When Valentine returned he was no longer the same man who had gone out.  He was confused and embarrassed, but in a very different way from what he had been before.  He appeared constantly on the point of doing or saying something, became suddenly frightened and did and said something entirely different, and then seemed uncertain whether he should not be frightened at that too.  At first the young wife did not notice the change in him, but soon she began to watch him curiously and with increasing apprehension.  Gradually she became infected by his behavior.  When he laughed involuntarily she glowed with hope, and when he put on a long face she clasped her hands convulsively together and turned pale; sometimes she pressed her hands to her beating heart, sometimes to her burning, hammering temples.  At last Valentine considered her sufficiently prepared, to abandon the weather topic.  “It is a day,” said he, “when men might rise from the dead, and who knows—­but please, for my sake, don’t be frightened.”  She became frightened, however.  She said to herself, “But it isn’t possible.”  And she was all the more frightened because it was not only possible but certain.  “Look toward the back of the house,” sobbed Valentine, attempting to laugh.  She had looked before he told her to do so.  She held fast to the door post as she heard footsteps in the shed.  But even the door post no longer stood firmly, she herself stood no longer on firm ground; she rocked dizzily between heaven and earth.  When she saw him coming, there was nothing in the world for her except the man for whom she had suffered weeks of death-agony; everything whirled about her in a circle, the walls, the floor, the ceiling, the trees, the sky and the green earth; it was as if the whole world would sink from under her and drag her into its vortex if she did not hold fast to him.  She felt herself fall to the ground, and then she knew nothing more.

Apollonius caught her as she fell.  He stood and held in his arms the beautiful woman whom he loved, who loved him.  She was pale and seemed dead.  He did not carry her into the room, he did not let her fall to the ground, he did nothing to revive her.  He stood bewildered; he did not know what had happened to him, he had to collect himself.  Valentine had not yet spoken with him, he had only heard from the journeyman who was hastening to St. George’s that Apollonius was following him and would soon be there.  Apollonius had been detained at the gate for a moment by the nail-smith.  He had then made haste to obey his father’s command which he, however, found surprising, as he could discover no reason for it.  He had heard of the slater’s death in Tambach; but he did not know that rumor had confused the names of the two places, and that it was possible for anybody to believe that the accident had occurred to him.  Absolutely unprepared for that which was to happen in the next moment, he came through the shed.  He had meant to go straight