CHAPTER X.

At the edge of the meadow Kuni paused to reflect. She would gladly have
flung herself down on the dewy grass to rest, stretched at full length on
the cool turf. She was worn out, and her foot ached and burned painfully
after her long walk in the warm August night; but something else exerted
a still stronger attraction over her poor longing heart; the desire to
see Lienhard again and give him the pinks as a token of gratitude for so
much kindness.

He was still sitting with the other gentlemen at the table in front of
the tavern. One of the torches threw its light full on his manly face.
Kuni knew that he could not see her in the darkness surrounding her
figure, yet it seemed as though she was meeting the gaze of his sparkling
dark eyes. Now he was speaking. How she longed to know what he said.
Summoning up her courage, she glided along in the shadow of the wall and
sat down behind the oleander bush on the sharp edge of the tub. No one
noticed her, but she was afraid that a fit of coughing might betray her
presence, so she pressed her apron firmly over her lips and sat straining
her ears to listen. In spite of the violent aching of her foot and the
loud rattling in her chest, she thought it a specially favourable
dispensation of Providence that she had found her way here just at this
moment; for Lienhard was still speaking. The others had asked him to
tell them connectedly how the beautiful Katharina Harsdtirffer had become
his wife, in spite of the opposition of her stern father and though the
Honourable Council had punished him for such insubordination with
imprisonment and exile.