"There's a vast difference between loading and shooting," he said, "the devil only knows."
Hereupon he drew out his watch, and listening attentively to every sound outside, he counted: one, one and a half--two minutes.
"It looks as if he couldn't find his cartridges," he said; and then, with a commanding air, he added, "Sit down; you will need your legs later."
She sank into one corner of the sofa and he took the other. He laid the watch between them on the bumpy seat. Both counted now with their eyes fixed on the minute-hand. "Two and a half--three, three and a half--four, four and a half--five minutes."
Nothing was to be heard but the wind whistling through the branches. Then it seemed as if they could hear horses' hoofs in the courtyard and a trotting away on the other side of the gates.
"Whom can he be going to fetch?" asked Walter. "It hasn't come to seconds yet."
Lilly saw red suns dancing before her eyes. The ceiling of the room began to descend on her.
And Walter went on counting: "Seven--eight, eight and a half." Still nothing. "Nine, nine and a half--ten----" Then he suddenly uttered a low whistling sound and seized his revolver.
The front door grated on its hinges, steps drew near, but not the threatening thunder of an outraged husband's, bent on revenge; these crept softly, catlike, hesitatingly onwards.
Then for a while silence again, only broken by the breathing of two anxious beings, and of someone else's breathing on the other side of the door.