With rancour in her heart she left the land of miracles and of petty fraud. She visited her nephews, the brothers Stojenthin, in Berlin. They were charmed at her coming, and borrowed a thousand marks of her over the oysters and champagne. Then she proceeded to Stargard, to be with her sisters Hilde Stojenthin and Else von Febronius. She was vastly amused at the middle-class ladies in Stargard, who curtsied to her as to a queen. At their teas she lorded it over them from the heights of a sofa covered with dotted calico. She entertained her devoutly attentive audience with stories of the great world. At times these anecdotes were of such a character that the judge’s widow had to administer a warning pinch to the arm of her noble sister. Frau von Febronius had been ailing since the beginning of winter. Careless exposure on a sleigh drive had brought on an attack of pneumonia. The consequences threatened to be grave. The countess, who not only feared illness for herself but hated it in others, grew restive and talked of leaving. “When my dear husband saw his end approaching, he sent me to Mentone,” she told Fräulein Stöhr. “Stupid and devoid of understanding as he was--though not more so than most men--in this respect he showed a praiseworthy delicacy of feeling. I was simply not made to bear the sight of suffering. Charity is not among my gifts.” Fräulein Stöhr assumed a pastoral expression and cast her eyes to heaven. She knew her mistress sufficiently to realize that the anecdote of the dying count and the expedition to Mentone was a product of the imagination. She said: “Man should prepare himself in time for his latter end, Madame.” The countess was indignant. “My dear Stöhr, spare me your spiritual wisdom! It suits only times of trouble. Pastoral consolations are not to my taste. It is not your proper task to preach truths to me, but to offer me agreeable illusions.” One evening Frau von Febronius asked to see the countess. The latter went. But terror made her pale. She put on a hat, swathed her face in a veil and her hands in gloves. Sighing she sat down beside her sister’s bed, and carefully measured the distance, so as to be out of reach of the patient’s breath. Frau von Febronius smiled indulgently. Her illness had smoothed the lines of petty care and sorrow from her face, and, among her white pillows, she looked strikingly like her daughter Letitia. “I’m sorry to trouble you, Marion,” she began, “but I must talk to you. There’s something that weighs on my mind, and I must confide in some one. The fact in question should be told to one who knows me, and should not be buried with me.”