His lukewarm interest had tempted her from a free, gay life, full of constant excitement, into the oppressive, wearisome monotony of this quiet house, where she was dying of ennui.  How narrow, how petty, how tiresome everything seemed, and what she had bartered for it was the world, the whole wide, wide world.  As the chicken lured the fox, the hope of satisfying the fervent longing of her heart, though even once and for a few brief moments, had brought her into the snare.  But the fire which burned within had not been extinguished.  An icy wind had fanned the flames till they blazed higher and higher, threatening her destruction.

Frau Schurstab had made her attend church and go to the confessional.  But the mass, whose meaning she did not understand, offered no solace to the soul which yearned for love alone.  Besides, it wearied her to remain so long in the same place, and the confession forced the girl, who had never shrunk from honestly expressing what she felt, into deception.  The priest to whom she was taken was a frequent visitor at the Schurstab house, and she would have died ere she would have confided to him the secret of her heart.  Besides, to her the feeling which animated her was no sin.  She had not summoned it.  It had taken possession of her against her will and harmed no one except herself, not even the wife who was so sure of her husband.  How could she have presumed to dispute with her the possession of Herr Lienhard’s love?  Yet it seemed an insult that Frau Katharina had no fear that she could menace her happiness.  Could the former know that Kuni would have been content with so little—­a tender impulse of his heart, a kiss, a hasty embrace?  That would do the other no injury.  In the circles whence she had been brought no one grudged another such things.  How little, she thought, would have been taken from the wealthy Katharina by the trifling gift which would have restored to her happiness and peace.  The fact that Lienhard, though he never failed to notice her, would not understand, and always maintained the same pleasant, aristocratic reserve of manner, she sometimes attributed to fear, sometimes to cruelty, sometimes to arrogance; she would not believe that he saw in her only a person otherwise indifferent to him, whom he wished to accustom to the mode of life which he and his friends believed to be the right path, pleasing in the sight of God.  Love, feminine vanity, the need of approval, her own pride—­all opposed this view.

When the last snow of winter had melted, and the spring sunshine of April was unfolding the green leafage and opening bright flowers in the meadows, the hedges, the woods, and the gardens, she found the new home which she had entered during the frosts of February, and whose solid walls excluded every breath of air, more and more unendurable.  A gnawing feeling of homesickness for the free out-of-door life, the wandering from place to place, the careless, untrammelled people to whom she belonged, took possession of her.  She felt as though everything which surrounded her was too small, the house, the apartments, her own chamber, nay, her very clothing.  Only the hope of the first token that Lienhard was not so cold and unconquerable as he seemed, that she would at last constrain him to pass the barrier which separated them, still detained her.