] No! No! No! [_She covers her
face with her hands--trying to control herself._] Please!... Not now....

FREDERIK. Why not _now_? [_Suspiciously._] Has Hartman been talking to
you? What has he been saying to you? [CATHERINE _starts slowly up the
stairs._] Wait a moment, please.... [_As she retreats a step up the
stairs, he follows her._] Do you really imagine you--you care for that
fellow?

CATHERINE. Don't--please.

FREDERIK. I'm sorry to insist. Of course, I knew there was a sort of
school-girl attachment on your part; ... that you'd known each other since
childhood. I don't take it at all seriously. In three months, you'll
forget him. I must insist, however, that you do _not_ speak to him again
to-night. After to-morrow--after we are married--I'm quite sure that you
will not forget you are my wife, Catherine--my wife.

CATHERINE. I sha'n't forget. [_She escapes into her room._ FREDERIK _goes
to his desk._

PETER. [_Confronting_ FREDERIK.] Now, sir, I have something to say to you,
Frederik Grimm, my beloved nephew! I had to die to find you out; but I
know you! [FREDERIK _is reading a letter._] You sit there opening a dead
man's mail--with the heart of a stone--thinking: "He's gone! he's gone!--
so I'll break every promise!" But there is something you have forgotten--
something that always finds us out: the law of reward and punishment. Even
now it is overtaking you. Your hour has struck. [FREDERIK _takes up
another letter and begins to read it; then, as though disturbed by a
passing thought, he puts it down. As though perplexed by the condition of
his own mind, he ponders, his eyes resting unconsciously on_ PETER.] Your
hour has struck.

FREDERIK. [_To himself._] What in the world is the matter with me
to-night?

PETER. Read!

FREDERIK. [_Has opened a long, narrow, blue envelope containing a letter
on blue paper and a small photograph. He stares at the letter, aghast._]
My God! Here's luck.... Here's luck! From that girl Annamarie to my uncle.
Oh, if he had read it!

PETER. [_Standing in front of_ FREDERIK _looks into space--as though
reading the letter in the air._] "Dear Mr. Grimm: I have not written
because I can't do anything to help William, and I am ashamed."

FREDERIK. Wh! [_As though he had read the first part to himself, now reads
aloud._] "Don't be too hard upon me.... I have gone hungry trying to save
a few pennies for him, but I never could; and now I see that I cannot hope
to have him back. W