When he came home, his wife was sitting alone with her elbows upon the table and her chin resting in her hands.
“Where are the children?” he asked at once, looking round.
“They’re sent away,” she said in a dull tone, looking at him.
An uncomfortable suspicion suddenly crossed his mind.
“But tell me where they are,” he said, opening the door to the other room; but there was no one there.
“I telephoned for your aunt,” she said in the same tone as before. “She came at once, and drove away a little while ago.” And as he still stood and looked at her a little uncertainly, she added, “I thought it would be better for you, Henry. Is there anything you would like me to help you with?”
It sounded so mysterious. He did not thank her, because he felt it was not to him she spoke, but to herself.
It was uncomfortably empty in the bedroom when they went to bed that night. The children’s places were empty.
Although Fru Wangen had been frightened into turning to her husband, clung to his innocence, and felt a desire to support him and show him confidence, she could not speak to him yet; for she did not want to say anything unkind, and she could not yet say anything kind. The silence was all the greater because there was no sound of whimpering, no gentle breathing, no little bodies turning over in bed or requiring covering. Husband and wife were thrown back upon each other, and the silence and the breach between them forced them to look into themselves, where each saw the old man hanging in the barn.