The countess heard of it first through her husband. He could not
understand, he said, how a man in good position, with a bright future
before him, and a large income to support him, could thus kill himself.

"And to choose such a strange place for his suicide!" he added. "It is
evident the man was insane."

But the countess did not hear this. She had fainted. She understood but
too well why Peter had wished to die in that lane overshadowed by old
elm-trees.

"I killed him," she thought, "I killed him!"

The blow was so sudden and so severe, that she came near dying.
Fortunately her mother died nearly at the same time; and this misfortune
helped to explain her utter prostration and deep grief.

Her mother had been gradually fading away, after having had all
she desired, and living in real luxury during her last years. Her
selfishness was so intense, that she never became aware of the cruelty
with which she had sacrificed her daughter.

Sacrificed, however, she really had been; for never did woman suffer
what the countess endured from the day on which her lover's suicide
added bitter remorse to all her former grief. What would have become of
her, if her child had not bound her to life! But she resolved to live;
she felt that she was bound to live for Henrietta's sake.

Thus she struggled on quite alone, for she had not a soul in whom she
could confide, when one afternoon, as she was going down stairs, a