He raised his fists as if relieved of some heavy weight. With this drastic explanation he hoped to break once for all the chain with which his sister had tried to bring his will into subjection to her own. But he could not evade that searching, hungry glance. He had learned to fear her, and felt that she meant him harm. "If you will deliberately revel in evil thus," she said, "I must give you up as lost. But are you become so uncivilised and lawless that even the disgrace which your friend has suffered through you does not weigh on your conscience?" "Be silent!" he shouted, jumping up. "You don't wish to be reproached on that score, neither will I be reproached. The misfortune has happened--any step that I might take now would only increase it. I have given up intercourse with him. Do you think that was easy? Do you think I can ever be quit of the fear of what may befall him?" "And still you say that all is over, as if it had never been?" "I say it is bound to be so." "Yet the consequences of your deed cry to Heaven, dear Leo, on every side." "How cry to Heaven?" "If you don't know it, I must tell you. Your former mistress is again causing scandals without end. Your friend's repute is in bad hands. Who knows if all the world is not jeering and laughing at him." "Johanna!" he cried, with a feeling as if his heart were being sundered in pieces within his breast. "Johanna, you lie!" But she went on, calm and hard as nails. "God knows, I live a very retired life, but the gossip has even penetrated over my threshold. And if you don't believe me, you have only to make a few inquiries in the smoking-rooms of your friends and acquaintances. There, likely enough, stories are told; or go into Münsterberg, and see how our gilded youths exchange glances when Ulrich drives through the town in his yellow basket carriage. That is a signal for paying calls on the fair Felicitas, and she receives them all. Go to the post-office, and count the number of her male correspondents. You see, she has room in her heart for so many." "Stop! Your hate verges on insanity," he said, and walked up and down the room. She shrugged her shoulders. "If only you knew how far above hating I am! I don't even say that she deceives him. I know her, she is such a coward, such a coward! She'll promise every one what he wants, but she hasn't the courage to keep her word." "And does it, all this go on without his knowledge?" he stammered forth. "I wish that it did," she responded. "Then at least people would, from fear of his horsewhip, have more caution. But she knows too well that she can trade on the loftiness of his nature, and so she plays her game quite openly under his very eyes."