Next morning Gideon tried to avoid everybody, and it was not until midday that Aletta contrived to satisfy her painful suspense in regard to the result of the trial. He was then standing at the back of the wagon-house with bent head and an air of painful preoccupation. He did not hear her approaching footsteps. When she laid a hesitating hand upon his arm he started as though he had been struck, and looked at her with troubled eyes.
“Gideon,” she said in a low and hurried tone—“tell me about Stephanus.”
“The wolf is in a trap,” he said with a savage laugh—“for ten long years he will have to bite the door before it opens.”
“Ten years”—repeated Aletta in an awed whisper—“poor Stephanus; I did not think it would have gone so hard with him.”
“Aletta,” he broke out wrathfully, “are you taking the part of this wolf—this jackal in a man’s skin, against me?”
“No—no—Gideon,—I do not take his part;—but ten years is such a long time.—And I was thinking of Marta and the children; they will never see him again.”
“And a good thing too. The murdering wild beast should have been hanged.”
In reality the wives of the brothers had, all through the weary course of the feud, been inclined to take the parts of their respective brothers-in-law against their husbands. Each, brought into daily contact with the black rancour displayed by her husband, had thought that the feeling could not possibly be so bad on the other side.
Weary as had been the days to Aletta and Adrian, those which followed were wearier still. A black cloud seemed to brood over the household. No one ever smiled. Each avoided the eyes of the others as though fearful of what the eyes might read or reveal. At each cheerless meal the silent, invisible presence of Stephanus seemed to take its seat; in the brightest sunlight its shadow seemed to darken the house.
More than once Aletta had been on the point of suggesting that advances might be made to Marta in her loneliness, but Gideon had lately got into the habit of bursting into such fury on the slightest provocation, that Aletta was afraid of irritating him and held her peace.