About eight o'clock
In the other two severally to balance it , she slipt at the last moment a volume of Maeterlinck , to which at that period she was greatly attached ; and Matthew Arnold 's poems , to which also at that period she was greatly attached . The princess went about with pursed lips while these preparations were in progress ; and when , at sunrise on the last morning , she was awakened by stealthy footsteps and smothered laughter on the landing outside her room , and , opening her door an inch and peering out as in duty bound in case the sounds should be emanating from some unaccountably mirthful maid-servant , she saw Anna and Letty creeping downstairs with their hats on and baskets in their hands , she guessed what they were going to do , and got back into bed with lips more pursed than ever . Did she not know who had been chosen , and that one of the three was a _ Bürgerliche _ ? About eight o'clock , when the two girls were coming out of the forest with their baskets full and their faces happy , Axel Lohm was riding thoughtfully past , having just settled an unpleasant business at Kleinwalde . Dellwig had sent him an urgent message in the small hours ; there had been a brawl among the labourers about a woman , and a man had been stabbed . Axel had ordered the aggressor to be locked up in the little room that served as a temporary prison till he could be handed over to the Stralsund authorities . His wife , a girl of twenty , was ill , and she and her three small children depended entirely on the man 's earnings .