From this day her life went on in an even monotonous tenor. In her home, and around it, was everything that heart could desire in the way of beauty, of rare and costly things. The winter proved to be a hard one, and the old town of Lahnburg lay for months under a mantle of frost and snow. The air was cold, clear and keen; the hills around were white; the river flowed black through a plain of spotless white; the skies overhead were generally of a deep scintillating crystal blue. All the beauty that winter ever has or can have, lay around her, and she could enjoy it by going out into her own garden and grounds. She did not grow happy in the place, nor contented in it, but she grew used to it, and unwilling to move away from it. She grew almost unconsciously to love the deep and profound retirement of it–it was so quiet, so undisturbed, that sometimes she caught herself thinking of ‘After life’s fitful fever,’ and then, with a half-smile, remembering that that applied to death, not life. Very few persons knew of her being there, save her old friend Countess Carla, who had made a pilgrimage from Nassau, and burst upon her one day unexpectedly, and fortunately alone. She came full of wishes of joy, and of eager congratulations. Sara–how, she hardly knew, but by a few words far from explicit–managed to convey to the lively little lady something like the true state of the case. The countess was appalled, her face fell, she could hardly speak. At last: ‘Sara, there was some one else, you mean.’ Sara assented. ‘Was it–do forgive me–but was it Mr. Wellfield?’ ‘Yes,’ replied Sara, with a voice and a face like stone. ‘_Du mein Himmel!_ And–was it from pique that you married Falkenberg?’ ‘It was something like that–and because he made me do it,’ said Sara, the anguish she felt breaking uncontrollably forth in her trembling voice. ‘Don’t let us speak of it. _Perhaps_ it may sometime come right. But meantime, my dear Carla, don’t tell everyone as if it were the most joyful news imaginable.’ ‘What must you have thought when you got my letter?’ exclaimed the countess. The little lady looked thoughtful, but parted from Sara with a tender embrace, and asked if she might come again, ‘quite alone.’ ‘Oh, if you would!’ cried Sara. ‘It would be so kind, and–and I know Rudolf would approve of it.’ ‘Yes, I have little doubt on that point. I believe I may safely say that he has a high opinion of me,’ replied Countess Carla, darting a keen side-glance from under her drooped eyelids at her friend, while she appeared absorbed in fastening her glove. ‘Indeed he has!’ echoed Sara, fervently. ‘Well, we shall be at Trockenau for some little time now, and I will drop you a line to say when I am coming again.’ They parted. Frau von Trockenau shook her head several times as she waited with her servant at the Lahnburg station, for the train to Ems.