"Your housekeeper?" asked Berger, in perplexity and consternation. "That must not be! She might guess the truth. The girl!" he hesitated again--"is like you, very like you Victor--and anyone who sees you so often and knows you so well as Brigitta----"
"What does that matter?" Sendlingen rose. "She is discreet, and if she were not--what does it matter, I repeat. Do you suppose that I never mean to enter that cell?"
"You! Impossible!"
"I shall and I must! I will humour you in everything except in this one thing!"
"But under what pretext? Have you ever visited and repeatedly visited other condemned criminals?"
"What does that matter to me? A father must stand by his child!"
"And will you tell other people so?"
"Not until I am obliged; but then without a moment's hesitation. She, however, must be told at once, in fact this very day."
"You must not do that, Victor. Spare the poor girl this sudden revelation."
"Then prepare her beforehand! But to-morrow it must be!"