They walked through the rooms, he carrying the lamp. They seemed to have a mutual feeling that it would soon all be taken from them, and they be left homeless and empty-handed. They paused in front of various things—a mirror, a rug, a picture—and looked at them, his disengaged arm round her waist, as if to support her.
“Do you know,” she said with a little sigh, “when my confinement is over I’m going to try to do without a servant.”
“Oh,” said he, “there will be no sense in that.”
“Yes, but, Henry, have you considered what we’re going to live upon?”
He recollected a vow he had made in the train, to put his hand to any sort of work, if only she, to whom he owed so much, could live free from care. But he said nothing about it now. This feeling of innocence gave him an involuntary pride, and he contented himself with saying:
“Let’s hope I shall yet be able to arrange a composition.”
He drew her closer to him, as if to have her with him in this faint hope; and she leaned against him, with her fair head resting upon his shoulder, now that she felt sure that he was innocent of this crime, before which everything else dwindled into easily surmountable trifles.
The maid was out. They were alone in the house, and the stillness made them talk in undertones. She grew tired of standing, and sank down upon a sofa; and he seated himself beside her, when he had placed the lamp upon a table close by.
They sat in silence, gazing vacantly at the piano. The little lamp threw a pale light about them, while the furniture in the rest of the room was lost in the darkness.
“Father came while the bailiff was here,” she said at last, looking straight before her.