"There, you're . . . looking at me again!" he exclaimed with sudden vehemence.
"They're safe enough in the cupboard," Gudule said, smiling, "why should I lock it?"
"Gudule, do you mean to say . . ." he cried, raising his hand as for a blow. Then he fell back in his chair, and his frame was shaken with sobs.
"Gudule, my heart's love," he cried, "I am not worthy that your eyes should rest on me. Everywhere, wherever I go, they look at me, those eyes . . . and that is my ruin. If business is bad, your eyes ask me, 'Why did you mix yourself up with these things, without a thought of wife or children?' . . . Then I feel as if some evil spirit possessed me and tortured my soul. Oh, why can't you look at me again as you did when you were my bride?—then you looked so happy, so lovely! At other times I think: 'I shall yet grasp fortune with both hands . . . and then I can face my Gudule's eyes again.' But now, now . . . oh, don't look at me, Gudule!"
There spoke the self-reproaching voice, which sometimes burst forth unbidden from a suffering soul.
As for Gudule, she already knew how to appreciate this cry of her husband's conscience at its true value. It was not that she felt one moment's doubt as to its sincerity, but she knew that so far as it affected the future, it was a mere cry and nothing more.
