He had stood by the bed and bent over little Annie as she did now.  He had looked at her full of pain and said that little Annie’s illness was owing to the discord between herself and her husband, and that she would not get well unless this ceased.  He had told her of the miracles that are possible to a mother and of how men and women can and must conquer themselves.  Then he had given Valentine a few more orders relating to little Annie and had left, fearing that his brother, in his error, might otherwise believe that he wanted to drive him away from the sick-bed of his children.  Apollonius had said that little Annie would not get well again if the discord did not cease.  He had said that people can and must conquer themselves; Christiane determined to conquer herself because he had said so.  A mother could do miracles for her child; if she thought of Apollonius’ face when he spoke thus, the greatest miracle must become possible to her.

Fritz Nettenmair entered.  He thought of nothing but that Apollonius must have been there, even if he were not there any longer.  Everything danced before his eyes he was in such a fury.  He would have flown at his wife if he had not seen old Valentine sitting at the door of the bedroom.  He meant to wait till the old man had left the room, and crept to the chair at the window where he had always sat formerly, when he was such a different man.  His wife heard his soft tread; she could not see his face.  It seemed to her that he knew of little Annie’s condition and walked so softly on that account.  She looked at little Annie with a glance that said, that what she was about to do now she would do for the sake of her sick child; a glance at the door by which he had gone out added:  “And because he said I should.”

“Here is father, Annie,” she said.  In reality she was talking to her husband who sat at the window, but she could not turn her face toward him, could not address her words directly to him.  “You always asked for him, you know.  You thought that when he came he would be as he used to be before you were sick.  Mother wants him to be like that too—­for your sake.”

Her voice came from so deep down in her chest that the man had to force himself to control his rage.  He thought:  “She is speaking so sweetly so as to deceive me.  They planned that when he was here.”  And the soft tones in which she continued only caused his anger to swell more wrathfully.

“And you won’t go to Heaven yet, will you Annie?  You’re such a good little girl and you’ll stay with father and mother.  If only—­you mustn’t be afraid of father, you silly little Annie, because he speaks so loud.  He doesn’t mean to be cross.”

She stopped; she expected an answer from the father, not from the child.  She expected that he would come to the bed and speak to the child as she had done, and through the child with her.  Whatever she might think of him, the child was his child, after all, and it was ill.