But Frau Leimann was so preoccupied herself that the unflattering and searching look of Borgert escaped her. She sat down on the divan beside him and took his hand in hers. Her eyes gazed with diffidence at the face of the man. “You are ill, George?” asked she with anxiety. He contented himself for all answer with a shake of his head. “But tell me, speak to me. What ails you?” “Why, it is nothing and it is everything,” Borgert answered with indifference. “What do you mean by that, George? Talk sensibly, please.” “What am I to say? I am done with the whole business. That is all.” “Done! Done with what? How am I to understand you?” “Done with everything,--with life and with myself.” “You talk like a sphinx, George. Why not tell me frankly what has happened to you?” “My money is gone. I’ll have to run away, or else there will be the deuce to pay.” Borgert felt a tremor run through her body. She did not reply, but turned her face slowly away from him and stared at the window. In his heart Borgert was thankful to her for receiving his communication with such composure, and not with the screams and hysterical sobbings which women habitually employ on occasions of the kind. And as he regarded attentively her pale profile, clear-cut against the light, and saw a tear glistening in her eye, a passionate emotion, largely pity for this suffering creature by his side, so pathetic in her dumb resignation, took hold of him, and he drew her into his arms. Then she murmured: “Take me along, George!” In amazement Borgert stared at her. “For heaven’s sake, how did you get such thoughts? How can I do that?” “Oh, George, you do not know. I cannot bear my life here any longer. Let me go with you, I beseech you.” “But that is not to be dreamt of. Will there not be scandal enough when I disappear? And then take you along? Impossible.” “In that case I shall go alone. I must leave here--I _must_.” “But why all this so suddenly? What has come to you?” Frau Leimann gave vent to her suppressed feelings by a violent fit of sobbing. “My husband has beaten me with his clenched fist--see, here are the marks!--because the bailiff had called on me. His treatment of me has become worse and worse of late, and now my hatred, my dislike of him has reached a point where I can no longer see him around me, breathe the same air he breathes; and then,--another thing,” and here she broke into weeping again, “I have no money--there is nothing with which I can pay my debts; something--some great misfortune will come--I’m sure of it, George, if I do not leave him peaceably.” Borgert had great pains to quiet the excited woman.