Lorm did not dare tell Judith of his meeting with Wolfgang. He was afraid of her questions, of her feeling his sympathy with Christian, of clouding the puppet-show of her life. Yet she was gradually draining all the light out of his own existence. Her niggardliness in the household became so extreme that the servants complained of hunger. The baker and the butcher could obtain settlement of their bills only when they threatened to bring suit. Judith intercepted the dunning letters they addressed to Lorm. She sorted the mail every morning. He knew it; one of the maids, whom she had discharged after an ugly quarrel, had flung the information at him. He did not reproach Judith. She began to cut down the expenses for his personal needs too, and he had to eke out his diet in restaurants and wine-rooms. But the sums that she wasted for frocks, coats, hats, and antiquities increased to the point of madness. She bought old cases and chests which she promptly sent to the attic; Chinese vases, Renaissance embroideries, ivory boxes, cut-glass goblets, candelabra of chased metal work. Her purchases were without discrimination, and served only the whim of the moment. The things stood or lay about as in a shop; they served neither use nor adornment. Now and then she had a generous impulse, and presented some object to one of the women who flattered her and whose society had therefore become indispensable to her. Afterwards she would regret her generosity, and abuse its recipient as though a trick had been played on her. In spite of the great number of things about her, she would observe the absence or displacement of any object at once, accuse every one who had entered the room of theft, and know no rest until the lost thing had been found. In her dressing-room there hung dozens of garments and hats and shawls that had never touched her body except when she had tried them on on the day of their purchase. It satisfied her to possess them. They might go out of fashion or be full of moths; to possess them was enough. Lorm knew this, but he bore her no resentment. He made no objection; he let her do as she desired. He did not or would not see the obvious consequences of his boundless acquiescence--her degeneration and degradation and heartlessness. She was to him still the woman who had sacrificed everything in order to enter his lonely and joyless life. He had condemned his achingly modest soul to permanent gratitude, and had no conviction of any right of protest. He who had thrust so many from him, and had been cold toward so many, and had contemned so much genuine and active love, whose gentlest gesture had not only commanded but entranced thousands of watchers and listeners, this same man endured humiliation and neglect as though to expiate his sins, and was silent and steadfast in undeviating fidelity.