"They mean that we are in a house, to be within the walls of which fills an honest woman with horror and dread," answered Ilse, with flashing eyes; "and they mean that I wish to go away from here, and that it is time for you to take away your wife from unwholesome surroundings."
She told him breathlessly what Mrs. Rollmaus had related, and what the beggar-woman had suggested.
"I am ensnared, Felix," she exclaimed, "by my own fault, I am sorry to say. God knows that in my conduct towards the young Prince I had no thought of bringing your wife into disrepute, but I have been imprudent, and I am suffering for it horribly, horribly! Now I understand the forebodings which have tormented me for weeks past. If you love me take me away quickly from here, the ground burns beneath my feet."
A sharp pang seized the Professor as he saw his wife struggling with agony, bitter enough to stun the strongest soul of woman, and to crush the noblest powers for years.
"It is as repugnant and humiliating to me as to you to look openly upon wickedness. I am ready to do all that I can to deliver you from this trouble. Let us calmly consider how this can be done. You cannot, in such a state of passionate feeling, decide what would be good for you, for your judgment is not unbiased enough to choose your own course. To what old house that a tenant rents or a landlord opens, do not painful recollections attach? Even he who lives a simple life in a strange neighborhood, cannot escape the attacks of idle gossip. Turn away your thoughts from that common woman. It would not become either you or me to depart like fugitives on her account. What have we done, Ilse, to lose our self-respect? There is only one wise method of dealing with the evil work of foolish and perverse accidents, to go forward firmly and to care little for it. Then the dissonance will pass away and perish of itself in the noise of daily life. Those who allow themselves to be disturbed by it, increase it by their own sorrow. Suppose that we were suddenly to leave this house, you would carry away with you the feeling of having left like one who had been conquered, and you would be incessantly pursued by the consciousness of a discordant murmur behind us which would not be silenced."
"You speak coldly and wisely," exclaimed Ilse, deeply incensed; "in spite of what you say, though, you little feel the injury your wife suffers."
"If you now had the self-possession for which I always admired you, you would not allow such unjust complaints to pass your lips," replied her husband, gloomily. "You must know that if I saw you in danger, I would this very hour take you away. Must I now waste words with you to tell you that. But even against the gossip of the weak, this residence is the best defense, for the Prince is away and you remain behind with your husband."
"I know the cause of this indifference," murmured Ilse.
"You know what binds me here," exclaimed the Professor, "and if you were to me what you ought to be, the sharer of my hopes, and if you had the same feeling for the value of the treasure which I seek, you would, like me, feel that I should not needlessly turn away. Bear with this residence, dear Ilse, however irksome it may appear to you," he continued encouragingly, "the longest period is past. I am invited to pursue my quest in the country-chateau of the Princess; there I anticipate that I shall find what will set us free."
"Do not go," exclaimed Ilse, approaching him; "do not leave me in this dreadful insecurity, in a terror that makes me shudder at myself and every strange sound that I hear in these rooms."