Mertzbach." To go or not to go. That night Lilly did not sleep a wink. If only the feeling of dread had not obsessed her, dread which robbed her of breath and the power to defend herself. If the mere thought of him brought it on, what would become of her should she stand before him face to face? She finally decided not to go, while she knew for a certainty she _was_ going. She lived through the day as in a dull dream. In the afternoon she obtained permission from Mrs. Asmussen to attend New Year's eve service. The sisters, who spied upon her every movement, exchanged significant looks, but seemed too preoccupied with their own affairs to give hers their usual sweet attention. Lilly donned the old felt hat which many a storm had buffeted and many a shower discoloured. Her winter coat made her look narrow shouldered, and tug as she would, the sleeves refused to reach her wrists. If she had had her wits about her she would have been much too ashamed to show herself before so aristocratic a gentleman in that garb. But she was driven to her acts by something outside herself, not by her own volition. Strange, mysterious powers seemed to be pushing her, invisible hands to be helping her dress, smoothing her hair lower on her forehead, raising the arch of her brows, and opening the buttons at her throat to give her constricted chest the freedom of its young fullness. They rubbed her cheeks, pale from lack of sleep, until they glowed with a triumphant red. When she reached the street and the frosty breath of the winter evening stroked her gently, she felt she was waking up at last. "Where are you going?" a voice within her asked. "Perhaps to St. Joseph," she answered evasively. But she did not go to St. Joseph. She made a wide détour about St. Anne's, crossed the Altmarkt diagonally, saw the sisters sitting at Frangipani's in the company of two admirers, with difficulty avoided the assiduities of a gallant, and suddenly found herself in front of the latticed gateway behind which, four flights up, the sewing machine had rattled and clattered the last remnant of reason out of her poor, ruined mother's head. Light was shining from the two dormer windows up there where Lilly had once lived. Some one else was probably sitting there now, sewing shirts and drawers and nightgowns, day and night, night and day. Lilly, too, would be sitting there some day, bitterly ruing her lost youth as one regrets an act of criminal folly. "If your future is dear to you," he had written. She faced about abruptly, and ran--ran--ran--without coming to a stop until she reached the lighted house, in front of which a sentinel was pacing and freezing as he kept guard over the highest dignitary in the city. "Where are you going?" the voice within her asked again.