"I shall not try to escape," he said. "I only ask that if it can be done, as long as it may be possible to do it, my Anna shall not know about my sin, discovery, disgrace. Let her think, please, Madame, if you will, that I have gone on a long journey."
This, too, she granted grudgingly. "Oh, very well, if you imagine such things can be hidden. I won't tell her. Just as you wish."
"You will wait here for me while I say goodbye to her?"
"Well, don't be long."
The old flute-player was turning towards the kitchen door, when a loud rap upon the hall door halted him.
"I suppose the officer has grown tired of waiting," Mrs. Vanderlyn explained.
"Come in," said Kreutzer, wonderingly. Few visitors had ever knocked at his door since he had moved to that tenement.
To Mrs. Vanderlyn's amazement, and his own, the door, when it had opened, revealed John Vanderlyn. He was very plainly worried. He did not even stop for greetings, but said, immediately, to his mother:
"Well, mother, what are you doing here?"
Mrs. Vanderlyn was quite as much surprised, apparently, to see him there, as he was to discover her in the old flute-player's rooms.