and this terrible
bond holds them together, although they fight like cat and dog."

But Klaere strongly objected to such jokes. "How can you tell what that
poor woman may have to bear? There may have been a murder in her
history; but it was done by Gropphusen, and on her soul. Joke about
something else, Fatty."

The happy young wife entertained the warmest sympathy for the other
unhappy one, who always had the look of being pursued by some terrible
evil. More than once a sisterly feeling impelled her, not from
curiosity, but from genuine sympathy, to put a question to Hannah about
her sorrow; but she read in the sombre, hopeless eyes of the sufferer
that the burden must be borne alone; so she left Frau von Gropphusen in
peace. She listened patiently when the nervous woman talked ceaselessly
about a thousand different things, in short, jerky sentences as if to
drown some inner voice; neither would Klaere interrupt with a single
question the heavy silence in which, at other times, Hannah would sit
for hours, watching her as she busied herself with her little
housewifely tidyings and mendings. It was only in watching this
peaceful activity that Frau von Gropphusen recovered her equanimity.
Her face would then lose its unnatural fixity of expression, and she
would draw a deep breath, as though eased of a heavy burden.

"It is so peaceful here with you, Frau Klaere," she said sometimes. "It
does one good."

Guentz shook his head over her weird conduct. One thing gratified him
concerning her, however: it was that she admired his little son
unreservedly, and could be given no greater treat than to be allowed to
hold the boy on her lap. She would sit as though worshipping the child,
who, indeed, was no angel, only a quite ordinary, fat, chubby infant.
At such times her small finely-chiselled features would light up with a
glorious beauty; so that Guentz one day whispered to his wife, "Do you
know what the Gropphusen needs? A child!"

And in his open-hearted way he once said jokingly to Hannah: "Wouldn't
you like a beautiful boy like that for yourself, dear lady?"

At that Hannah Gropphusen sprang up wildly. Her hands shook so that she
could scarcely hold the baby, whom Klaere snatched from her only just in
time.

"I, a child?" she cried. "For the love of God, never, never!"

A look of horror was in her eyes. She held her hands before her face as
though to shut out something horrible.

Guentz drew back shocked, and st