The whole was an interior commonly enough seen in European capitals, but something quite unheard of here in the remote "Hinterwald." "He spoils you far too much," he said, with a kind of paternal smile, shaking his finger at her. "His kindness weighs me to the earth," she replied, pressing her milk-white face against the cushions. Again he looked at his watch. "Time is up," he said; "we mustn't keep him waiting for nothing." She lifted her hands in entreaty. "Five minutes more!" she begged. "Why?" "I am so afraid." "Of _him_?" She was silent. "Don't be a coward, Lizzie!" he exhorted her. "And it is so peaceful here, so harmonious. It's like being in a great wide forest. One dares at last breathe freely." "Breathe away, then, and have done with it. One--two--and three," he counted, with the handle of the door in his hand. Then he tore open the folding-doors. The clear, hot light of the garden salon cut into the blue, heavy gloaming. "For God's sake ... wait!" she cried; "what are we going to say to him?" "What our hearts dictate," he answered, holding himself erect, as one delivered from bondage. She peeped shyly through the crack of the door, but at the same moment the door opposite opened, behind which Ulrich had been waiting the result of their interview. Unhesitatingly she rushed, with an exclamation of affection, into her husband's arms. Two hours later the three sat together in the lamplight at the tea-table, happy in a feeling of possessing each other again. Before supper Leo had been shown round the stables, had learned much, and wondered more; but now agriculture was forgotten, and friendship enjoyed its own. Ulrich was talkative and fluent; his joy buoyed him up. He could not value and appreciate the wife enough who that day had laid at his feet an almost superhuman testimony of her love. Every caressing look he cast at her, every lapse into thought, was a secret apology for having ever dared to think himself unhappy at her side. She, for her part, treated him with such humble gentleness, was so attentive to his wishes, and looked up to him so full of admiration, that Leo was charmed with her conduct as he watched her, and could scarcely refrain from rubbing his hands under the table, repeating to himself over and over again-- "This is my doing. He owes his happiness to _me_."