for a few brief moments, had brought her into the snare. But the fire
which burned within had not been extinguished. An icy wind had fanned
the flames till they blazed higher and higher, threatening her
destruction.

Frau Schurstab had made her attend church and go to the confessional.
But the mass, whose meaning she did not understand, offered no solace to
the soul which yearned for love alone. Besides, it wearied her to remain
so long in the same place, and the confession forced the girl, who had
never shrunk from honestly expressing what she felt, into deception. The
priest to whom she was taken was a frequent visitor at the Schurstab
house, and she would have died ere she would have confided to him the
secret of her heart. Besides, to her the feeling which animated her was
no sin. She had not summoned it. It had taken possession of her against
her will and harmed no one except herself, not even the wife who was so
sure of her husband. How could she have presumed to dispute with her the
possession of Herr Lienhard's love? Yet it seemed an insult that Frau
Katharina had no fear that she could menace her happiness. Could the
former know that Kuni would have been content with so little--a tender
impulse of his heart, a kiss, a hasty embrace? That would do the other
no injury. In the circles whence she had been brought no one grudged
another such things. How little, she thought, would have been taken from
the wealthy Katharina by the trifling gift which would have restored to
her happiness and peace. The fact that Lienhard, though he never failed
to notice her, would not understand, and always maintained the same
pleasant, aristocratic reserve of manner, she sometimes attributed to
fear, sometimes to cruelty, sometimes to arrogance; she would not believe
that he saw in her only a person otherwise indifferent to him, whom he
wished to accustom to the mode of life which he and his friends believed
to be the right path, pleasing in the sight of God. Love, feminine