She would not admit to herself that he lacked interest in everything save what was superficial, and after he had left her in the evening she made every effort to banish the feeling of discontent that assailed her. She sought refuge more and more continually at her writing-table. The impression produced upon her imagination by Tannhagen at her first visit had not faded. She still in fancy saw the old house peopled with shapes upon whom, involuntarily, she bestowed the very life of her life, whom she caused to ask and answer, to love, to suffer, to hope, and to grieve, according to her own mood. And each of these phantoms had an individual existence, to which she felt forced--she knew not why--to give expression in words. She did it with mingled delight and pain. Form and colour would sometimes elude her, or the shape which she had thought stable would fade and vanish, while at other times, without the slightest effort on her part, her brain would be crowded with clear and lovely images, whose very being she could understand and interpret. What would come of all this she never asked herself. She believed that in writing she was but obeying an impulse to reveal herself absolutely to Otto. She called these outpourings of her very self 'apocryphal love-letters,' and she wrote herself to rest, as some sing themselves to sleep. * * * * * Thus the winter passed. It was unusually stormy and severe, even for these mountains. All the more welcome to Johanna were the first spring breezes, the coming of the first birds of passage, and the bursting of the sheaths of the first blossoms. Her rides and walks with her grandfather were not long enough. Elinor was saddled for her in the early morning, and it was sometimes hard to turn back in time for breakfast. One morning she had started earlier than usual. The eager March air and the sunshine blended harmoniously. A lark poured his 'full heart' 'from heaven or near it.' With Leo barking about her, she turned her mare into the woodland path leading to the 'Forest Hermitage.' It was long since she had seen her protégés. The Freiherr had not forbidden her to visit them, but it vexed him to hear them mentioned. Therefore, when she crossed the forest path upon her road home from Tannhagen with her grandfather, she did not venture to turn into it. She learned from Otto, who now and then brought her a greeting from Christine, that the couple were content and happy, and she should be glad to hear this from Christine herself. But she found an invalid. An old woman opened the door for her, with a curtsey. The young wife lay on the sofa, propped with pillows, her face pale and wan, her eyes dim, and the hand she held out to Johanna burned with fever. "Christine, what has been the matter?" Johanna exclaimed, in dismay. "When Herr Otto saw you a week ago he brought me such good news of you!"