Lilly stared into space. The remnants of the precipitate meal littered the table; the dark carved furniture cast black-edged rays from out of the room's wintry twilight; the brass chandeliers gleamed palely. All was as usual, and yet nothing was there, nothing but an awful, all-devouring void, an abyss which drew her into its bosom with the enticements of grappling hooks and huge tongs.
She stepped to the window and looked out apathetically.
The bare branches swayed in the wind, the ivy on the railing fluttered, even the arched stalks of the rose bushes, the heads of which the gardener had secured under heaps of earth, trembled and quivered this way and that. The world was writhing in the clutch of winter. The only still things were the leaves lying on the thin coating of snow which covered the ground; but the leaves were dead already.
If _that_ could happen, then the very earth beneath her feet gave way; then there was no hope, no rising to loftier heights, no strength, and no fidelity; then you might as well throw yourself down beside the leaves out there and die.
Dishes rattled behind her. No one had rung for the maid, but she had come of her own accord and was helping Ferdinand clear the table.
Lilly thought of Katie and that other creature in whose arms he had made mock of her and her faith in him.
She dragged her torpid legs up the steps to the rooms where she felt at home. In passing the colonel's door, she caught the sound of his tread as he fairly ran to and fro.
She experienced not the faintest fear of him.
"Let him run, if he wants to," she thought.
When in her own room, she heard him give orders to have the carriage brought around immediately.
The iciness benumbing her neck crept into her arms and spread down to her very finger tips.
There sat Walter, as always in his free time after dinner, completely absorbed in the great encyclopedia of agriculture, so full of zeal for study that every now and then he would pass his hand through his hair in a preoccupied way and without looking up--he hadn't so much time to spare, Heavens! no!--he would flick the ashes from his cigarette into a flower pot.
In the face of this infamous game, which he played for the sole purpose of deceiving her, Lilly was seized by a wild, infuriated desire to denounce him, which completely robbed her of her senses. A stinging and pricking lifted her paralysed arms. The iciness gave way to a painful fever, which throbbed in her temples, and hung a red curtain before her eyes.