"You are always asking what I thought," he answered, while visions of that hour mounted to his brain and made him hot "I rode on and on, as if I were drunk. Every moment I expected to fall out of the saddle. And when I came to my own meadows, I drew in the roan. You remember it was the old roan then, with the white feet. I tethered him to a meadow-hurdle, and flung myself on the grass. It must have been nearly two o'clock, but it was a very close, sultry night; just a streak of red dawn was already in the sky. There I lay, asking myself, 'Is it possible? Can you really have experienced it? Are there such hours to be lived on earth?' And the roan grazed all the time, and round about was the new-mown hay. That got into one's senses, ay, it was enough to drive one mad...." A soft cry escaped her lips. She had thrown her head back over the side of the chair, the blue veins stood out on her throat, her breast heaved tumultuously, and, with both hands pressed to her heart, she lay gasping for breath. "What is the matter with you?" he asked, in much concern, for he feared a repetition of that scene. "Nothing--nothing. It is only my stupid heart, nothing else." "Can't I get you anything?" "Thank you. It will soon be better ... it is better now." She sat up, and, as if to allay his fears, smiled mechanically into vacancy. Then she began to talk to herself, as if in a dream. "And I ... I see it all before me still.... When you were gone ... I went to the window ... and listened ... to your footsteps in the garden; the horse neighed from the hedge ... it saw you coming ... and then there was a sound of hoofs, echoing softly ... and then all was quiet." "And you had no qualms of conscience?" She shook her head with a blissful smile, setting the waves and curls of her hair in motion so that they whipped her over cheek and throat. Then, recollecting how serious this question was, she knitted her brows and grasped her temples with both hands. "In those days," she said dully, "I had no notion of what conscience meant; in those days I let my sinful happiness carry me along joyously to the edge of an abyss without reflecting. That night, in my ecstasy, I tore my clothes from my body...." Suddenly she paused, shocked at herself. Her fingers, which had been fumbling at her throat, had caught in the cloud of lace. With a thin, long-drawn, tearing sound some thread of the delicate fabric collapsed. She smiled at him in dismay. Then she quickly turned the situation off with a jest. "That is a pity," she said. "It is real old Flemish." Daintily she knotted the ends together again. "Is that all right?" she asked. He did not answer.