No; he had forgotten to do that.
Ulrich looked at the clock. There were still ten minutes before the train was due. "Run along, then," he said, "and when it's time I will fetch you."
The boy ran out, slightly dragging one leg, a habit of delicate children.
Ulrich looked after him with a smile full of sad, anxious tenderness. "It will be hard for me to part with him," he said; "he was about all I had."
"Must it be?" asked Leo, to whom the suddenly made plan, of which there had been no hint a month ago, seemed not a little extraordinary.
Ulrich nodded, wrinkling his forehead. "Yes, it must," he said. "I should never have consented to it, of course, perhaps simply from selfish reasons, if I had had the right to decide over the child's future. But he is hers, and she wishes it."
"She is not here?" asked Leo, again betraying uneasiness.
"No," Ulrich answered; "with great difficulty, I persuaded her to stay at home. Just before we started she had an hysterical fit, and if she had had another on the platform it would have made a scene."
"But if she feels it so much, why does she send him away?"
A shadow of pained self-dissatisfaction, which Leo knew from childhood, passed over Ulrich's face. "I believe it is my fault," said he.