If he could only have changed with his wife, who during this time was sitting solitary at home!  The thing for which he longed—­to forget himself—­was the very thing against which she must be on her guard.  What he must do, what he could not avert by any effort, was the thing for which she strove unavailingly—­to remember herself.  All her thoughts spoke to her of Apollonius.  She thought she was avoiding him, and now she saw that he had fled from her.  She ought to be glad, and it hurt her.  Her cheeks burned again.  It was peculiar that she herself regarded her position more sternly or more mildly according to whether Apollonius in her thoughts judged it more sternly or more mildly.  He had become to her the involuntary standard by which to measure things.  Did he know what she was, and despise her?  He was so gentle and indulgent; he did not ridicule Anne, did not despise her.  Even before he came, did she already have thoughts that she should not have had and did he guess them?  And he was sorry for her, and that was why he looked after her with such a sad glance when she went?  Yes!  Of course!  And now he fled from her in order to spare her:  the sight of him should not arouse thoughts in her that had better sleep till she herself slept in her coffin.  Perhaps he himself had said so to her husband, or written; and the latter had chosen dislike as a means of curing her.

Was it chance that at this moment she glanced at her husband’s desk?  She saw that he had forgotten to take the key out of the lock.  She remembered that he had never been so careless before.  Usually she would have taken no notice of it; now she remembered that if he knew her to be there he had never left the room even for a moment without locking the desk and taking the key with him.  Apollonius’ letters lay in the top right-hand drawer; usually her glance avoided the spot.  Now she opened the desk and drew out the drawer.  Her hands trembled, her whole form quivered—­not for fear that her husband might surprise her in what she was doing.  She must know how it stood between her, Apollonius, and her husband; she would have asked the latter, she would not have come to her own aid if she could have trusted him.  She trembled in expectation of what she should find.  Had she any premonition of what it would be?

There were many letters in the drawer; all of them lay open and unfolded.  She touched them all, one after another, before she read them.  With each one that she touched a fresh flush spread over her cheeks, as if she touched Apollonius himself, and involuntarily she drew back her hand.  Now a little metal box fell from one of the letters back into the drawer; the box flew open and out of it fell a small, dry blossom—­a little bluebell.  It was just such a one that she had once laid on the bench that he might find it.  She was startled.  That one, Apollonius had auctioned off the same evening with ridicule and mockery among his comrades, asking