She began to laugh again--not that old silly childlike laughter which till recently had dominated her frivolous nature. No, it was a mocking exultant laughter, the laughter of a hunted thief when, behind the back of his pursuer, he drags his hard-won booty into a place of safety. There was a feeling of justification in it too. "I am only doing what my destiny ordains," she would tell herself. "I am coming into the heritage promised me by fate, that the old man has cheated me of for so long." There was something more that scored over everything, and almost gave a sanctity and purity to this arrant deception, and this was the reflection that their intercourse meant salvation to him. He would learn to despise vulgar and shameful intrigues under the spell of this elevating passion, and on the wings of a woman's redeeming love he would rise into the pure ether where the spirits of great men and heroes dwell. She drugged her conscience ever anew with these delusions, and when he lay in her arms at their secret rendezvous, gave expression to them in a whisper, for walls were thin, and it was as well not to speak too loud. He laughed and kissed the words from her lips, and when she grew uneasy and begged for pledges of constancy, he swore by all his stars to be true. * * * * * Fraeulein von Schwertfeger's visits to Lilly's room now never lasted later than eleven. At about this hour he was permitted to come; at half-past one he had to be gone. Of course, this was only on nights when the colonel went to town. The train service made it impossible for him to return before two, and, besides, the clatter of approaching carriage wheels could be heard as a warning on the courtyard paving-stones. Before his departure Walter had to smoke a cigarette to clear the room of the odour which he brought with him of stable and leather. For sometimes the colonel, if wine made him talkative, would look in on Lilly as he went to bed, and even come and sit by her for a little, regaling her with the latest "good stories" from Berlin, that he had heard in the Casino. She for her part pretended to be very sleepy, would yawn and purr like a kitten, and often in confidence of safety actually fall asleep in the middle of a laugh. If only there had been no Fraeulein von Schwertfeger! Not that she had noticed anything--the terrors of such a contingency were not to be contemplated. But her restless comings and goings, the almost nervous eagerness with which she spied round her, gave quite enough food for anxiety. She began to look haggard and pale, only the flesh round her mouth, like her sharp-tipped nose, was a deep red. It looked almost as if she drank, but if she did it was in secret, for at table she hardly touched wine. "I don't mind what she does," thought Lilly, "as long as she doesn't play the spy on me as she did on Kaete."