"On that spot," Johanna went on, "she knelt and took her oath, and I believed her, for one doesn't swear falsely on the head of one's own child. And you were both warned. I let you take the sacrament together, so that you both should be quite honest in your good resolutions. Then I saw how wild you became, and I felt anxious. And the child was still alive, nothing had happened; 'but God will speak in His own good time,' I thought. And day after day I sat and waited for the child to die. Then it did die, and I knew what I wanted to know. It is useless for you to defend yourself, or deny anything, Leo; God has spoken, and I believe God before _you_." He boiled with inarticulate wrath, scarcely knowing what words he could use to lash her with. "What noble conduct! What sublimely noble conduct," he snarled, "to sit and wait like a cat watching for a mouse, all eager expectancy to hear of the death of an innocent child!" "There is nothing left for me to live for," she said, with a moan. "No one wants me; I am quite superfluous--quite." "It doesn't seem like it," he scoffed. "Why have you summoned me to come to you? Speak out. What is the blow you are holding up your sleeve?" "Blow!" replied his sister. "Don't call it that. Say rather benefit--benefit for us all. I have kept silent from one year's end to another, and have staked everything upon it--youth, happiness, peace of mind! But now I must speak--God wills it so. God directs that I shall tell Ulrich all, so that his house may be purified again, and his eyes opened to what sort of woman his wife is, and what sort of man his friend." He had sprung to his feet, and his hands groped towards her. For an instant his insensate fury blinded him. "Put an end to her, so that she can do no more mischief," something said within him. "Kill her rather than let her betray you." His eyes wandered over the walls. He saw a bouquet of dusty pampas grass in a blue china jar on a bracket, a good shepherd smiling sweetly down on the lamb in his arms, and other religious lithograph prints. Slowly he collected himself. "When do you propose to carry out your intentions?" he inquired hoarsely. "So soon as it is necessary," she answered. "When will it be necessary?" he eagerly questioned her again. "Ulrich is away. From Königsberg he will be going to Berlin. He can't be back before March. So till then you will have to be patient." "I can urge him to come home," she replied in a low tone, with a tearful smile. "That you shall not do," he cried, seizing hold of her roughly. The room spun round. Again he saw nothing but the blood-red vapour of his fury, and through it a pair of widely opened eyes staring up at him in agonised terror. He felt a lean throat yielding to the pressure of his fingers. At that moment his sister was nothing more to him than an insect, a moth shying at the light, that could be crushed to powder in his grasp. "You will hold your tongue," he hissed, "or I'll throttle you."