"What are these thoughts to which you are always alluding? For God's sake explain," cried Ulrich, scarcely able to master his anxiety. Leo gave a discordant laugh. "It would not interest you," he said, and he gave Ulrich's face a piercing sidelong glance. Ulrich sprang to his feet, and began to pace the floor. His breathing came in gasps, and his haggard cheeks were flushed. Then he stood still in front of Leo, and said, with resolve burning in his brilliant eyes-- "Look here, I'll speak seriously to you, old boy. I, too, have my burden to bear. I have never felt more keenly the desolation of my home than this Christmas, when the little chap who should have been dancing round the fir-tree has not been there. He ought to have come home, but my wife didn't wish it. There's something strained in the atmosphere of the house now, a feeling somehow as if misfortune were pending. I feel a stranger at my own fireside!" Leo cowered under the touch of his thin hand, which he had laid on his shoulders, and Ulrich continued-- "My single joy now rests in my activity as a politician. Of course it means incessant and untiring labour. You know what commissions are? But the seed is sown, and by Easter we may expect results. Probably our object will have been gained. But there is an enormous amount to be done, and I shall be of more use in Berlin than anywhere else. Now listen? When I left home six weeks ago you seemed to me to be all right; you might have been a little grave for you, but you talked reasonably and your eye was clear. And now I am back and find you in such a state that I cannot forbear saying to myself, 'He looks as if he were going to the devil.'" "Well, I am at liberty to do so if I please," laughed Leo. "I don't envy you that liberty, my boy," Ulrich replied. "Yet I cannot help thinking that even if I have lost your confidence and you treat me as an intruder, things would not have come to such a pass with you if I had been at home." "What fault have you to find with me? Am I not to be trusted out of your sight?" "Soon after the new year I am going away again. Goodness knows how I shall find you when I come back." "Stony broke," laughed Leo, feeling his irritation grow. Ulrich closed his eyes, moved to emotion by this insane burst of self-annihilation on Leo's part. Then after a moment he asked-- "Would you like to travel again?" "No," was the short rejoinder. "Very good. Shall I not go away, then? Would it be any help to you to feel that I was near at hand?" Leo gave him a quick look in which eager hope and anguish were mingled; but then he answered, turning his head aside impatiently-- "Thank you, I am not in need of a keeper."