Ottilie, with a "come in," went towards the door, at which they now heard a knock. Alma leaned back in the sofa corner with her head a little bent, in the act of displaying her white hands to the best possible advantage, when she was startled from her _pose_ by a low exclamation from Ottilie. "Herr Brandow!" "Pardon me, Madam, pardon me, ladies, for presenting myself unannounced in the absence of a servant. I hope you will bear with me a few minutes, and help me to carry out a little joke I want to play upon our friends." He bowed; Ottilie gazed at him in astonishment, even terror. Herr Brandow did not look like a person who is trying to carry out a jest; his face was pale and haggard, his long fair moustache disordered, his dress a strange mixture of evening and riding costume, and splashed with mud to his shoulders. And to come in this plight, at this late hour, to a house where he was a stranger, nay, which had actually been closed against him for years--Ottilie had only one explanation of all this. "Has any misfortune happened?" she exclaimed. "Misfortune," said Brandow; "none that I am aware of; or yes, the misfortune that I have treated my friends a little uncivilly. The rudeness was very slight, but as I, although a sorely tried man, am not accustomed to this kind of misfortune, I could not rest until I had made the attempt to rehabilitate myself in my own eyes, to say nothing of my friends, who have doubtless already forgiven me." "Then they are coming to-night, are they not? I told you so," exclaimed Alma. "Certainly, and they will be here immediately, in--we will say twenty minutes--yes, twenty minutes. They left Dollan at exactly ten minutes of ten; it is now just half-past; with my powerful horses and so good a driver as Hinrich they will not need more than an hour, in spite of the horrible weather; so in twenty minutes, ladies, we shall hear the carriage drive up." Brandow had taken out his watch, and did not turn his eyes from it as he made his calculation. "And you?" asked Alma. "I myself, dear madam, after parting from the gentlemen, with a want of cordiality I sincerely regret, rode away from Dollan precisely at ten, and just twenty-five minutes after had my horse put into the stable of the Fuerstenhof, that is, I was just five times as long in going over the mile and a half from Dollan to the Fuerstenhof, as in walking the five hundred steps from the Fuerstenhof here." "You were twenty-five minutes in coming the same distance that will occupy the others an hour!" cried Alma. "Pardon me; I couldn't go by the same road our friends took across the Dollan moor, or it would have spoiled my surprise. I rode over another that leads through Neuenhof, Lankenitz, Faschwitz, etc. Frau Wollnow doubtless knows the direction--a way quite as long, and certainly as bad, as I unfortunately perceive too late, by the condition of my clothes."