It drew her back from the Dutzen pond to the city.
On reaching the Marienthurm she learned that only a barn and a cow stable had b@en destroyed by the flames.

For this trivial loss she had suffered intense anxiety and been faithless to her resolution to seek death, which ends all fears.
Vexed by her own weakness, she determined to go back to her employer's house and there accept whatever fate the saints bestowed.

But when she saw a light still shining through the parchment panes in the room occupied by the two Es, she imagined that Herr Ernst was pronouncing judgment upon Eva.

In doing so her own guilt must be recalled, and the thought terrified her so deeply that she joined the people returning from the fire, for whom the Frauenthor still stood open, and allowed the crowd to carry her on with them to St.Kunigunde's chapel in St.
Lawrence's church; and when some, passing the great Imhof residence, turned into the Kotgasse, she followed.
Hitherto she had walked on without goal or purpose, but here the question where to seek shelter confronted her; for the torchbearers who had lighted the way disappeared one after another in the various houses.
Deep darkness suddenly surrounded her, and she was seized with terror.
But ere the last torch vanished, its light fell upon one of the brass basins which hung in front of the barbers' shops.
The barber! The woman whom she had seen in the stocks was the widow of one, and the house where she granted the lovers the meeting, on whose account she had been condemned to so severe a punishment, was in the Kotgasse, and had been pointed out to her.

It must be directly opposite.
The thought entered her mind that the woman who had endured such a terrible punishment, for a crime akin to her own, would understand better than any one else the anguish of her heart.