The small tablet was removed from the office door. The employés were paid off. Of the ancient ones, only a few remained, old Gemming and Mr. Feuerlein. The eyes of the clerk were very red when he took leave of Anne. In the corridor, he turned back several times; he stopped on the stairs; with knees knocking together he went round the garden and took a white pebble with him as a keepsake.
When they had gone, Otto Füger alone remained in his place for the liquidation. Thomas rang for him. He asked for explanations. Vague excuses were the answer.
“He knows nothing about it,” thought Otto Füger and waited impatiently for the hour when he would be free.
Illey appeared always cool. He did not grope, and never lost his head. He listened quietly to the end and stuck his hands into his pockets while Füger took leave with deep obeisances.
But he went unusually slowly up the stairs. When he turned from the sordid details of the dissipation of this huge fortune, he was driven to frenzy by the thought that an infinitely small portion of it would have saved him the torture of his invincible longing for the lands of Ille which had tarnished the years of his youth. He was wrung by a bitterness that robbed him of speech when he came to face Anne.
She looked at him.
“Are you tired, Thomas?”
Illey shook his head and pressed his open hand for an instant to his chest, as if something weighed on him in the left breast-pocket of his coat.
Anne struggled silently with her thoughts. She was convinced that if Thomas had made up his mind years ago to do the work he had done now, Christopher might be alive, the firm might be alive, and the fortune too.
They accused each other without exchanging a word. Only when a long time had passed did they notice, both of them, that their silence had become cold and horrible and that they could not alter it.