make him hasten to them, take
that long journey? It would not be of any use. It was still not clear
to her that she wanted him for herself, for her own sake. She even
omitted writing to him for a few days.

Wolfgang lay a great deal on the c