ade for each other."

Frau Dournay looked fixedly at her. Has it come to this, that the wife
wishes to give a compensation to her husband!

CHAPTER VI.

A TROUBLED BUT HOPEFUL MOTHER.

The ladies withdrew to dress for dinner. Frau Dournay had let down her
long gray hair, and sat some time speechless in her dressing-room, with
her hands folded in her lap. It seemed to her as if her brain had
received a heavy blow from what she had become convinced of by
unmistakable indications. Her heart contracted, and her tears forced
themselves into her eyes, though they would not fall. Was it for this
that a child was cherished, guarded, and nurtured by all that was best,
that he might end thus? No, not end,--begin an endless entanglement
which must lead to utter ruin. Was it for this that a mind was endowed
with all the treasures of knowledge, that they might be turned into
toys, and masks, and cloaks of baseness?

"O my God, my God!" she moaned, and covered her face with her hands.

Before her mind's eye everything seemed laid waste,--the pure, free,
upright, noble nature of Eric, and her own as well. She could feel no
more joy in the glance, the words, the learning, of her son; he had
used them all for falsehood and treachery.

Now the tears fell from her eyes, as she thought what her husband would
have said to this. How often had he lamented that every one said: "The
world is bad and totally corrupt; why should I alone separate myself
and deny myself its pleasures? And so every one became an upholder
of the empire of sin." But how the ruin embraces everything! This
noble-hearted Clodwig, with his unexampled friendship--they must meet
him, greet him, talk with him, and yet wish him dead. Shame! And he
goes on teaching the boy, teaching him to rule himself, and to work
with noble aim for others, while he himself--oh horrible! And this
passionate woman who could not endure to devote herself to the best of
men, what was to become of her? And this Sonnenkamp, and his wife, and
Fraeulein Perini, and the Priest? "Look," they would all cry, "Look!
these are the liberal souls! These are the people who are always
talking about humanity, and beneficently work for it; and meanwhile
they cherish the lowest passions: they shrink from no treachery, no
lies, no hypocrisy!"

Oh, these unhappy wives, these wives who call themselves unhappy! There
runs through our time a great lie