But their eyes chanced to meet; and in the eyes of each there was the name of Gertrude.
Gertrude stood between them in living form. Everything they had said had proceeded from her and returned to her. That Daniel was not thinking of annulling his marriage, that he could not think of it, Eleanore knew. A child was expected; who could reject the mother under these circumstances? How would it be possible, poor as they were, to expose both mother and child to the inevitable misery that would follow annulment of the marriage? Daniel could not do this, and Eleanore knew it.
But she also knew, for she knew her sister, that separation from Daniel would mean her death. She knew too that Daniel considered his marriage to Gertrude as indissoluble, not only because of his knowledge of her character, but because there was in his life with Gertrude something that is quite independent of passions, views, and decisions, something that binds even in hate and binds even more firmly in despair.
Eleanore knew all this. She knew that Daniel knew it. And if she drew the only conclusion that could be drawn from his argument and his state of mind, she knew what he demanded of her.
He was demanding that she give herself up to him. Of this there could be not a shred of doubt.
But how? Secretly? Could that produce happiness? With the understanding of Gertrude? Could Gertrude endure such a thought, even if she were as magnanimous as a saint? Where was the way that could be followed? Where was there an angle from which embarrassment, anxiety, and ruin were not ready to leap forth without warning?
She bowed her head, and covered it with her hands. She sat in this position for a long while. Darkness settled down over the roofs of the houses.
Suddenly she got up, reached him her hand, smiled with tears in her eyes, and said with a last attempt to escape the horrible consequences, “Brüderlein.[1]...” She spoke the word in a tone of longing fervour and half-humorous appealing.
[1] “Little brother.”
He shook his head sadly, but took her hand and held it tenderly between his.