Hertha was very pale and studiously avoided locking at him. Johanna, who appeared terribly aged and haggard, suddenly came and asked him to let her take his arm. He acquiesced in amazement, for such a thing had not happened since he came home. "This coming to the Holy Sacrament is my doing," she said, in a low tone. "So I thought," he replied. "And do you guess what my object is in doing it?" "I think that I can." "It is designed, above all things, to perfect the reconciliation between us two." "And what more?" "Can't yourself tell you?" Their eyes met in bitter hostility. "Leo!" "Well." "Is it not well that it should be so?" "Oh yes! It's an excellent idea, ... really beautiful. Ha! ha! ha!" The others, who had walked on, looked round. This outburst of hilarity was not in keeping with the sacramental mood. At due door of the vestry he dropped his aster's arm and avoided speaking to her again. The superintendent was sitting at his official table, peaceably conning his sermon. Leo went to him and spoke a few words of greeting. With a furtive smile of understanding the good man grasped both his hands, as much as to say-- "You and I, we know all about it?" "Ah, if only you _did_ know," thought Leo, in bitter irony; and then once more he found himself searching for an excuse to get out of the way of the sweet, pale-faced, accursed woman who man[oe]uvred without ceasing to take her place at his side. How was it possible to collect one's thoughts for reverence and devotion as long as that white throat with its double dimple was craning itself amorously in his direction? In the church they sat in the same order as they had done on the previous day. Leo with his mother and Elly in the first row, behind Ulrich and Felicitas, while Johanna and Hertha withdrew to the third bench. Every seat in the church was full. On the plain altar, covered with a red cloth, two wax candles burned in the sconces, according to the custom on Communion days. The building, with its grey choir and galleries, its faded-looking painted pillars, and bare whitewashed ceiling, enclosed in its bald dreary spaciousness countless black rows of melancholy human worshippers. Only the reflection from the stained-glass window made a feeble effort to cast a little colour and character into the drab monotony, and over the altar niche shone brighter, it seemed, than before the words which promised such volumes-- "Peace be with you." Peace, peace, at any price! Yet, was it not further off than ever? The sense of the fatal woman's nearness was making all his pulses sting and throb. And while the sermon proceeded, like a tinkling brass on a tinkling cymbal, he sat hunched up, leaning forward against the book-rest, trying to follow an idea, and looking out for allusions which he could not grasp for all his suspicion.