Passing on beneath the shady arches of the linden avenue, Kitty approached the villa. Never had the fairy structure seemed to her so aristocratically unapproachable as to-day in the golden light of morning, the gay flag waving from the roof,—a fluttering sign of welcome floating on the air. Involuntarily the young girl laid her hand upon her throbbing heart; she had not been invited, and yet she had come. It was a sacrifice indeed to sisterly affection, this crushing down of her own proud nature. Behind the bronze tracery of the balcony, the Frau President’s lap-dog was running to and fro, barking at the visitor with all his old hostility, and the parrot, in his gilded cage in the blue drawing-room, screamed in chorus.
As Kitty entered the door, a lady glided past her, holding her handkerchief to her face, and above its lace border she glanced shyly at the young girl from eyes swollen and red with weeping. Kitty recognized her; it was the gay young wife of a major, accustomed to every luxury. The elegance and variety of her toilettes had been the talk of the capital. She hurried around the corner of the house towards the shrubbery, probably to remove there the traces of tears before she was seen upon the public highway.
"There is nothing left for her husband but to shoot himself; they say he has lost every stiver," Kitty heard one of the servants say, as she passed through the hall. "Serves him right! What has an army officer to do with speculating in stocks that he knows nothing of? Then his wife comes to our master, and cries her eyes out to beg him to help them out of the mire. A pretty piece of business! If he were to help all those who have been to him lately, he might take up his staff and beg on the road; he would have nothing left for himself."
Another victim, then, of the terrible crisis! Kitty shuddered, and ascended the stairs unperceived. A solemn silence reigned in the third story. Mechanically she opened the door of the room that had formerly been assigned to her. It was plain that the Frau Baroness Steiner reigned here no longer; but the room had evidently not been arranged to receive another guest. Much of the furniture had been removed, and in its stead the walls were lined with draped tables covered with a profusion of articles, displayed with great taste and care,—the gorgeous trousseau of the professor’s wife in spe; in the centre of the room, upon a tall dress-stand, hung a robe of snowy satin, covered with lace and orange-blossoms, the heavy train lying long upon the floor,—Flora’s wedding-gown. Kitty turned away her eyes, and closed the door; and in a few moments she clasped in her arms Henriette, who, at sight of her sister, broke into such a transport of joy that it seemed the result of relief from terrible pain.