Kitty was in a strange mood. Dread of her first visit to the villa; painful longing for the house by the river, the weather-cock upon the roof of which she discerned with a beating heart from her southern window, and which she might not approach; passionate impatience to see, if only once more, the tall figure which she had first seen here in the mill, and which it was torture to confess to herself, as she did daily, she had loved from that moment; all this stirred within her, in addition to the strange, inexplicable foreboding and anxiety that possessed her soul. For months the columns of the newspapers had been filled with sensational intelligence in regard to the bursting of the great swindling bubble of the day in Vienna, and shortly afterwards of a similar catastrophe in Berlin. The destruction of this modern Tower of Babel was the topic of the day in every public place, in every drawing-room; it had been discussed even in the small æsthetic circle in Kitty’s Dresden home. In the railway-carriage on the road from Dresden to M—— it had been the inexhaustible theme for conversation among her fellow-travellers, and now with her own eyes Kitty could behold one of the results of this calamity. Through the cooing of the doves and the distant murmur of the weir came the sound of excited human voices, and just behind the last chestnut the young girl had a view of the gravelled space in front of the factory. It was swarming, as she had seen it once before, with workmen, some silent and gloomy, others gesticulating wildly and talking loudly. The stock company that had purchased the factory of the councillor had failed; the officers of the law had already appeared in the building, and the employés had not yet recovered from the shock of the sad news.
"Yes, yes, so it goes," said Franz, as he brought in Kitty’s trunk. "Those people were too well off, and they thought they deserved more,—now they will live for a while from hand to mouth, and then from bad to worse. All of them would like to pick up money off the streets; and who can blame them, when their betters do the same? He’s a fortunate fellow who gets safely through the stream," he went on, slapping his pockets; "’an honest store by work made more’ is my motto; no need to lie awake o’ nights then. Those who don’t know how to speculate had better let it alone. There’s the Herr Councillor, to be sure, firm as a rock; he’s too long-headed to be touched." Then, with an air of great wisdom, raising his forefinger, "Yesterday he got back from Berlin, finer than ever. I had just taken a load of corn to the station,—hey, how his black horses flew past! He understands it all. They said he had just made another lucky hit, and he looked like a man with millions at his command. He has been away for a long time, and I dare say would not have returned now but for the fine doings they are to have over there to-night."