ashamed of yourself for distressing your wife so terribly."--"Why didn't you let me put an end to myself?" cried Alick, "this is a thousand times bitterer than death. Benefits and what benefits!--to have to accept benefits at the hands of those one has formerly despised and injured, on whom one has even brought shame and disgrace. Oh that I had not to do it--but--if I am to live at all--I _must_. Oh, oh," he cried, striking his forehead, "why should I live? Why should I live with this arrow in my heart?" So he raged against himself and against the world, and uncle Bräsig stood quietly beside him, watching him. At last he said: "Go on like that a little longer. I'm glad to see you so. You're getting rid of all your old stuck-up folly, and that's good for you. What?--you wouldn't have any friendship with honest middle-class people? Wasn't it so? You were quite happy when any Mr. von something or other came, or you could even put up with Pomuchelskopps, Slus'uhrs and Davids, for you thought you could then keep everything snug and secret. But that sort won't come again. However that's quite a second'ry matter. You ought to be ashamed of yourself for having dared to wish that you had shot yourself before the very face of our Lord God who saved you this morning. What? You are doubly a soo'cide!" Alick was quite quiet now, but as pale as death. His head swam when he thought of the abyss into which he had so nearly thrown himself, and Bräsig catching him in his arms, supported him to the bench on which both his old father and his wife had sat in their hour of sorrow. When he was sufficiently recovered, Zachariah Bräsig took his arm again, and said: "Come away. Come to your wife. That's the proper place for you just now." And Alick followed him like a lamb. When they got back to the morning room, Mrs. von Rambow put her arms round her husband, made him lie down on the sofa and spoke so lovingly to him, that the tears came into his eyes, and then the ice was broken by the warmth of the spring sunshine her love spread around him, and his soul was free from the bondage with which he had bound it--free, though not yet at peace! Meanwhile Zachariah Bräsig had gone to the window, where he amused himself by drumming his favourite 'March of the old Dessauer,' and Fred Triddelfitz, who was passing, came and asked: "Do you want me, Mr. Bräsig?"--"No," growled Bräsig, "attend to your own business, and see to the farming." Soon afterwards a carriage drove up to the door, and Frank and Hawermann got out of it.