Well, then, dearest, most charming of women, farewell. It was _very_ delightful. I can swear to that without perjuring myself. Should you require pledges for the future, I can further swear that: 1, I will shun alcohol; 2, I will declare war upon the female sex; 3, I will devote myself to the encyclopedia of agriculture with inordinate, unalterable love. Ha, do you smell the rarified atmosphere? Once more, farewell. After I have climbed the ladder of my hopes for the last time, I will lay it to repose under a wintry grave of pine branches. When the time comes, may it awaken to a new spring. With a kiss on your slim, refreshingly large hand, Your much improved, Walter von Prell." Lilly found this letter the second morning after the great event in the shape of a pellet stuck into the mouth of the pea-shooter, which leaned innocently against the jamb of the balcony door. It did not provide her with unqualified satisfaction. There were turns of expression in it which raised doubts as to the sincerity of his conversion. Nevertheless, his asseverations were so plain and unmistakable she felt she might take the core to be sound. It was simply that he could not refrain from his wanton way of speaking, which the person who loved him would have to acquiesce in. She kissed the letter and stuck it in her bosom, to lie there warm and secure awhile before she tore it up. In the afternoon she took a walk about the grounds, and actually found under her balcony a long heap of pine branches from between which a few ladder rungs peeped at her familiarly. Rejoiced at this token of his pain she ran off to the park, now soggy from the autumn rains, and sauntered about, marvelling from time to time that renunciation was so easy. After all it was not so easy. She discovered it was not in the course of the next few days, when life began to lose its content and intensity, when the hours jogged along in dreary autumnal greyness, and the evening came and the morning came without a reason why. Moreover, she failed to find that support in Anna von Schwertfeger which she had expected to. Although her friend withdrew none of the promises she had made, yet a shadowy wall circumscribed her, which no insinuating love could penetrate. She seemed almost to fear that too great familiarity with Lilly would bring down upon her own head the sin of the adulteress. Lilly had much to suffer from the colonel these days. She, like the rest, now fell a victim to his attacks of fury. And what was worse, in moments of quiet self-abandon, she would suddenly feel his dark, lowering look fastened upon her, betokening many a thought in his mind which boded her no good. She began to fear he had gotten wind of her affair with Von Prell; but Anna pooh-poohed the idea.