"Your reputation is not above reproach, Felicitas," said she. "Is that also his doing?"
"What? Johanna?"
"I mean what people say about you?"
"I must ask you, then, first what it is people say about me? No; but I am too proud to defend myself. That I can make such a boast is his doing likewise."
And she spread out her arms, while in her mind she replaced Ulrich's name with Leo's.
Johanna passed her hand over her brow, as if she would clear away some confusing impression. There was something in the bearing of this creature indeed which formerly she had not been acquainted with, and it wrung from her an unwilling sympathy.
"Again I ask, what is it you want with me?"
Felicitas smiled faintly. "Won't you let me sit down? It has cost me something to come here."
And it was true enough that she was ready to drop. But she waited for Johanna's gesture of consent before she sank into the chair against which she had been leaning for so long. Her eyes closed, and she drew a deep breath. Then she began to talk in a subdued tone.
"It is like being in a dream, Johanna. I can hardly believe that to-day I shall attain that peace of mind after which I have been groping for years. Believe me when I say that I haven't once had any real joy in what is mine. Your image has stood between us.... It has seemed to me as if I had got everything by stealth...."