He got off his horse, tied the bridle to the sunk fence over which sunflowers poked their round faces, like night-capped women giving a sleepy and sulky greeting. He stretched his limbs with a groan, for they had become damp and stiff from riding through the mist. He regarded the excitement of the last few hours almost in the light of a blessing, for it had taken his mind off the one eternal thought that had tormented it for weeks. Now, of a sudden, it came back and then was gone again, like an arrow whizzing past the ear as a reminder from a hidden enemy. "When once I have found her," he thought, "I don't mind what I go through into the bargain." He would never have thought it possible that the strange young creature, whose stony defiance and noisy, boisterous tricks had alternately annoyed and amused him, could have become so dear to his heart. He walked with stiff legs in high riding-boots along the dark wooden palings to the front door, on the stone threshold of which the dog, stretched on all fours, was howling and scratching as if he wanted to bore his way inside like a mole. The low door yielded to a push. He stumbled down into a dark vestibule, but through the door beyond a fire flickered brightly on the open hearth, and, lifting his eyes, he beheld the lost girl standing before him illuminated by the flames. She wore a short red gathered peasant's skirt, from beneath which her naked feet shone forth. She held a coarse woollen crossover with her thin brown arms tightly round her bosom. The short sleeves of a rough, yellowish linen chemise of the kind that peasants spin themselves showed under it. She stared aghast at the intruder, her face deadly pale. The dog sprang up on her with a yelp of pleasure, but she did not touch him. "My dear, dear child," cried Leo, stretching his hands out to her in unfeigned gladness, "I have found you. Thank God--found you." The blood came rushing back into her cheeks, and she cast down her eyes, but made no sign of taking the hands held out to her. Then she said in a low voice, without lifting her eyes from the floor-- "Will you be so kind. Uncle Leo, as to tell the dog to be quiet. The woman here is ill, and her husband is gone to Münsterberg for the doctor." A motion of his foot sent the dog into a corner. "But how about you, my child?" he exclaimed, "you don't speak of yourself." She had been quite prepared for a scolding, and was not sure in what tone she should answer this overwhelming friendliness. A wavering smile, alike defiant and pained, played about the corners of her mouth. "Well, you see what I am doing," she said, evading his glance. "I am here brewing elder tea for the sick woman." A kettle stood on the tripod near her on the hearth, licked by the ruddy flames. "And what have you got on?" he asked. She stepped quickly out of the circuit of light cast by the fire, and drew the shawl, with her left hand, closer round her throat.