Involuntarily she looked first for Otto's letter. Her heart had not yet forgotten to beat faster at the sight of his handwriting. But the more she read of it, the more it dulled her, and at its conclusion she laid it aside with a sensation of disgust. Did he think to lure her back thus? Did he know her so little? Had he so entirely lost all feeling of self-respect? One honest word from him, and all might have been well. Without implicating Magelone, he might have said to the Freiherr, 'I have wronged Johanna; forgive me if she forgives.' Had she hoped for this? Had she for an instant thought this solution possible? No, oh, no! Had she not written both to him and to Aunt Thekla--had she not repeated--did she not feel with every throb of her heart--that all was over between Otto and herself? And this must be written to her grandfather. Otto had with great skill used her hint as to making her relations with these people the reason for their separation. Half the work was done; why should she delay to do the rest? At first she found an explanation for this in her exertions as a nurse, which were unremitting. But when, at her earnest entreaty, Lisbeth was removed from the first story of the noisy hotel, where Batti had established himself, to a quiet back room in the third story, she daily grew better, and Johanna could no longer make her care the pretext for delay. And, like all who earnestly strive after it, she, too, found 'the bitter word of liberating truth.' She pitilessly insisted to herself upon the fact that in his cool attempt at a reconciliation Otto's aim had been the preservation of friendly relations between himself and his grandfather, and that she should contribute more to his happiness by vanishing from Dönninghausen for his sake than by paving the way for her justification, and she determined to sacrifice herself. She would not--she could not love him any longer. She persuaded herself that she did not. But she might, without loss of self-respect, take upon herself the consequences of his fault. In this conviction she wrote to her grandfather. When her letter was despatched she sank into a dull apathy. Slowly, monotonously, hour after hour, day after day passed by. Her solitude was but rarely invaded. There was little to be done at present for the child. Helena, who had talked at first about taking her share of the nursing, was soon weary, and Batti was satisfied with asking every morning what kind of a night Lisbeth had passed, and how she was at present. After receiving the usual answer, 'About the same!' and then standing for a while beside the bed looking down at the poor little figure lying motionless with half-closed eyes, he became, Helena declared, so depressed that it needed half a day's distraction to wear off the impression produced upon him by his visit to the sick-room.