Faller made no answer.
"Can you only talk when you are not wanted to?" she asked angrily. "Sit down, sit down, and tell me what has happened."
As if he could punish Annele by not doing her bidding, Faller remained standing, though his knees shook under him. The look he turned upon her was so full of sorrow and bitter upbraidings, that her eyes fell beneath it. "How can I sit in your house?" he said at last. "You have taken the comfort out of every chair."
"I do not need your admonitions. I told you that long ago. If you know anything of my husband, tell it. Has he been found dead? where? Speak, you--"
"No, thank Heaven. God forbid! The shingle-maker from Knuslingen, Franzl's brother, reported him as having been with Franzl, and she lives almost two leagues beyond the place where his hat was picked up."
Annele breathed more freely. "Why did you frighten me so?" she asked again.
"Frighten you? Can you still be frightened?"
Faller told how Lenz had been everywhere, trying to borrow money to pay the security on his house, and added that that need burden him no longer, as Don Bastian had just advanced the required amount.
Annele drew herself up as he spoke. The old spirit of wrath and bitterness rose again within her, mightier, more vengeful than ever. He has deceived you, he has lied to you, her every feature said. He lives, he must live to atone for it. He told you he had withdrawn his security. Come home, you liar, you hypocrite! Annele went into her chamber, and Faller was obliged to depart without seeing her again. Gone was all sorrow, all contrition, all love. Lenz had deceived her, had told her a lie, and he should pay for it. Just like these good-natured milksops who, because they cannot stand up like men for their own rights, must be handled like a soft-shelled egg! Let me alone, and I will let you alone; refuse me nothing, and I will refuse you nothing, though you make me a beggar. Come home, you pitiful milksop!
Annele put no food on the fire, to be ready for her husband's return. A very different kind of cooking was going on.