en 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 an