She had begun to undo her hair before the mirror, and now started on hearing a pitiful moan. Erna was sitting in a low chair by her own bedside, both hands pressed to her face. The slender frame seemed shaken as though by a fit of ague, the gentle bosom rose and fell feverishly, and her breath came and went with difficulty, as if she were moaning. Her friend was now kneeling by her side, and held her clasped with both arms; her head fell on Agatha's shoulder, and at last the long-repressed tears welled forth in a violent flood. She was weeping as though her very heart must break. "My poor, poor Erna! My own sweet love! Weep, weep away! Better this, better far than that awful unnatural mirth of yours all day. You will come round now. You will be again my own sensible Erna. Poor, unhappy, darling child! All things will come right now. It is impossible for any one not to love you, and, believe me, he, too, loves you still." "I would not have his love. I am no longer thinking of him. I hate, I loathe him!" "Then why should you weep like this?" Erna started to her feet, flinging off Agatha's protecting arm. "Do you think I weep for him?" She was pacing up and down the bed-chamber. Her long hair, which she had previously undone, fell in dark masses over her neck and bosom; her face was aglow, her eyes were flashing wildly. "For him? Never say that again! For him, forsooth! I have wept for very shame, because that woman dares to come before me, and I must bear it! because I cannot step up to her and hurl defiance at her painted face: Away from this house--honest people live here! Even audacity should have its bounds, and hers is boundless!" Agatha had now risen from her knees, and was sitting in her chair casting looks of pain at Erna and waiting in patience, until at least the first tempest of wrath should have passed. "I am sure," she said at last, "that he does not even know that she is here, and--you are sure, too." "And were it so," cried Erna, "what does it alter? The sting lies in her daring to do it at all. She would not do so, did she not know from the beginning how he will take it. Perhaps he will be terrified just at first--I dare say he will--and then he will thank her for having had the base courage to help him to achieve this vile triumph. In fact, they are a worthy couple!" "It would be quite too terrible," said Agatha, shaking her head. "People cannot be as bad as that; it is impossible." "Oh, of course!" cried Erna scornfully; "quite impossible; as impossible as that he will himself be here to-morrow." "But, Erna, an officer is surely bound to go to any place to which he is ordered. In such a case he has no will of his own."