So the hours passed, bringing her neither sleep, peace, nor the desire to forget the humiliation inflicted upon her.

At last Peter entered the room, stepping lightly and cautiously, in order not to wake her.  She pretended to be asleep, but with half-closed eyes could see him distinctly.  The lamp-light fell upon his face, and the lines she had formerly perceived looked like deep shadows between his eyes and mouth.  They impressed upon his features the stamp of heavy, sorrowful anxiety, and reminded Maria of the “too hard” and “if I can only bear it,” he had murmured in his sleep the night before.  Then he approached her bed and stood there a long time; she no longer saw him, for she kept her eyes tightly closed, but the first loving glance, with which he gazed down upon her, had not escaped her notice.  It continued to beam before her mental vision, and she thought she felt that he was watching and praying for her as if she were a child.

Sleep had long since overpowered her husband, while Maria lay gazing at the glimmering dawn, as wakeful as if it were broad day.  For the sake of his love she would forgive much, but she could not forget the humiliation she had experienced.  “A toy,” she said to herself, “a work of art which we enjoy, is placed in security when danger threatens the house; the axe and the bread, the sword and the talisman that protects us, in short whatever we cannot dispense with while we live, we do not release from our hands till death comes.  She was not necessary, indispensable to him.  If she had obeyed his wish and left him, then—­yes, then—­”

Here the current of her thoughts was checked, for the first time she asked herself the question:  “Would he have really missed your helping hand, your cheering word?”

She turned restlessly, and her heart throbbed anxiously, as she told herself that she had done little to smooth his rugged pathway.  The vague feeling, that he had not been entirely to blame, if she had not found perfect happiness by his side, alarmed her.  Did not her former conduct justify him in expecting hindrance rather than support and help in impending days of severest peril?

Filled with deep longing to obtain a clear view of her own heart, she raised herself on her pillows and reviewed her whole former life.

Her mother had been a Catholic in her youth, and had often told her how free and light-hearted she had felt, when she confided everything that can trouble a woman’s heart to a silent third person, and received from the lips of God’s servant the assurance that she might now begin a new life, secure of forgiveness.  “It is harder for us now,” her mother said before her first communion, “for we of the Reformed religion are referred to ourselves and our God, and must be wholly at peace with ourselves before we approach the Lord’s table.  True, that is enough, for if we frankly and honestly confess to the judge within our own breasts all that troubles our consciences, whether in thought or deed, and sincerely repent, we shall be sure of forgiveness for the sake of the Saviour’s wounds.”