In the afternoon she went for a stroll round the castle, and found under the balcony a heap of fir-branches freshly gathered, out of which a rung or two of the buried ladder greeted her confidentially. Pleased at this tender evidence of his pain at parting from her, she ran on to the boggy outskirts of the park, and marvelled every now and then at the easiness of renunciation. Yet it proved not so easy after all. She began to discover this during the next few days of reaction, when life seemed hollow and barren of excitement, when the sad grey autumn hours passed drearily and evening came, followed by morning, apparently without rhyme or reason. She did not did in Anna von Schwertfeger's society the solace and support she had hoped for. Although her friend did not withdraw her promises, she remained behind a wall of reserve, which made any close and loving intimacy out of the question. It almost seemed as if she was afraid of being implicated in the sinner's guilt, if she encouraged Lilly's advances. At this time Lilly had to put up with a great deal from the colonel. His outbursts of ungovernable fury now fell on her, as on the rest of the household. But what she dreaded more was the gloomy, threatening glance he fixed on her at moments when she sat indulging in quiet introspection; she felt instinctively that something was in his mind that boded her no good. She began even to fear that he had got wind of her affair with Prell. But Fraeulein von Schwertfeger would not hear of such a thing. "If that were so," she said, "he would adopt a rather different procedure. Broken chairs and smashed lamps would be the consequence of his first-awakened suspicion. I think the matter stands thus: he is bored to extinction at home, he is hankering for the regiment, and he holds you, child responsible for the change in his manner of living. God forbid that he gets to hate you for it, otherwise, as far as I can see, you will have no choice but to get a separation--or commit suicide." All this was not very consoling. No less discouraging was his persistent refusal to introduce her to his neighbours. Anna assured him Lilly's education was long ago complete, and no colonel's dame could find anything amiss in her manners. Yet he looked at her in distrust, and put off the visits week after week.