Decorated HeadingCHAPTER VIII.JEROME.‘There is nothing more galling than to receive pitywhere we would fain inspire love.’Decorated First Letter.Therehad been a long and stormy meeting of creditors–fierce disputes over the accounts which were brought forward, much vituperation, much gesticulation, and Jerome Wellfield had sat through it all, like a man in a dream, scarcely hearing a word.He leaned back in his chair, his hands in his pockets and his face set, his eyes fixed frowningly upon the green leather top of the table at which he sat. Two sentences which he had heard, earlier in the day,exchanged between two gentlemen in the coffee-room of his hotel, had banished all other subjects from his mind.‘When is Falkenberg going to be back from that immenseReise in’s Blauethat he undertook in May? and has he left his wife alone all this time?’‘Oh, I fancy no one knows when he will be back. His wife is at his place at Lahnburg. She is very quiet, they say, and people think they have had a quarrel. Don’t know how much of it is true, I am sure.’He had heard every word of it. The two speakers had sat at the next table to his as he breakfasted that morning. Ever since, heart and head alike had been in a tumult. Not an hour’s journey distant from him, and alone! Of course he must not go to see her, it would be the height of folly and presumption and wickedness; but could he not get one glimpse of her, take one glance into her face unseen by her; have a view ofher, perhaps, as she walked in her garden–or behold some outline of her form at the window. That would be enough. There would be nothing wrong in that; he could see her, and she would not see him; having seen her, he could return home with a quieter heart.The mention of her name, the knowledge of her proximity to him, had revealed, as such incidents do reveal, his own inmost soul to himself, and shrined there he found Sara Ford still, and knew not whether to rejoice that he yet loved her whose equal he had never seen, or whether to mourn that he could not cast that love aside, and content himself with the things that were his.Thus he debated and debated within himself, endeavouring to find reasons why he should go to Lahnburg, while all the time, deep in his heart there was the full consciousness that he ought on no consideration to go near the place, that to do it would be an insultto Sara and to his own wife, and could bring nothing but misery to himself.The meeting had been held at Frankfort in the forenoon, and was over by two o’clock. Jerome, when it was over, went into the hall of his hotel, and looking round, found what he had come for, though he had not even in his own mind confessed so much–a railway time-table fixed against the wall. He studied it, and saw that there were many trains on the Lahnburg line; one at five o’clock from Frankfort, arriving at Lahnburg at six. Three hours were before him in which to decide, and he said within himself:‘I will have some lunch, and think about it, but I don’t think I shall go.’Yet, when he had ordered some lunch and sat in the coffee-room waiting for it, he caught himself thinking what a long time it would be before the time came to set out for the station.Should he go, or should he not? He ate and drank something, andstrolled out of the hotel into the town, and passed by the people who wanted to show him the sights, and he thought he was trying to decide not to go. He repeated to himself all the arguments against going, and they were numerous and cogent. Then he caught himself wishing ardently that he had something to keep him in Frankfort–some engagement that would prevent his leaving the town that evening. Then he went back to the hotel and compared the clock there with his watch. A quarter before five. The station was close at hand–must he go, or must he stay? A man came up to him–one of the merchants who had been present at the meeting, and with whom he had a slight acquaintance, and said politely:‘Mr. Wellfield, if you are staying in the town, and have no other engagement to-night, will you do me the honour of dining at my house? we are having some friends, and I should be delighted to introduce youto my wife and daughters.’‘Thank you,’ replied Wellfield, after a scarcely perceptible pause; ‘you are very kind, and I should have been delighted, but I have an engagement out of town, and must go to the station now, if I am to catch my train.’The die was cast, and he went quickly out of the hotel, and down the street to the station. Ten minutes later, he was in the train, on his way to Lahnburg.When he arrived there it was dusk, as it is in October at six o’clock. He knew the place well, though he had not been of the party on that day of Sara Ford’s first visit there. He knew the way, too, to Falkenberg’s house, and quickly he walked there, and pushed open the gate, stood in the garden, and surveyed the old mansion. Behind one or two of the blinds he saw lights. Everything was very still in the dank, sad air of the autumn evening. Not a sound came from the house. The treesstood drooping and motionless, saturated with the autumnal dew, which is heavy and soaking and dank, not lying lightly like a gossamer mist as that of summer does. He could see the lights of the town twinkling here and there, and a faint hum came up from that direction; but to the right and straight before him there was only a great veil of mist, hiding field and hill, river and distance, alike.He went up to the door, and rang the bell. A man-servant opened the door, and