She wanted to ask why he had done it. But she didn't dare. She knew what the answer must be. One thing stood out with appalling distinctness, and that was her helplessness and utter inability to save herself. She was putting herself in his hands. She was living in his flat, living on his money. She looked at the situation from his point of view. She was what he had designed she should be--his mistress, his creature, and his property. Oh, why couldn't she throw herself into the river? She wrenched open the carriage door and put one foot on the step, but he dragged her back and slammed the door to. "Be reasonable," he remonstrated. "Don't behave like a madwoman." Then she burst out crying. Not since the time of her divorce had her sobs been so pitiful, so heart-broken and full of bitterness. At intervals his voice seemed to reach her from a long way off, but she could hear nothing, see nothing, understand nothing. She could only cry, cry; as if in crying lay salvation, as if trouble and distress would flee away with her tears. The carriage stopped. She felt herself lifted out. He had the latch-key in his pocket. Supported by him, she staggered up the stairs, and thought to herself over and over again, "Why didn't you throw yourself into the river?" He led her to the sofa, settled her in its corner, and turned on the lights. Then he loosened the fastenings of her cloak, and lifted the scarf from her hair. She lay now in a state of complete exhaustion, and stared indifferently at the table-cloth. The little bullfinch was awake and piped her a welcome. "It is getting late," she heard Herr Dehnicke say, "and the carriage is waiting. But I cannot go till I have justified my conduct and explained how it has all happened." "That really makes no difference to me," she said, shrugging her shoulders. "I loved you long before," he began--"long before I knew you--when you were still our colonel's wife." She looked up in surprise. As he stood there in his short tight evening coat, plucking nervously at the fringe of the table-cover with the joyless, beseeching expression on his round face, master though he was, she felt as if she saw him for the first time.