Felicitas was busy packing the boxes, which, to make sure of their arriving in time from Münsterberg, were to be sent off by the night train. Her sleeves were turned up above her rosy elbows, and she had put on a large blue cotton apron. She was radiant with excitement, and delighting in her task. She knelt on the carpet amongst the boxes, arranged the soldiers in order of battle, gave a punchinello a kiss on the beard, for the dear child who was to possess him, and watched with laughing amusement a balloon rise in the air with a tiny trapeze attached to it on which a toy acrobat performed his antics. Apparently she was absorbed in what she was doing, but from time to time, Minna, who was helping her, observed that she would let her active hands fall suddenly in her lap and turn her eyes to the window with wistful longing. "You are expecting some one, gracious little madame," she inquired at length. The wizened, yellow face bristled with curiosity. Felicitas sighed and shook her head. Three days had gone by since that night on the ferry, and Leo had not yet put in an appearance. "That is the way of gentlemen," the old sewing-woman philosophised; "they promise to come and don't." Felicitas had told her nothing of her meeting with Leo, but since the old woman had seen her return that night with suspiciously sparkling eyes, she had put two and two together. Towards four o'clock the house bell clanged. Felicitas made a bound towards the door. "Now stay where you are, gracious madame," said the old hag. "It will be much better not to jump down his throat, directly he does come." And she hobbled off coughing to receive the visitor. But Felicitas ran into the garden-salon and laid her ear on the key-hole. As she recognised the man's voice speaking in the hall, she put her hand on her heart and threw herself into an armchair with a deep sigh. The old woman came back leaving the door half open behind her, and said, with the same assumed expression of vacancy with which she had probably received Leo-- "The Herr von Sellenthin is there, but I have said that madame is engaged----" She broke off, for there he stood. He had pushed the old creature aside, and rushed in. "At last! At last!" she said, as she calmly offered him her hand with a melancholy smile. "Yes, at last," he repeated with a hard brusque laugh, the sound of which from him was strange to her. At a first glance she saw a change in him. His eyes rolled restlessly, and his forehead was deeply marked with lines of anger. Her conscience was never quite serene, even when she was not aware of having erred afresh, so she asked, stammering-- "Have I done anything to offend you again, so soon?" "Oh no, certainly not," he retorted, and leaned back for a moment against the wall, screwing up his eyes. Then he asked when Ulrich was coming, and watched greedily for her answer.