Wellfield began:‘Is–’ but his tongue refused to say Falkenberg’s name. ‘Is thegnädige Frauat home?’She was at home, he was told; and Wellfield entered, and told the man his name. The servant perhaps did not catch the sound of the strange name, but seeing a gentleman, composed and calm, asking for hismistress, he concluded it was right, and opening the door of the salon, announced:‘A gentleman asks to see the gracious lady.’Wellfield saw the lighted room, the figure seated, writing, at a table. A moment afterwards he was alone with her; she had risen and stood looking at him with a strange, alarmed, alien expression, which sent a dismal chill to his very heart. She did not speak. She stood looking at him, and, as he could not help seeing, with an expression of aversion, of shrinking distaste. Her hand grasped the back of the chair from which she had risen, as if for support.His voice first broke the silence:‘Have I startled you, Sara? Forgive me, but I—’She drew a long sigh, as if then first realising that she was not in some strange dream.‘What–what brings you here?’ she asked in an almost inaudible voice.‘I was in Frankfort,’ he said. ‘By accident I heard your name, and heard that you were here and alone. I tried to fight against it, but the impulse was too strong. I felt as if I should repent it all my life if I did not see you once more, while I could.’‘You seem to forget that your visit must be very unwelcome to me; and that you had no right to come. Had I known of your intention I should have ordered my servant not to admit you. You must know that you are acting very wickedly.’‘Wickedly!’ he repeated, scornfully and bitterly, ‘of course I am wicked. Have I not been wicked all along? Do you suppose I do not know it?’‘I do not know, I am sure,’ she repeated, in the same low, almost frightened voice, and with the same look of aversion in her eyes, and a sort of alarmed wonder, which expression galled him beyond what words can express; ‘I do not know how wicked you have been, but I think youforget yourself strangely in thus forcing your presence upon me. Will you go away, please, and leave me? You can have nothing to say to me that I can listen to, and I have nothing at all–not one word–to say to you.’‘Not one? Have you no feeling for me, Sara? Do you suppose that I am happy–that I enjoy my life? Look at me! I look happy, do I not?’‘I pity you from my soul!’ she replied. ‘And if my pity can be of the least use to you, take it. I should indeed be inhuman if I withheld it.’She spoke very gently, never losing her expression of pain and aversion. Wellfield saw it; saw that she was bewildered, tortured by his presence. The scorn and the withering contempt he had expected were not there. What was there was far more hopeless for him–much harder for him to bear. He had had wild visions of falling at her feet andforcing her to own that she, too, loved him as he loved her. Such a course was now out of the question. He felt degraded and humbled, and, worse than that–a fool–ridiculous and absurd.‘At least hear me when I tell you that I shall never cease to repent what I did in my madness. I shall never know happiness again, in feeling that I have destroyed yours, Sara.’‘You are quite mistaken,’ she replied, suddenly and clearly, as she stood up without support, folding her hands before her, and looking him full in the face. ‘You have not destroyed my happiness; it is out of your power to do so. You turned it into bitter wretchedness for a time, I own. I am not superhuman. I loved you devotedly, and trusted you implicitly; and when you betrayed me, I suffered as I hope few women do have to suffer. But you did not destroy my happiness, for that consists in loving and trying to do what is good and noble and honest, and youare none of them. But you cannot destroy those things, nor my joy in them, do what you will. Surely that is enough. Please leave me now, or I must ring the bell and ask them to show you out.’‘You mean to tell me that you will be happy married to Rudolf Falkenberg? how do you account for that?’ he asked, unheeding her words, and advancing a step nearer to her, with eyes fixed upon her face, and breath coming and going eagerly.Sara drew herself up, recoiling a step from before him. Then, looking at him with a glance devoid of the slightest feeling for him, she replied, in a deep, calm voice:‘Because he is all those things that you are not; he is good and noble and honest; he is faithful, and would be faithful unto death–because he saved me when you had almost killed me and quite driven me mad–and because he is my husband, and I love him.’‘You love—’ he began, and stopped abruptly; then, with a short, miserable laugh, said: ‘After that I will go, certainly. And for the future I beg you will spare me your pity. I do not need it. Good-night.’He turned on his heel and left the room. He did not know how he groped his way to the door and opened it, for he could see nothing. At last he found himself in the dank, soft, misty outside air again, just entering the market-square of Lahnburg, repeating her last words to himself over and over again, blankly, vacantly, and mechanically: ‘Because he is my husband, and I love him.’
