“But wasn’t it yourself who kept on urging and urging me until I promised to marry you? Didn’t you gainsay all my objections and insist on our marriage?” “True enough; but you and your mother ought to have known better. You never ought to have consented, even if I was fool enough to insist on it. Your mother knew how much it costs to keep house, and I didn’t. And now it is too late.” “That I know myself, and you needn’t drive me crazy by constantly nagging at me. And it isn’t my fault, either; for if everything had turned out the way my mother desired, you would not have had to complain to-day that you are married to a woman without money. You were not the only one from whom I had proposals.” “That you ought to have told me then,” replied her husband, with an ugly sneer. “I’m awfully sorry if I have interfered with your fine prospects.” “You are more vulgar, Franz, than I thought you.” “Oh, yes, women can never bear the truth. If one doesn’t flatter you the whole time and play on the tuneful lyre of love, you at once begin to find fault.” “Well, I haven’t been surfeited with terms of affection by you.” “That is merely because I don’t know how you have deserved them of me. Is it perhaps because I don’t know how to pay my shoemaker, or how to meet a whole bunch of bills that have come in the last fortnight? Oh, what a fool I have been! Instead of leading this dog’s life with you, I might to-day attend the Academy of War and lead a decent existence.” “Hold your tongue, you vulgar brute; you have no right to insult me! Leave my room, or I shall leave the house!” “Instantly, and with the greatest pleasure, my gracious lady! Pleasant dreams to you!” So saying, Leimann violently slammed the door behind him so that the windows shook, and then went to his own bedroom. But his wife buried her face in the sofa cushions and sobbingly sought relief in tears. That gave a vent to her feelings of hatred and rage against her heartless husband. Her whole soul rebelled against this brutal man whom she had married because he had sworn on his knees to her that he could not live without her. And now he roughly stamped into the ground the affection which she once had borne him. He desecrated all those recollections which are so dear to a woman’s heart, and which at critical points in her life are meant to be a stay and a comfort, and to make the burden of misfortune lighter to her. And if, a short time before, when she had hastily parted from Borgert, she had felt something like remorse,--something of shame in having abused the confidence placed in her by her husband,--she now regarded herself as a victim, and her fault only in the light of a just revenge for his heartless conduct. For at no time is the heart of woman more susceptible to temptation than at the moment when she feels herself betrayed and outraged in her best feelings. CHAPTER VI A SENSATIONAL EVENT STIRS THE GARRISON