She did not go to the window, but stood listening beside the piano.

The beat of a horse's hoofs on the narrow road was distinctly audible, hollow and sodden as is the sound of a wooden road.

It came nearer and nearer, and a certain unsteadiness indicated that the horse was tired.
"I thought he might have come," she whispered, and she sat down breathlessly.
When the servant came into the room a few minutes later Catrina was at the piano.
"A letter, mademoiselle," said the maid.
"Lay it on the table," answered Catrina, without looking round.

She was playing the closing bars of a nocturne.
She rose slowly, turned, and seized the letter as a starving man seizes food.

There was something almost wolf-like in her eyes.
"Steinmetz," she exclaimed, reading the address.