Only his heaving breath, which escaped his breast in short, irregular gasps, testified to the turmoil that was raging within him.
"Come to yourself, my boy," said the physician, laying his hand on Robert's shoulder.
"Uncle, of course it goes without saying--she was not in her right mind when she wrote this?"
"She was never more in her right mind than at that moment!"
"How dare you affirm such a thing? Do not insult the dead!"
"Nothing is further from my thoughts, dear boy. Who shall presume to cast the first stone at her? But if you have been listening attentively, you will certainly understand that her whole life was nothing more than the maturing of this moment. Already in her girlish dreams the seeds of this criminal wish lay buried; they put forth sudden shoots on yonder stone in the wood, and came into blossom at the very hour when she crept into your room to unite you with Martha."
"Why did she do that, if she herself wished to step into Martha's place?"
"She was not conscious of what she wished. All her efforts to make you and Martha happy were nothing further than the secret struggle which her pure honest nature was waging with the wish growing up within her, since that day of her girlhood when she had seen you again. But she did not know it. Even her love for you did not become clear to her till she entered your house. How much less then could she suspect what was slumbering, as the fruit of this love, within her soul."
"And yet you say she fought against it and tried to exterminate it?"
"Not spiritually, not consciously. Her thought remained pure till that terrible midnight hour. It was only her instinct which struggled against the poison. That drew new resources daily from the healthy depths of her strong nature, by which to secrete the putrid matter or at least to enclose it so that it became innocuous. For this reason she condemned herself to exile, for this reason even in face of your house she contemplated a hasty retreat. How little she was, even later, conscious of the processes which for years had been developing within her, you may see by the whole tone of her reminiscences. She absolutely unconsciously dwells upon many unimportant incidents, which have nothing to do with the progress of the story and yet are valuable as showing the gradual development of her wish. She knows not why she does so: her feeling alone tells her: this has some connection with my guilt."