"Of course." said Bertha, "it is all my fault. I expected that. Why didn't you stay at home yourself and watch? Because you suspected nothing, no more than I did, and because you wanted to get out of the way of Heim, who knew all about your former disgrace. Is it my fault that you have conducted yourself so in the past that you have to avoid all your old acquaintances?" Leuthold swelled with indignation. "Silence, wretched woman! Would you drive me to extremities?" "Yes," continued Bertha more angrily than ever,--"yes, I don't care now what you do. The only satisfaction I can have now is speaking out the truth to you for once. I will be reconciled to my father while there is time. Perhaps he will make over the business to me. I understand how to conduct it, and can make it pay. I shall have a better chance there, at any rate, than in staying here to starve with you. My honest old father was right when he warned me against you. Heaven only knows what infatuated me so with your hatchet face. I saw from the first what you were,--a heap of learning and mind, and a perfect icicle, with whom I never could be happy. We had only been married two months, when there was all that disgraceful fuss with Hilsborn; my father wanted me to be separated from you then; but you stuffed my ears with stories of your brother here, who would make you rich; and I believed you, and gave up my old father, and came here to this hole to live with you. What did I get by it? The little property that I inherited from my mother has been frittered away in household expenses, that you might seem disinterested to your brother. I gave up every things--concerts, theatres, parties,--and willingly; for I depended upon a brilliant future. I have waited patiently and obediently until your brother should kill himself with the drink of which he was so fond; and, now that he is dead, what have I got in exchange for time, youth, money, and all? And now I am to make a grateful courtesy, and say, 'My dear husband, 'tis true that you have robbed me of everything, you have attempted to strangle me; but I will nevertheless take the liberty of remaining with you, that you may continue to enjoy the pleasure of calling me rough, coarse, and good for nothing, and that you may instruct me with which hand I am to put in my mouth the potatoes that are all we shall have to live upon.' This is what I am to say, is it not? Yes----"