ter of a century received anything but brutality and
scorn, and from whom she had suffered the grossest of humiliations--when
no one was listening.

"What do you want, Siegmund?" she asked, with painful effort.

The Baron stepped close up to her, bit his lips, and looked at her for
ten or twelve seconds with a fearful expression on his face.

She then seized him by the left arm: "What is the matter with Eberhard?"
she cried; "tell me, tell me everything! There is something wrong."

The Baron, with a gesture of stinging aversion, thrust her hands from
him, and turned to go. There was unfathomable coldness in his conduct.

Beside herself with grief, the Baroness made up her mind to tell him,
for the first time in her life, of the thousand wrongs that burned
within her heart. And she did: "Oh, you monster! Why did Fate bring you
into my life? Where is there another woman in the world whose lot has
been like mine? Where is the woman who has lived without joy or love or
esteem or freedom or peace, a burden to others and to herself? Show me
another woman who goes about in silk and satin longing for death. Name
me another woman who people think is happy, because the devil, who
tortures her without ceasing, deceives them all. Where is there another
woman who has been so shamelessly robbed of her children? For is not my
daughter the captive and concubine of an insane tuft-hunter? Has not my
son been taken from me through the baseness that has been practised
against his sister, and the lamentable spectacle afforded him by my own
powerlessness? Where, I ask high Heaven, is there another woman so
cursed as I have been?"

She threw herself down on her bosom, and burrowed her face into the
cushion.

The Baron was surprised at the feverish eloquence of his wife; he had
accustomed himself to her mute resignation, as he might have accustomed
himself to the regular, monotonous ticking of a hall clock. He was
anxious to see what she would do next, how she would develop her
excitement; she was a novel phenomenon in his eyes: therefore he
remained standing in the door.

But as he stood there in chilly expectancy, his haggard face casting off
expressions of scorn and surprise, he suddenly sensed a feeling of weary
disgust at himself. It was the disgust of a man whose wishes had always
been fulfilled, whose lusts had been satisfied; of a man who has never
known other men except as greedy and practical supplicants; of a man who
has al