"Well, then, God's will be done," he said, taking up his cap. "Good-bye, Hannah."
"Good-bye, Leo."
Outside, he began to whistle his favourite "Paloma" air. He felt that he had received his death-sentence.
XXXVI
"Die, old boy; die--die!" a voice seemed to call to him as he walked along, and his spectral giant with the hatchet nodded assent as much as to say, "So far, so good."
There was only one alternative, and that was flight. In four-and-twenty hours he might be at Hamburg, thence take ship over the ocean, never to return.
There was a sum of three thousand marks to draw upon, the rest he must trust the Lord to provide; or, more strictly speaking, Ulrich.
Who would come and go through the accounts, appease the creditors, call in interest, and work heaven and earth to save the reputation of the disgraced fugitive? Ulrich, again; Ulrich, and no one else.
The reflection was so intolerable that it robbed him of the power of making any decision.
A written confession was out of the question, for what would become of Felicitas, exposed and betrayed, left behind in Ulrich's house?