When he had left the entrance hall, she climbed with languid steps to the top story, where from the corner balcony there was a view of the stream. She watched him hurrying thither, with her hands pressed against her forehead, and saw him unmoor the boat from the sandy bank and launch it with a mighty shove, while he jumped in and seized the oars before the fragile craft had time to drift an inch with the current. She took out her handkerchief in order to wave him farewell, but he did not look up, and the white wisp of cambric fluttered unseen in the twilight. The boat became a shadow and disappeared. She shivered and thought of the boy, far away, at the cost of whose banishment she had purchased this hour. Then, listening cautiously at the door, she drew a letter from her pocket, and gazed with emotion at the laboriously penned characters, and read once more the incoherent words which had been distressing her since yesterday:-- "My Dearest Mamma, "I am homesick and how long must I stay here and please tell me if I may come home for Christmas holydays all the other boys are going home for the holydays, but I am not a coward, no I am not a bit a coward, and when they beat me I bite my teeth together, and the banging _does_ hurt.... But if you think I Cry, I don't; no I only Cry when I am alone in the evening after prayers; that does'nt matter does it? And I pray for dear mamma and dear papa, that he may'nt be ill any longer, and I want Fido so dreadfully and how is the little mare I used to ride? You know dear mamma. I do hate being here and want to come home. "It is 87 days to Christmas and I want a stamp-album, and scholar's 'Young Companion,' and a pistol that you shoot not with caps but there's a feather in it like an arrow and the cherry cakes that old Jetta bakes always. And I long to see old Jetta too. With kisses from "Your loving son, "Paulchen." Felicitas crumpled the sheet in her hand in nervous irritation. "My God, my God, how will it end?" she murmured. Then, as if to escape from herself, she ran in from the balcony and paced up and down in the great empty attic. "I can't, I mayn't, I won't think about it!" she cried. "Thousands of children have gone through the same, and outlived it. He will get over it too." She shut the glass door, and, pressing her forehead against the panes, stared at the spot where a few minutes ago the boat had disappeared, and gradually her face cleared and took on an expression of dreamy tenderness. XXIII Hertha had a sharp little nose, and she had made therewith a discovery, a discovery which in happier circumstances would not have signified much, but which in the troubled condition of affairs carried great weight.