Three faces lengthened in dismay at his words. Even Felicitas grew perceptibly paler. Her eyes, which a moment before had flashed a mocking challenge at him, drooped in veiled supplication. He turned his back on the group, and re-entered the hall, trembling with suppressed emotion. There he spent another miserable two hours, resolving every moment to go home, and yet incapable of tearing himself from the magic spell of her environment. He sat moping in silence behind the broad back of a whist-player, apparently engrossed in watching the game, and only glad that no one disturbed him. When it was almost three o'clock he heard one of the young officers telling a servant to order round the Uhlenfelde sleigh. A swift decision made him spring up, take his leave, and rush to the stables to see that his own horse was put in as speedily as possible. A clear, cold moonlight lay on the white world. There was a filagree of snow crystals shimmering over the surface of the fields as if a crop of diamonds were sprouting from the sleeping soil. Here and there the shadows of the trees dug dark patches in the whiteness. No lights shone from the farmsteads, and the white slanting gables and long lines of walls rose indistinctly against the silvery distance. His roan had fared well as guest in the Stoltenhof stable, and would have started at a brisk trot, only Leo used force to hold him in. The sleigh-bells tinkled lazily through the silence. A consciousness of repose seemed to have descended on the earth; the vast repose of deaths so dreaded by the living, yet exercising so infinite a charm. "What are you about?" he questioned himself. "Why don't you give the horse a touch of the whip instead of pulling him in? Tear home. Don't look round, don't listen." But his eager ear continued on the stretch for sounds piercing the stillness of the night behind him, and from time to time he paused to be certain that his own bells were not swallowing the faint echo of others. He persuaded himself that it was to sit in judgment on her, and to take her to task for her conduct, that he would see her again that night. Yet all the while the miserable conviction was being borne in on him that what he thought was anger was nothing but a longing passionate desire. As he passed the parsonage at Wengern dull resentment took possession of him. "There the old rascal and prophet sleeps the sleep of the just," thought he, "while poor King David is wandering alone through the night." He turned down the slope to the ferry. Here he could wait for Felicitas without exciting notice, for it was only natural, the ferry station being on his estate, that he should linger to see all was in order there. The black surface of the river was shot with silver, and the ripples broke with a crunching grinding sound on the frozen banks. His sleigh-bells brought old Jürgens out of his bunk half asleep, holding a lantern in a tremulous hand.