The clock struck a quarter past ten; perhaps he had returned after all and had not come to her. But no, he would certainly have come to ask after her health; he had thought her looking ill to-day, and had been anxious about her, had tenderly begged her to lie down for a while to recover the sleep that she had lost on his account. She had tried to smile at him unconcernedly, but it had been a hard task; a casual remark by Pistasch that morning had informed her of Oswald's interview with Capriani in Prague, at which no one else had been present, and which had agitated him excessively. She divined his misery. His love for her, and his confidence in her were so unbounded that he regarded his torturing suspicion as an _idee fixe_. Perhaps this temporary distress of his would pass away without its cause ever being mentioned between them. God grant it might! But if not? If he should come to her to-day or to-morrow and say 'Mother I cannot of myself be rid of this,--forgive me, mother, if I lay down at your feet this burden that oppresses me, and beg you to soothe my pain!' She shuddered as this possibility occurred to her. What answer should she make? 'Shall I have the strength to lie?' she asked herself, and then she told herself, 'I must find the strength; what do I care about myself? My whole life for years has been falsehood and deceit,--but he must have peace--his life I must save!' She knew that if she could succeed in uttering this lie calmly, his suspicion would be laid at rest forever, that no evidence in the world would prevail with him against her word. How she should continue to live on after this lie, was quite another thing, but she could die, and God knew she would willingly lay down her life for her child. She tried to shake off these evil forebodings. All that she dreaded might never come to pass; surely she might succeed, by preserving a calm, circumspect demeanour, in slaying his doubt, in destroying his suspicion without recurring to a direct falsehood. Poor woman! Upright to a rare degree as was her nature in its essence, it became distorted beneath the terrible burden weighing on her, and she was ready to resort to every petty artifice that could afford her any stay in her miserably false position! She had buried her sin deep, deep, and had reared above it a wondrous temple sacred to all that is fairest, noblest, and most unselfish in the world. So grand and firm was this temple towering aloft to the blue skies, that she dreamed it would endure forever. She trusted it would. Out of love for her child she had grown devout. For years she had prayed the same prayer every evening: "Oh God! I thank Thee for my dear, noble child--accept his excellence, as an atonement for my sin!"