The wind began to howl in the great factory chimneys. A door up in the loft opened and shut with a bang so that the house shook.
“Oh, would you mind?” she said. “That door has been banging ever since the girl went out, but I didn’t venture on the stairs. Will you?”
He went, and on coming down again he said:
“And this normal working-day—it has frightened the rich big-wigs too. Yes, now I begin to understand.”
And each time he exhumed a fresh probability of a conspiracy against him, it lifted a fresh burden from his own shoulders; so he dug again and again, half in anxiety that he should not be able to find enough.
While Fru Wangen stood in her night-dress by the bed, winding up her watch for the night, he came and laid his arm round her shoulders, and said with some emotion:
“So now, Karen, it can be explained why they have begun to lose confidence in me in town, and I am hardly likely to be allowed to compound. The rumour of a crime will knock that on the head.”
“Poor Henry!” she said, and hanging her watch in its place, she turned and threw her arms about his neck. “I’m afraid I’ve misjudged you, Henry! Can you forgive me?”
He was touched, and folded her in a close embrace, feeling as he did so the warmth of her body through her nightdress. They stood thus silent, her head upon his shoulder, both seeing the same persecution and injustice, feeling themselves united in the same innocence, and finding warmth in their mutual need of standing together.
And now when he thought of her money, it no longer seemed to be his fault; the blame was transferred to those in whose way the brick-kilns had lain. And he thought of her old, ruined father, and he no longer dreaded his coming in the morning. The widow, the workmen’s families passed before his mind’s eye, but they no longer accused him. He felt sympathy for them, and indignation on their account; but now the indignation was turned against others, not against himself.