"Pity!" replied Ulrich, "I wanted you dreadfully."
"For anything special?"
"I wanted a father confessor," Ulrich said, smiling.
"And I was to be that," thought Leo, grinding his teeth; meanwhile he cast a sidelong glance at Felicitas, who was arranging her veil and hair, and ribbons, behind the carriage, and seemed in desperate need of a mirror. "To-day she is going to 'fetch' God Almighty" he reflected, and anger possessed him in every limb as he thought how he loathed her.
Then he went to offer her his hand. Her eyes, swimming in tears, looked up at him in sweet entreaty through the thick veil she wore. She pressed his hand twice in hers, a signal of freemasonry between them hatefully reminiscent to him of their mutual sin.
A few minutes later his own people drove up. They were all in black. Mamma's lips were rounded from sheer pious ecstasy, and Elly, who seemed to-day strikingly to resemble her, wore the expression.
"We have all fasted," Leo's mother whispered to him, full of pride.
Hertha was very pale and studiously avoided locking at him. Johanna, who appeared terribly aged and haggard, suddenly came and asked him to let her take his arm. He acquiesced in amazement, for such a thing had not happened since he came home.
"This coming to the Holy Sacrament is my doing," she said, in a low tone.
"So I thought," he replied.