away and could not choke back a loud sob.  Just then the youngest boy peeped curiously into the yard.  He hastened to him, took him in his arms, pressed him to his heart and placed him between him and her.  It was strange; the pressure with which he clasped the child to his heart relieved his wild yearning and his tense muscles relaxed.  In the child he had clasped her to his heart in the only way he dared hold her close to him.

She saw him place the child between him and her and understood him.  A burning flush rose to the roots of her brown, unruly locks.  She knew now for the first time that she had lain in his arms, had embraced him, had talked to him as only unforbidden love may talk.  She saw now for the first time the abyssmal danger in which she had placed him and herself.  She raised herself up on her knees, as if she wanted to beseech him not to despise her.  Then it occurred to her that her husband might have been listening and might still carry out his threat.  Through her joy over his escape she might still be his destruction.  He saw all this and suffered with her.  He had gained the conflict with himself not to show her what was going on within him, but he had not yet fought the inward struggle to its end.  He leaned toward her and said “Above us and your husband is God.  Go in now, sister, my dear, good sister.”  She dared not look up but through her closed lids she saw the benevolence, the deep, inexhaustible kindliness, the indelible respect for man which shone in his eyes and played about his gentle mouth.  And as he was her conscious and unconscious standard, so now she knew that she was not bad, could not become so, he would carry her in his strong arms, protected, as a mother carries her child.  Herr Nettenmair came from the shed toward them accompanied by the journey-man.  Fritz Nettenmair who followed them saw Apollonius lead Christiane to the house door.

When Herr Nettenmair came home, nothing was to be read in his crusty face of all that he had suffered and planned that day.  The young wife and Valentine had to listen to a sermon on unfounded imaginings, for the story had proved to be as it was, not as Valentine had imagined it in his fear.  He spoke of Fritz Nettenmair’s trip as one which his son had had in contemplation for a long time but to which he had not consented until today.  Apollonius was told to bring the account books into the old gentleman’s room at once.

He had to read them aloud to the old gentleman; a curiously purposeless task, for neither of them had his mind on the figures.  And moreover the old gentleman behaved as if he knew all about everything already.  Valentine came and received various instructions relative to the departure of the elder son.  An hour later he returned, having performed his duties.  He told how Fritz Nettenmair was looking forward to his new life in America.  They would be astonished when they saw him again.  He could hardly await the time.  The old gentleman’s courage revived.  Grimly he commanded Apollonius to go to bed; the work they had begun could be continued another time.