There was little time left for visits to Uhlenfelde, and Leo felt happy at having a valid pretext for excusing himself. Yet it seemed to him scarcely right to avoid meeting Felicitas alone. She might ask why he had been untrue to his word? She had a certain claim to his society, and he began, too, to be devoured with a longing to see and converse with her without Ulrich being present. He hoped for a favourable opportunity, such as the last had been, but it did not occur. So he counted, with a beating heart, the hours till he should be certain of Ulrich's absence, and meanwhile he stayed at home. Then came an evening when the representatives of the Agricultural Association were holding their monthly meeting in Münsterberg, and he, no longer able to restrain himself, started with a kind of sad defiance for Uhlenfelde. It was dark when he landed on the opposite bank. The wind was boisterous and cold, and he felt half frozen. Old Minna met him in the vestibule, the factotum of the old love intrigue, whose mediating offices he recalled with a shudder. She explained to him, blinking and nodding, that the gracious little mistress wasn't well; that the gracious little mistress was suffering from cramp of the heart, but, nevertheless, the gracious one would receive him. The familiarity with which the toothless, clapping mouth smirked up at him was revolting, and still more revolting was it that he found himself smiling back at her. But it was necessary to keep on good terms with her. Was she not an accomplice? Shuddering, he hardly knew whether from cold or excitement, he paced up and down between the pillars. It was some time before the old hag returned. The gracious little mistress had been lying down, but begged him to wait a few minutes. She would make her toilette as quickly as possible, that was to say, not completely, because such old friends needn't stand on ceremony with each other. Leo compressed his lips. Had she chosen to be more explicit still, he must have endured it. In Lizzie's sanctum, two lamps with rose-coloured shades were burning. Cushions and rugs were scattered about in confusion on the couch, as if some one had a moment before disturbed them by hastily jumping up. An open book lay face downwards on the carpet. He picked it up. The title was "The Golden Road to Virtue: Experiences of a Sinner." He began to turn over the leaves haphazard. In the highly coloured style of a tract, a newly converted sinner related her marvellous rescue from vice with a sort of coquettish fervour, which made him fancy he saw the play of uplifted eyes with which this drawing-room Magdalene sought to lure the Saviour, like another lover, into her net. But from Leo, the Goth who since his school-days had read the very worst literature, even such trash as this wrung a certain unwilling respect. "She is doing her best according to her lights," he thought, and laid the book down with care. Yes, she was in earnest.