An official of the institution bade him hold his infernal noise, and then he led him away to do some easy work. Vreni took her leave sadly and then began to look up her ox cart with the peasant. When she had found it she climbed in and sat down and ate a slice of bread she had brought with her. Then she lay down and fell asleep, and a couple of hours later the peasant came and woke her, and then they drove home to the village. They arrived there in the middle of the night. Vreni went to her father's house, the one where she had been born and had spent all her days. For the first time she was all alone in it. Two days' grace she had to get out and find some other shelter. She made a fire and prepared a cup of coffee for herself, using the last remnants she still had. Then she sat down on the edge of the hearth, and wept bitterly. She was longing with all her soul to see and talk once more to Sali, and she was thinking and thinking of him. But mingling with these desires of hers were her anxieties and her fears of the future. Thus sat the poor thing, holding her head in her hand, when somebody entered at the door. "Sali!" cried Vreni, when she looked up and saw the face dearest to her in the world. And she fell on his neck, but then they both looked at one another, and they shouted: "How poorly you look!" For Sali was as pale and sorrowful as the girl herself. Forgetting everything she drew him to her on the hearth, and questioned him: "Have you been ill, or have you also fared badly?" "No, not ill," said Sali, "but longing for you. At home things are going fine. My father now has rare guests, and as I believe, he has become a receiver of stolen goods. And that is why there are big doings at our place, both day and night, until, I suppose, there will come a bad end to it all. Mother is helping along, eager to have guests of any kind at all, guests that fetch money into the house, and she tries to bring some order out of all this disorder, and also to make it profitable. I am not questioned about the matter at all, neither do I care. For I have only been thinking of you all along. Since all sorts of vagrants come and go in our place, we have heard of everything concerning you, and my father is beside himself with joy, and that your father has been taken to-day to the asylum has delighted him immensely. Since he has now left you I have come, thinking you might be lonesome, and maybe in trouble." Then Vreni told him all her sorrows in detail, but she did this with such fluency and described the intimate details in such an almost happy tone of voice as if what she was saying did not disturb her in the least. All this because the presence of her lover and his solicitude about her really rendered her happy and minimized her anxieties. She had Sali at her side. And what more did she want? Soon she had a vessel with the steaming coffee which she forced Sali to share with her.