"I am very fond of you, Frau Lisbeth; and if you could make up your mind to it I should like to ask you if you would have me."
Lisbeth smiled a little, and then said, "You may ask me that now!"
Her voice sounded honest and friendly.
Trautvetter took her hand in his and said: "Then that's all right!"
But she continued gaily and cheerfully: "Besides, in any case, I should have ended by being your mistress."
"Oh, no!" said Trautvetter. "Under certain circumstances I prefer a wife."
Despite the warmth of the August sun, Julie Heppner grew worse day by day; but this was nothing to her in comparison with the burden of mental suffering which almost overwhelmed her. She watched her husband and sister with a gaze that never faltered. She saw with horror how Ida became less shy of her and abandoned herself more and more to her passion. Nor was this hidden from her husband. He noticed with cynical satisfaction how the young girl's power of resistance diminished. The desired fruit must soon fall into his hands almost of itself.
Soon, under cover of the playful teasing which went on between the sergeant-major and his sister-in-law, even in the presence of the invalid wife, he began to indulge in passionate, lustful touches and covert embraces which brought the blood to the girl's face and made her shiver.
She resented Julie's reproaches with the hard, insensitive egoism of one in love. What! Did this wretched moribund creature still think to claim the man whom she, the fresh, young girl, loved, and who loved her in return?
Julie laughed bitterly to herself. Would it not be best to resign herself to it, to close her eyes, and to await the deliverance of Death?