"And is he happy?" He asked the question with a momentary, horrid doubt of himself, of her, and everything good.
Then he bent forward and looked through the door. He devoured with his eyes the picture. If that was not happiness, no one was happy on this earth.
She stood by Ulrich in all her loveliness, encircling his long, lean neck tenderly with her arm, following the music with vigilant eagerness, so that she might be ready to help at the right moment.
"The vox humana!" Ulrich begged, glancing up at her.
She seized one of the stops, which sprang out with a slight click, and as Leo listened, there rose the trembling, plaintive sound of a human voice, struggling with fervent, imploring notes towards heaven.
"Was it not human what I did?" the voice seemed to be asking. "Was not the sin sweet for which I am now in sackcloth and ashes?"
Then there came into his head the old maxim.
"Repent nothing," roared from the depths of his being.
He pulled himself together defiantly.
No, in truth he repented nothing. He was not penitent. Now there would be no more secrecy. Ulrich was happy. Lizzie, freed of her old fears, was turning to her husband. And the past was as if it had never been.