In spite of the noise and laughter, in spite of the row of empty bottles which grew longer and longer under the side-board, it was a dreary, uncomfortable meal, and to no one more so than to the master of the house. Brandow knew from long experience that he could require his nerves to bear a great deal, but it now seemed as if he should not be able to accomplish what he had undertaken to-day. While laughing heartily over a story he had just related, his fingers fairly trembled with the longing he felt to snatch the champagne bottle from the cooler and shatter it upon Redebas' huge black head. He was aware that his strength was almost exhausted; he should break down if Hinrich Scheel did not return soon and release him from this horrible torture of uncertainty. And then it seemed as if this torment was nothing to the other, the torment of the certainty that his wife loved that man, and despised him too much even to hate him, and that he fully deserved her scorn. Again and again--with the speed of lightning--in the few seconds it required to raise a glass of wine to his lips and swallow the contents--he lived over the scene of the night before in her sleeping-room, when he stood before her with clenched fists, and not a muscle in her pale face quivered until he struck her to the heart with the fatal blow which he had cruelly withheld so long. To her heart! Her heart! It had been a master-stroke! A thrust which crushed the proud haughty woman like a stag overtaken by a bullet, rendered her his weak, obedient tool, and made him master of the situation. An enviable situation, to sit here and endure Redebas' coarse taunts, laugh at his own silly wit, look at the stupid faces of the two Plueggens, be cordial to the canting Parson, be forced to see that no one's glass was empty, and amid all the noisy tumult listen continually for the rolling of the carriage which would bring Hinrich, and with Hinrich the money for which he had done what he had done, suffered what he had suffered, and without which he was a ruined man. At last, at last! There was the clatter of horses' hoofs, and the rattle of a carriage, which stopped before the house. No one had heard it except himself! So much the better, he could speak to Hinrich undisturbed! He left his guests under the pretext that he wanted to get another brand of champagne, and hurried across the hall to the open door, before which the carriage was still standing, and he perceived the Assessor engaged in conversation with Hinrich Scheel, when he suddenly heard his own name called from his room, the door of which also stood open, and turning at the sound, saw the man he hated standing before him. A thrill of mingled rage and alarm shot through his frame like a two-edged sword. What brought this man back? How could he dare to return? To say that he had no money, would not pay.