Bertha let her talk and hesitated to interrupt her with a word, as though she were a somnambulist wandering on the ridge of a roof. But while Frau Rupius was speaking of her past, a period through which the blessedness of being loved ever beamed brightly as its chiefest glory, Bertha's soul began to thrill with the hope of a happiness for herself such as she had not yet experienced. And while Frau Rupius was telling of the walking tours through Switzerland and the Tyrol, which she had once undertaken with her husband, Bertha pictured herself wandering by Emil's side on similar paths, and she was filled with such an immense yearning that she would dearly have liked at once to get up, go to Vienna, seek him out, fall into his arms, and at last, at last to taste those delights which had hitherto been denied her. Her thoughts wandered so far that she did not notice that Frau Rupius had long since fallen silent, and was sitting on the sofa, staring at the flowers in the window of the house over the way. The utter stillness brought Bertha back to reality; the whole room seemed to her to be filled with some mysterious atmosphere, in which the past and the future were strangely intermingled. She felt that there existed an incomprehensible connexion between herself and Frau Rupius. She rose to her feet, stretched out her hand, and, as if it were quite a matter of course, the two ladies kissed each other good-bye like a couple of old friends. On reaching the door Bertha remarked: "I am going to Vienna again to-morrow for a few days." She smiled as she spoke, like a girl about to be married. After leaving Frau Rupius, Bertha went to her sister-in-law. Her nephew was already sitting at the piano, improvising in a very wild manner. He pretended not to have noticed her enter, and proceeded to practise his finger exercises, which he played in an attitude of stiffness, assumed for the occasion. "We will play a duet to-day," said Bertha, endeavouring to find the volume of Schubert's marches. She paid not the least attention to her own playing, and hardly noticed how, in using the pedals, her nephew touched her feet. In the meantime Elly came into the room and kissed her aunt. "Ah, just so, I had quite forgotten that!" said Richard, and, whilst continuing to play, he placed his lips close to Bertha's cheek. Her sister-in-law came in with her bunch of keys rattling and a deep dejection on her pale and indistinct features. "I have given Brigitta notice," she said in a feeble tone. "I couldn't endure it any longer." "Shall I get you a maid in Vienna?" asked Bertha with a facility which even surprised her.