The next morning when Lina came to call her young mistress her surprise was great at finding a new inmate in the room, of whose coming no one had been aware. Adele told her the true reason for Frau von Sorr's flight from her husband's roof, and Lina, flattered by the confidence shown her, promised to keep such guard over the fugitive that no one should dream of her whereabouts, while she should daily fare like an honoured guest, without arousing the suspicions of the other servants. She kept her word, which she would have done out of her faithful devotion to Adele alone, even if Frau von Sorr's gentleness and misfortunes had not excited her sympathy and spurred her on to redoubled watchfulness. The scheme was eminently successful. Neither the President nor Heinrich nor any of the other inmates of the house ever suspected that Lucie von Sorr, whose sudden disappearance was the town-talk of M----, was concealed in Adele's room. The President, at the dinner-table, expressed his surprise that so beautiful a woman could have contrived to vanish utterly without a trace. He told how Herr von Sorr had applied to the police for assistance in his search for his wife; that inquiry had been made of all the hack-drivers of the town and the porters at the railway stations. No one could remember having seen the fugitive; an extraordinary fact in view of the lady's remarkable beauty. Herr von Sorr was beside himself, and feared that his wife might have been driven to suicide by the strange reports circulating in the town. Adele listened to all this in silence, and reported it to her friend afterwards. In a few days many visitors made their appearance at the President's, in hopes of learning something satisfactory from Adele, who was well known to be Frau von Sorr's nearest friend. Among them were Madame Gansauge and Frau von Rose, the Messrs. von Saldern and von Arnim, Assessor von Hahn, and others, all craving information. Adele listened to all that they had to say, but had nothing to tell them. She could not imagine why her friend had left M---- so suddenly; she could not look upon her disappearance as a flight, and she feigned a fresh interest in every repetition of the reports circulating in M----. It was positively certain, the wife of Major Gansauge asserted, that Frau von Sorr had destroyed herself,--a peasant had seen her at five o'clock in the morning near the Marble Gate, close by the large pond. The body had not yet been found, but doubtless would be shortly. Count Repuin was quite inconsolable, far more so than Herr von Sorr, who bore his trial with more equanimity.