Effi assented.  “Yes, mama, and how sad that it should be so.  But when all the terrible things happened, and finally the scene with Annie—­you know what I mean—­I turned the tables on him, mentally, if I may use the ridiculous comparison, and came to believe seriously that he was to blame, because he was prosaic and calculating, and toward the end cruel.  Then curses upon him crossed my lips.”

“Does that trouble you now?”

“Yes.  And I am anxious that he shall know how, during my days of illness here, which have been almost my happiest, how it has become clear to my mind that he was right in his every act.  In the affair with poor Crampas—­well, after all, what else could he have done?  Then the act by which he wounded me most deeply, the teaching of my own child to shun me, even in that he was right, hard and painful as it is for me to admit it.  Let him know that I died in this conviction.  It will comfort and console him, and may reconcile him.  He has much that is good in his nature and was as noble as anybody can be who is not truly in love.”

Mrs. von Briest saw that Effi was exhausted and seemed to be either sleeping or about to go to sleep.  She rose quietly from her chair and went out.  Hardly had she gone when Effi also got up, and sat at the open window to breathe in the cool night air once more.  The stars glittered and not a leaf stirred in the park.  But the longer she listened the more plainly she again heard something like soft rain falling on the plane trees.  A feeling of liberation came over her.  “Rest, rest.”

* * * * *

It was a month later and September was drawing to an end.  The weather was beautiful, but the foliage in the park began to show a great deal of read and yellow and since the equinox, which had brought three stormy days, the leaves lay scattered in every direction.  In the circular plot a slight change had been made.  The sundial was gone and in the place where it had stood there lay since yesterday a white marble slab with nothing on it but “Effi Briest” and a cross beneath.  This had been Em’s last request.  “I should like to have back my old name on my stone; I brought no honor to the other.”  This had been promised her.

The marble slab had arrived and been placed in position yesterday, and Briest and his wife were sitting in view of it, looking at it and the heliotrope, which had been spared, and which now bordered the stone.  Rollo lay beside them with his head on his paws.

Wilke, whose spats were growing wider and wider, brought the breakfast and the mail, and old Mr. von Briest said:  “Wilke, order the little carriage.  I am going to drive across the country with my wife.”

Mrs. von Briest had meanwhile poured the coffee and was looking at the circle and its flower bed.  “See, Briest, Rollo is lying by the stone again.  He is really taking it harder than we.  He wont eat any more, either.”