Oh, how quickly the time flew. It had quite lately been evening--midnight--and now the clock on the mantel-piece already struck a short, clear, hard one. The lonely woman pressed her hands to her temples with a shudder. How they throbbed, and how her thoughts--torturing thoughts--hurried along, madly, restlessly, like the hasty tick of the clocks. Everybody in the house was asleep--the manservant, the maids, her husband too--long ago. Only she, she alone had not found any sleep as yet. And everything was asleep outside as well. The pines stood around the house motionless, and their dark outlines, as stiff as though cut out of cardboard, stood out clearly against the silvery sky of night. No shouts, no footsteps, no sound of wheels, no singing, no laughter, not even a dog's bark came from the sleeping colony in the Grunewald. But something that sounded like a gentle sighing was heard around the white villa with the red roof and the green shutters. The mother, who was waiting for her son, listened: was anybody there? No, it was the breeze that was trying to move the branches of the old gnarled pines. Kate Schlieben was standing at the window now. She had torn it open impatiently some time before, and now she leant out of it. As far as her eye could reach there was nobody to be seen, nobody whatever. There was still no sign of him. The clock struck two. The woman gazed round at the mantel-piece with an almost desperate look: oh, that unbearable clock, how it tortured her. It must be wrong. It could not be so late. Kate had sat up waiting for Wolfgang many an evening, but he had never remained out so long as to-day. Paul had no objection to the boy going his own way. "My child," he had said, "you can't alter it. Lie down and go to sleep, that is much more sensible. The boy has the key, he will come home all right. You can't keep a young fellow of his age in leading-strings any longer. Leave him, or you'll make him dislike our house--do leave him in peace." What strange thoughts Paul had. He was certainly quite right, she must not keep the boy in leading-strings any longer. She was not able to do so either--had never been able to do so. But how could she go to bed quietly? She would not be able to sleep. Where could he be? Kate had grown grey. In the three years that had elapsed since her son's confirmation she had changed considerably outwardly. Whilst Wolfgang had grown taller and stronger and broader like a young tree, her figure had drooped like a flower that is heavy with rain or is about to wither. Her fine features had remained the same, but her skin, which had retained almost the delicate smoothness of a young girl's for so long, had become looser; her eyes looked as if she had wept a great deal. Her acquaintances found Frau Schlieben had grown much older.