with a black velvet pall. He was just in time. She started at seeing no
one in Karl's place and said:

"'Where is your pupil, father?'

"'Gone home,' he answered, with a kind of convulsive grin.

"She glanced round the room, caught sight of the lay figure where it had
not been before, looked at the couch, and saw the pall yet heaved up from
beneath, opened her eyes till the entire white sweep around the iris
suggested a new expression of consternation to Teufelsbuerst, though from a
quarter whence he did not desire or look for it; and then, without a word,
sat down to a drawing she had been busy upon the day before. But her
father, glancing at her now, as Wolkenlicht had used to do, could not help
seeing that she was frightfully pale. She showed no other sign of
uneasiness. As soon as he released her, she withdrew, with one more
glance, as she passed, at the couch and the figure blocked out in black
upon it. She hastened to her chamber, shut and locked the door, sat down
on the side of the couch, and fell, not a-weeping, but a-thinking. Was he
dead? What did it matter? They would all be dead soon. Her mother was dead
already. It was only that the earth could not bear more children, except
she devoured those to whom she had already given birth. But what if they
had to come back in another form, and live another sad, hopeless, loveless
life over again?--And so she went on questioning, and receiving no
replies; while through all her thoughts passed and repassed the eyes of
Wolkenlicht, which she had often felt to be upon her when she did not see
them, wild with repressed longing, the light of their love shining through
the veil of diffused tears, ever gathering and never overflowing. Then
came the pale face, so worshipping, so distant in its self-withdrawn
devotion, slowly dawning out of the vapours of her reverie. When it