"The symptoms would be rather different," she remarked. "Such a suspicion would not pass without leaving a few broken chairs or lamps behind. My opinion is, he feels bored at home. He's hankering for the regiment, and holds you responsible for the change in his life. I sincerely hope he doesn't come to hate you on that account. In that event only two courses would be open to you: separation or suicide." Here was small comfort. And no less dispiriting was his hesitation to introduce her to the neighbours. Long before, Miss von Schwertfeger had declared Lilly's education complete. No colonel's wife or high-born dame could now find fault with her manners. But the colonel looked at her distrustfully, and deferred the visits from week to week. Lilly kept up bravely in all her tribulations. Faith in herself and, still more, faith in him, gave her peace and strength. She regulated her days strictly according to rule with a fixed occupation for each hour. She learned Goethe's poems by heart, studied Shakespeare in English, read histories of art, and lost herself in the mazes of the French Revolution. She took special delight in a large geographical work, in which there were many pictures of southern ports, tropical forests, and bald, rocky mountain ranges. There were also full illustrations of Italy--pious pilgrims on crusades, enigmatic churches, and slender-columned porticos, which filled her with an ardent longing to be there. When she travelled great distances into strange countries and looked about timidly to find her way back again, whom did she see standing there all of a sudden, blond, freckled, in a black and white checked fall suit, making deep reverences? "As my lady commands." The tears welled up in her eyes. Her one diversion was to stand behind her balcony door--without his knowing she was there, of course--and look over to the lodge through the openings in the vine, the last leaves of which fluttered like little red flags. Oh, she might be proud of him. When he sat at the window in his leisure hours he never let himself be seen without the encyclopedia of agriculture in his hands. He closed his shutters early every evening. In his frivolous days he had hung heavy portières at the windows, which, with the help of the shutters, prevented the tiniest ray of light from penetrating to the outside. Lilly doubted not in the least that his student's lamp burned until late at night, while he sat there over his book copying valuable extracts and soaring on the pinions of great creative ideas. She soared with him. She knew he could not lose his footing now. She had his vow, and he held her honour in his keeping. That would serve as a talisman, a guide on the road leading upward to a new life. A few weeks passed.