Once more her affection for the factory, which she supposed on the day of her shame and humiliation had received its death-blow, awoke within her with a tender sadness, like the trembling hope of spring in our souls when the February snows begin to melt. This had certainly not been the object of Dr. Salmoni's loan of books. Nevertheless, they discharged their mission admirably in another direction. The dull gnawing "toothache" became a raging torment. The wish for a man--any man but Richard--who would understand and sweep her along with him, this wish possessed her with such overmastering force that she had scarcely strength left to writhe under its lash. Surely somewhere the _one_, the only one, existed? Surely some kind wave of this human ocean would one day wash him to her feet? One evening she dressed herself in quiet dark clothes, as much like a dressmaker's apprentice as possible, and slipped out into the street, as she had been in the habit of doing when Richard's warehouse drew her towards it with a thousand magnetic threads. She had no talent for taking walks without knowing where she was going. So, obedient to the dictates of her reawakened infatuation, she found herself treading the familiar way to the Alte Jakobstrasse. After outman[oe]uvring the advances of two old dandies and an impertinent counter-jumper, she halted opposite the latticed gates of the pillared entrance. She crouched for a long time in her sheltering doorway on the other side of the street, and stared at the building with which her fate had so indissolubly associated her. To-night, too, there were lights burning in his mother's apartments. Two jets of the chandelier threw out a steady flame like her cold clear eyes; the others were not lit, probably from motives of economy. All that was to be seen of the factory itself was the top of its huge chimney towering above the roof of the dwelling-house. A grim greeting, yet a greeting of some sort. Gladly would she have renewed acquaintance with the dear, forbidden, laurel-flanked stairs, but she had no longer sufficient courage at her command to cross the street. Then, feeling as if she had performed some virtuous deed, she turned to go home. She repeated the pilgrimage on three lonely evenings during the course of the week, and began to regard these aimless rambles as a necessity of existence. It happened once, when she was taking up her position in the protecting darkness of her favourite doorway, that a gentleman of elegant appearance and slender figure, who had come from the same direction, paused and took off his hat. She recognised Dr. Salmoni. So horrified was she that she forgot to acknowledge his greeting. If he were to betray her to Richard, she was doomed. He would imagine that jealousy or something worse drew her to shadow his house.