When he wished to come to her side, she waived him back with her shapely hand, nor would she talk to him; when he talked she hardly looked at him; till at last he burst into tears.  For he suffered as one can suffer but once, when the childish penitence is fresh and therefore boundless, and when the yearning for love has received its first rebuff.

But when, on the fifth day, she met him coming up the stairs, she stood still in dismay at his appearance:  pale, thin, timid; the effect perhaps heightened by the loss of his hair.  He, too, stood still, looking forlorn and abject, with disconsolate eyes.  Then hers filled; she stretched out her arms.  He was once more in his Paradise, but they both cried as though they must wade through an ocean of tears before they could talk to each other again.

“Tell me about it now,” she whispered.  This was in her own room.  They had spoken the first fond words and kissed each other over and over again.  “How could this have happened, Rafael?” she whispered again, with her head pressed to his; she did not wish to look at him while she spoke.

“Mother,” he answered, “it is worse to cut down the woods at home, at Hellebergene, than that I—­”

She raised her head and looked at him.  She had taken off her hat and gloves, but now she put them quickly on again.

“Rafael, dear,” she said, “shall we go for a walk together in the park, under the grand old trees?”

She had felt his retort to be ingenious.

After this episode, however, England, and more especially her son’s schoolfellows, became distasteful to her, and she constantly made plans to keep him away from the latter out of school hours.

She found this very easy; sometimes she went over his studies with him, at others they visited all the Manufactories and “Works” for miles round.

She liked to see for herself and awakened the same taste in him.

Factories which, as a rule, were closed to visitors, were readily opened to the pretty elegant lady and her handsome boy, “who after all knew nothing at all about it;” and they were able to see almost all that they wished.  It was a less congenial task to use her influence to turn his thoughts to higher things, but it was rarely, nevertheless, that she failed.  She struggled hard over what she did not understand and sought for help.  To explain these things to Rafael in the most attractive manner possible became a new occupation for her.

His natural disposition inclined him to such studies; but to a boy of thirteen, who was thus kept from his comrades and their sports, it soon became a nuisance.

No sooner had Fru Kaas noticed this than she took active steps.  They left England and crossed to France.