Wait awhile."
But in her heart of hearts she knew that the evil day could not be long postponed.
One day, when her own suspense had reached such a pitch that it could no longer be endured, Mrs. Gerhardt sent Jennie away with the children, hoping to be able to tell her husband before they returned.
All the morning she fidgeted about, dreading the opportune moment and letting him retire to his slumber without speaking.
When afternoon came she did not go out to work, because she could not leave with her painful duty unfulfilled.
Gerhardt arose at four, and still she hesitated, knowing full well that Jennie would soon return and that the specially prepared occasion would then be lost.
It is almost certain that she would not have had the courage to say anything if he himself had not brought up the subject of Jennie's appearance.
"She doesn't look well," he said.
"There seems to be something the matter with her."
"Oh," began Mrs. Gerhardt, visibly struggling with her fears, and moved to make an end of it at any cost, "Jennie is in trouble.
I don't know what to do.
She—"
Gerhardt, who had unscrewed a door-lock and was trying to mend it, looked up sharply from his work.
"What do you mean?" he asked.
Mrs. Gerhardt had her apron in her hands at the time, her nervous tendency to roll it coming upon her.
She tried to summon sufficient courage to explain, but fear mastered her completely; she lifted the apron to her eyes and began to cry.
Gerhardt looked at her and rose.
He was a man with the Calvin type of face, rather spare, with skin sallow and discolored as the result of age and work in the wind and rain.
When he was surprised or angry sparks of light glittered in his eyes.
He frequently pushed his hair back when he was troubled, and almost invariably walked the floor; just now he looked alert and dangerous.
"What is that you say?" he inquired in German, his voice straining to a hard note.
"In trouble—has some one—" He paused and flung his hand upward.
"Why don't you speak?" he demanded.
"I never thought," went on Mrs. Gerhardt, frightened, and yet following her own train of thought, "that anything like that would happen to her.
She was such a good girl.
Oh!" she concluded, "to think he should ruin Jennie."
"By thunder!" shouted Gerhardt, giving way to a fury of feeling,
"I thought so!
Brander!
Ha!
Your fine man!
That comes of letting her go running around at nights, buggy-riding, walking the streets.
I thought so.
God in heaven!—"
He broke from his dramatic attitude and struck out in a fierce stride across the narrow chamber, turning like a caged animal.
"Ruined!" he exclaimed.
"Ruined!
Ha!
So he has ruined her, has he?"
Suddenly he stopped like an image jerked by a string.
He was directly in front of Mrs. Gerhardt, who had retired to the table at the side of the wall, and was standing there pale with fear.
"He is dead now!" he shouted, as if this fact had now first occurred to him.
"He is dead!"
He put both hands to his temples, as if he feared his brain would give way, and stood looking at her, the mocking irony of the situation seeming to burn in his brain like fire.
"Dead!" he repeated, and Mrs. Gerhardt, fearing for the reason of the man, shrank still farther away, her wits taken up rather with the tragedy of the figure he presented than with the actual substance of his woe.
"He intended to marry her," she pleaded nervously.
"He would have married her if he had not died."
"Would have!" shouted Gerhardt, coming out of his trance at the sound of her voice.
"Would have!
That's a fine thing to talk about now.