On the way home Ulrich learnt what he wanted to know. Rocking herself to and fro, half-crying, half-laughing like a child, who fears a scolding and hopes to turn it off by being funny, Felicitas told him of the stroke of genius, which had resulted in Frau von Stolt interceding to bring about the reconciliation for her own and her guests' sake, which otherwise she would never have countenanced or forgiven. A dispensation of Providence had drawn the good woman into the fray, to convince her, even while she resisted, of the holiness of such a work of love.
Ulrich listened, still vexed. "Why did you not tell me what you intended to do?" he asked.
"Because I wouldn't have my dear, good, noble husband mixed up in it," she replied.
He shook his head. He could not understand, even yet, how the two could have lent themselves to such scheming.
"It was all done for your sake," she whispered, leaning against him tenderly.
That night Ulrich spent many hours walking up and down his room.
"They lie for me; they deceive for me. For me they reverse all the laws of the human heart. Can such love as that lead to any good?"
And when he had put out the light, and stared into the darkness with searching eyes, the thought flashed suddenly across him--
"This reconciliation ought not to be. It is not moral."