"Well, and what did her husband do?" asked the Baroness, turning again to Hildebrand as soon as Ingeborg had been got quiet on a chair with coffee, determined to hear the end of the story.
"My dear mother," said Hildebrand, shrugging his shoulders up to his ears, "what could he do?"
"He shot her?"
"Of course."
"Naturally," said the Baroness, nodding approval. "Was she killed?"
"No. Badly wounded. But it was enough. His honour was avenged."
"And she will not," said the Baroness grimly, "begin these tricks again."
Ingeborg roused herself with an effort to say something. She was extraordinarily disappointed and unnerved by not finding the Baroness alone. "Why did he shoot her?" she asked. It seemed to her in her tiredness so very energetic of him to have shot her.
The Baroness turned a cold eye on her. "Because, Frau Pastor," she said, "she was his sinning wife."
"Oh," said Ingeborg; and added an inquiry, in a nervous desire to make for a brief space agreeable small talk before going away again, whether in Germany they always shot each other when they sinned.