The man remained silent and sat on quietly in his chair.  For the length of time that it takes to say half the Lord’s Prayer there was no sound but the ticking of the clock; and that grew faster and faster like the beating of a human heart that feels misfortune approaching.  The flame of the light flickered as with fear.

Valentine rose from his chair to attend to the light.

There was a sound of wheezing in the child’s chest; she wanted to speak and could not.  She wanted to stretch out her hands toward her father, and she could not.  She could do nothing but hold out the arms of her soul to her father.  But her father’s soul did not see the beseeching arms; it held its wrath convulsively in its hands and had no hand free for the child.  Valentine stepped away from the light and went out to give vent to his feelings in tears.  The man rose and approached his wife softly without her noticing him.  He wanted to surprise her, and he succeeded.  She started, frightened, as she suddenly saw facing her across the bed a distorted human countenance.  She started, and he said through his teeth:  “You are frightened?  Do you know why?”

She meant to tell him herself that Apollonius had been there, but she had not yet had an opportunity; she did not dare to do so at the sick child’s bedside, because she knew that he would fly into a rage; whenever she could she had spared the child the sight of his roughness while she was still well; now it might frighten the little girl to death.  She did not answer him, but looked at him beseechingly, indicating the child by a glance.

“He was here!  Wasn’t he here?” he asked, not for information but to show that he did not need any.  He raised his clenched fist; little Annie struggled to sit up.  He did not see it; but his wife saw it, and her terror grew.  She clasped her hands, she looked at him with a glance in which there was everything that a woman can promise, that a woman can threaten.  He saw only her terror at his knowing what had happened—­and his fist descended on her forehead.

There was a shriek.  The child writhed in convulsions; the mother, who had fallen upon her, wept loudly.  Valentine hurried in, Fritz Nettenmair went into the bedroom.  He did not know which was uppermost in him, gratified revenge or fright at what he had done.  He sank down on the bed as if the blow that he struck had stunned himself.  He only half heard Valentine running for the doctor.  In the same state he heard the latter come and go, and in the same state he listened to see if he could hear Apollonius’ voice whispering and his soft tread.  He did not dare to show himself; shame restrained him.  He justified his behavior and called little Annie’s illness just a desire to be coddled.  “Children think they’re dying one day, and the next they’re more lively than ever,” he said to himself.

His feverish listening and efforts to reassure himself turned into feverish dreaming.  Between waking and sleeping he heard quiet steps in the next room, quiet voices, quiet weeping, and at intervals silence.