"Oh, yes, no doubt. You looked for me to return in rags and repentance. That naturally would be your idea of a proper retribution. Well, I am here, but I came in neither rags nor repentance. I do not even come in fear. I came to claim what is mine by right." She stepped forward very slowly and sat in the same little chair she had always chosen. John noticed how languid were all her movements; the Doctor saw more, and knew now the reason of her return. He would have spoken, but he heard her father's step in the hall, and for one of the few times in his life he lost his head. He tried to call out, to warn him, in some way to prepare him for the shock, but he could not; he seemed for a moment to have lost the power of speech, of movement, and before he could recover himself Dr. Barnhelm came into the room.
"I could not sleep, Paul," he began; "I tried, but----" Then he saw her. She sat in the chair looking at him with no trace of softening on her face, no shame, just a half smile of amusement. Maria rose from her knees and stepped toward him, her arms held out as if to offer him protection. The two men stepped forward, watching his face for the sign of love and forgiveness they both hoped to see there. It did not come. He paused for just a moment, then spoke very quietly, with extreme politeness.
"No?" She seemed quite as calm, quite as formal as he was himself.
"You are to remain with us?" He asked the question as one might ask it of a perfect stranger.
"Martin!" Dr. Crossett could contain himself no longer. "Is this the way you meet, you two?"
"Why not?" Lola looked up at him coldly. "We understand one another quite well, I think."
"I think so," replied her father, "but I must be sure. I must speak with you alone."
"Come, John. Come, Maria." Dr. Crossett went with them to the door, but the sight of those two, father and daughter, coldly facing one another, was more than he could bear, and he returned to Dr. Barnhelm and, putting both hands on his shoulders, spoke to him with all his tenderness, all his love for them, and for the dead mother to whom this sight would have been so terrible, in his voice.
"Martin, if our old friendship means anything to you, I beg you to remember that she has come back to us, not for blame or reproaches, but for comfort, for love!"