Her tears were quenched, and she looked at him in utter mystification at the unexpected softness in his manner. So accustomed was she to regard him in the light of some wild beast, that she could hardly grasp that he meant to be kind. Gradually her eyes recovered their fixed and glassy expression, and she nodded her bead mysteriously towards the crucifix in the corner. "Look at Him," she said--"near, quite near."
"At whom?"
"The Saviour."
He approached the prie Dieu, and gazed into the white face of the Crucified, so calm in its supreme repose, as if weary of all earthly contentions and excitement of the emotions.
"Do you see the resemblance?" asked his sister, with an almost prudish smile.
"No; to whom?"
"Oh, Leo! can't you see?" she replied, with a melancholy little attempt at playfulness, "Any child could tell you whom it is like. It is Ulrich; exactly like Ulrich!"
"Ah, really!" exclaimed Leo, and as he saw the look of half-triumphant possession in her face, the martyrdom of a lifetime was revealed to him in a flash.
"Hannah," he said, "why, if you loved him so much, did you take up with that villain Prachwitz?"
She started. "Love!" she stammered. "Who spoke of love? How can I love any one?"