A long silence ensued. He glowered at the ground, the corners of his mouth working. Then a desperate resolve fought its way slowly upwards within him. At last he murmured--
"I see nothing for it but to open his eyes."
"Good heavens!" she cried. "Do you think he would believe you? He would say that she had already told him herself."
He recalled the tone of gentle consideration in which his friend had spoken of his wife's bizarre moods. It would not be very difficult for a pure mind like Ulrich's to put the worst in a harmless light. And besides, how was he to summon up the courage to tell his friend what all the country-side was gossiping about? He, who himself in the past had afforded the gravest material for such gossip?
His sister, taking hold of his hands, went on, "No, Leo, that won't do. There is only one course to pursue. We two must keep watch on her. Only thus can we, you as well as I, make amends for the wrong we have done him. For you are at present the only person of whom she is afraid, the only one who has any power over her. And you must use this power to bring her back into the right path. You understand what I mean?"
He understood only too well! What she demanded was the total destruction of all his vigorous plans. There was no doubt that if he became reconciled with his former mistress, she would be willing to receive him. But then the guilt which lay buried in silence must be dragged again into the light of day. If he crossed his friend's sacred threshold, the unholy secret must bear him company. Significant glances would be exchanged at the table, and guilty whispers echo from the listening walls. Would that be anything more or less than reviving the sin? How could he dare meet the questioning look of his friend if at the same time the eyes of the once-beloved rested tenderly upon him? And then there was the child. How could he ever bear to listen again to that innocent prattle? How could he endure to feel the pressure of the delicate little body as he came to be swung on to his knee, the sound of the dear childish voice as it called him by pet names? No! a thousand times no! He sprang to his feet.
She threw herself in his way. "You won't?" she cried, in an agony of anxiety.
But he, seeing further conversation was useless, turned to go. And she, apparently beside herself with mortification at the collapse (through his reawakened defiance) of her well-laid scheme at the moment when its success had seemed assured, caught him by the arm and tried to hold him back by force. Like a spirit of vengeance she clung to him.
As he looked down on her, he recoiled in horror from the mad glitter in her eye.
"Oh, you coward, you dishonourable coward!" she hissed. "I despise you! How I despise you!"