"You fool! I want it for myself. Take your apron; put that up to your eyes--so!" With these words he opened the door and entered slowly, pushing Bertha before him. Hartwich lay extended upon the bed, his face so changed that Bertha was glad to be able to hide her eyes in her apron. Leuthold stood beside her, a picture of dignified manly grief; his bearing impressed the bystanders; the surgeon, the men- and maid-servants, who were all present, were convinced that Herr Gleissert had really loved his step-brother, and that it was rank injustice to accuse him of heartlessness. After a few moments, he laid his hand gently upon his wife's shoulder, but its stern pressure reminded her that she was to fall upon her knees. She sank down as carefully as she could, and with her broad back and bending head was a beautiful and moving image of woe. After awhile he bent over her and said gently, "Come, my child, do not be so agitated; our tears cannot bring him back to life--come!" Then he raised her, leaned her head upon his breast to conceal her face, and conducted her from the room. The others looked after them with amazement. "I cannot understand it," said the surgeon. "Every one knows that the woman never could endure Herr von Hartwich, and yet now she seems almost dead with grief!" "She isn't really sorry," growled a groom; "it's all sham!" "Yes, yes," Rieka added, "she didn't shed a tear,--not a single tear, for all she rubbed her eyes so with her apron!" "That's true,--she is right," murmured the group; "neither he nor she shed a single tear. Well, there's a pair of them. Do they suppose we are so stupid as not to see how glad they are that the master is dead? 'Tis a pity that the money will not fall into better hands." Then they separated, and went indifferently about their work. "That was not so bad," said Leuthold, when he had reached his own room with Bertha; "but still you certainly have no genius for the stage." "You ought to be glad that I can never play a part before you," she said, shaking herself as if to shake off the disagreeable impression of what she had seen like dust from her clothes. In the mean time the maid had brought the child in from the garden, and had laid the table. "We will have some champagne to-day," said Leuthold, taking down the keys of the cellar. "We need something to support us under such exciting circumstances. Send Lena for some ice." And he left the room. Frau Bertha sent the girl for ice, and said to herself with complacency, "That ice-house was the best thing I ever planned."