As she drives through the Prater street she wishes that she might feel something--grief--horror--but she can not. She has but one thought, one desire--to be at home, in safety. All else is indifferent to her. When she had decided to leave him alone, dead, by the roadside--in that moment everything seemed to have died within her, everything that would mourn and grieve for him. She has no feeling but that of fear for herself. She is not heartless--she knows that the day will come when her sorrow will be despair--it may kill her even. But she knows nothing now, except the desire to sit quietly at home, at the supper table with her husband and child. She looks out through the cab window. She is driving through the streets of the inner city. It is brilliantly light here, and many people hurry past. Suddenly all that she has experienced in the last few hours seems not to be true, it is like an evil dream; not something real, irreparable. She stops her cab in one of the side streets of the Ring, gets out, turns a corner quickly, and takes another carriage, giving her own address this time. She does not seem able to think of anything any more. “Where is he now?” She closes her eyes and sees him on the litter, in the ambulance. Suddenly she feels that he is here beside her. The cab sways, she feels the terror of being thrown out again, and she screams aloud. The cab halts before the door of her home. She dismounts hastily, hurries with light steps through the house door, unseen by the concierge, runs up the stairs, opens her apartment door very gently, and slips unseen into her own room. She undresses hastily, hiding the mud-stained clothes in her cupboard. To-morrow, when they are dry, she can clean them herself. She washes hands and face, and slips into a loose housegown. The bell rings. She hears the maid open the door, she hears her husband’s voice, and the rattle of his cane on the hat-stand. She feels she must be brave now or it will all have been in vain. She hurries to the dining-room, entering one door as her husband comes in at the other. “Ah, you’re home already?” he asks. “Why, yes,” she replies, “I have been home some time.” “They evidently didn’t hear you come in.” She smiles without effort. But it fatigues her horribly to have to smile. He kisses her forehead. The little boy is already at his place by the table. He has been waiting some time, and has fallen asleep, his head resting on an open book. She sits down beside him; her husband takes his chair opposite, takes up a paper, and glances carelessly at it. Then he says: “The others are still talking away there.” “What about?” she asks.