"You deceived your wife, and she suspected it. But she never said anything, and suffered in silence. You did not notice it, but I did. She was the first woman I got to know after my mother's death. She came into my life like a shining star, and I looked up to her as to a shining star. Finally I summoned up the courage to ask her what was troubling her. She smiled and said she was not feeling quite well yet. You remember, it was only a short while before that Paul had been born. Then came New Year's eve--exactly forty-three years ago this very night. I came to your house at about eight o'clock, as usual. She sat embroidering, and I read to her while we waited for you. The hours passed, one by one. You did not come. I saw how uneasy she became and how she began to tremble, and I trembled with her. I knew what was keeping you, and I was afraid that you would forget twelve o'clock in that woman's arms. It was getting very near the hour. She stopped embroidering, and I stopped reading, and an awful silence descended on us. I saw a tear creep out slowly from between her lashes and fall down on her embroidery. I jumped up and wanted to go out and bring you home. I felt capable of tearing you by force from that woman's side. But at the same instant your wife jumped up, too, from this very seat I am sitting on. "'Where are you going?' she cried. There was unspeakable dread in her face. "'I am going to get Franz,' I said. "At that she fairly screamed. "'For goodness sake, stay with me. At least _you_ stay with me. Don't _you_ leave me.' "And she threw herself on me and laid her hands on my shoulders and hid her wet face on my chest. My whole body quivered. Never before had a woman been so close to me. But I held on to myself and spoke to her comfortingly. She so needed comforting. Soon after, you came back. You did not notice my confusion. Your cheeks were flushed and there was a love-drunken weariness in your eyes. "That New Year's eve produced a change in me, which filled me with alarm. Since I had felt her soft arms around my neck and had drawn in the perfume of her hair, the star had fallen from heaven, and instead of the star it was the _woman_, the woman, beautiful, and breathing love. I knew there was ardour in my glances, and I denounced myself as a blackguard, a deceiver, and to make at least partial atonement to my conscience, I went to work to separate you from your mistress. Fortunately I had some money, which I had inherited, and she was satisfied with the sum I offered her, and----" "By Jingo," the old soldier interjected, "so you're the one to blame for Bianca's writing me that touching good-bye letter in which she told me it was with a breaking heart that she had to forego my love?"