The old lady was sitting at the window making roses. There was to be a wedding in the village at Whitsuntide. A small man was sitting opposite her, who greeted the entrance of the young wife with a low bow.
"Beg a thousand pardons, madam,--I wanted to speak to your husband--I heard he had gone out and the lady here permitted me to wait for him."
"What does he say, Mrs. Linden?" inquired the old lady, shaking hands, "I did not permit him to do any such thing. He came in himself--and here he is."
"My name is Wolff, madam," said the agent by way of introduction.
"Must you speak to my husband to-day? It will not be convenient, for we have company to dinner. Can't I arrange it?" inquired Gertrude.
"O, no--no--" said he, very decidedly, bowing as he spoke. "I must speak to Mr. Linden himself, but I can come again, there is no hurry, I used to come here every day. Good morning, ladies."
"What could he want, auntie?" inquired the young wife after he had gone.
"Well, I can tell you what he wanted of _me_--he wanted to _question_ me. He would have liked to look through the key-hole to find out how it looked in your house. But sit down, my dear."
These two understood each other perfectly. Sometimes the old lady drank coffee with Gertrude and then she had many questions to answer. In this way it had come out quite by chance that she had been a schoolmate of Gertrude's grandmother.
Sometimes they went to walk together and Gertrude learned to know the village people, found out who the poor ones were and a little of the history of the place. Aunt Rosa's pictures were rather roughly drawn, she did not like every one, but Linden was her idol next to a young niece of hers.
"He is so nice," she used to say, "he is so courteous to the old as well as the young."
And Gertrude returned the compliment by declaring she could not imagine the house without Aunt Rosa.
To-day, the young mistress of the house could not stay long quietly in the rose-room. It was strange, but she felt anxious about her husband. If only he had had no accident with the new horses, she thought, as she went out on the veranda.
The blooming garden lay quiet and still before her in the mid-day sunshine. Suddenly a shadow came over her face--there, under the chestnut-trees, where the sunbeams broke through the leaves in golden flecks. There was no doubt of it--it was he, the man in Aunt Rosa's room. How happened he to penetrate into the garden? Where had she heard his name before? She started as if she had touched something unpleasant. "Wolff,"--it was the name on the card that came with the flowers on her wedding eve. Yes, to be sure. But she had _seen_ the man, too, somewhere before--where was it? Perhaps in the factory with Arthur, very likely.