Decorated HeadingCHAPTER VIII.JEROME.‘There is nothing more galling than to receive pitywhere we would fain inspire love.’Decorated First Letter.Therehad been a long and stormy meeting of creditors–fierce disputes over the accounts which were brought forward, much vituperation, much gesticulation, and Jerome Wellfield had sat through it all, like a man in a dream, scarcely hearing a word.He leaned back in his chair, his hands in his pockets and his face set, his eyes fixed frowningly upon the green leather top of the table at which he sat. Two sentences which he had heard, earlier in the day,exchanged between two gentlemen in the coffee-room of his hotel, had banished all other subjects from his mind.‘When is Falkenberg going to be back from that immenseReise in’s Blauethat he undertook in May? and has he left his wife alone all this time?’‘Oh, I fancy no one knows when he will be back. His wife is at his place at Lahnburg. She is very quiet, they say, and people think they have had a quarrel. Don’t know how much of it is true, I am sure.’He had heard every word of it. The two speakers had sat at the next table to his as he breakfasted that morning. Ever since, heart and head alike had been in a tumult. Not an hour’s journey distant from him, and alone! Of course he must not go to see her, it would be the height of folly and presumption and wickedness; but could he not get one glimpse of her, take one glance into her face unseen by her; have a view ofher, perhaps, as she walked in her garden–or behold some outline of her form at the window. That would be enough. There would be nothing wrong in that; he could see her, and she would not see him; having seen her, he could return home with a quieter heart.The mention of her name, the knowledge of her proximity to him, had revealed, as such incidents do reveal, his own inmost soul to himself, and shrined there he found Sara Ford still, and knew not whether to rejoice that he yet loved her whose equal he had never seen, or whether to mourn that he could not cast that love aside, and content himself with the things that were his.Thus he debated and debated within himself, endeavouring to find reasons why he should go to Lahnburg, while all the time, deep in his heart there was the full consciousness that he ought on no consideration to go near the place, that to do it would be an insultto Sara and to his own wife, and could bring nothing but misery to himself.The meeting had been held at Frankfort in the forenoon, and was over by two o’clock. Jerome, when it was over, went into the hall of his hotel, and looking round, found what he had come for, though he had not even in his own mind confessed so much–a railway time-table fixed against the wall. He studied it, and saw that there were many trains on the Lahnburg line; one at five o’clock from Frankfort, arriving at Lahnburg at six. Three hours were before him in which to decide, and he said within himself:‘I will have some lunch, and think about it, but I don’t think I shall go.’Yet, when he had ordered some lunch and sat in the coffee-room waiting for it, he caught himself thinking what a long time it would be before the time came to set out for the station.Should he go, or should he not? He ate and drank something, andstrolled out of the hotel into the town, and passed by the people who wanted to show him the sights, and he thought he was trying to decide not to go. He repeated to himself all the arguments against going, and they were numerous and cogent. Then he caught himself wishing ardently that he had something to keep him in Frankfort–some engagement that would prevent his leaving the town that evening. Then he went back to the hotel and compared the clock there with his watch. A quarter before five. The station was close at hand–must he go, or must he stay? A man came up to him–one of the merchants who had been present at the meeting, and with whom he had a slight acquaintance, and said politely:‘Mr. Wellfield, if you are staying in the town, and have no other engagement to-night, will you do me the honour of dining at my house? we are having some friends, and I should be delighted to introduce youto my wife and daughters.’‘Thank you,’ replied Wellfield, after a scarcely perceptible pause; ‘you are very kind, and I should have been delighted, but I have an engagement out of town, and must go to the station now, if I am to catch my train.’The die was cast, and he went quickly out of the hotel, and down the street to the station. Ten minutes later, he was in the train, on his way to Lahnburg.When he arrived there it was dusk, as it is in October at six o’clock. He knew the place well, though he had not been of the party on that day of Sara Ford’s first visit there. He knew the way, too, to Falkenberg’s house, and quickly he walked there, and pushed open the gate, stood in the garden, and surveyed the old mansion. Behind one or two of the blinds he saw lights. Everything was very still in the dank, sad air of the autumn evening. Not a sound came from the house. The treesstood drooping and motionless, saturated with the autumnal dew, which is heavy and soaking and dank, not lying lightly like a gossamer mist as that of summer does. He could see the lights of the town twinkling here and there, and a faint hum came up from that direction; but to the right and straight before him there was only a great veil of mist, hiding field and hill, river and distance, alike.He went up to the door, and rang the bell. A man-servant opened the door, and Wellfield began:‘Is–’ but his tongue refused to say Falkenberg’s name. ‘Is thegnädige Frauat home?’She was at home, he was told; and Wellfield entered, and told the man his name. The servant perhaps did not catch the sound of the strange name, but seeing a gentleman, composed and calm, asking for hismistress, he concluded it was right, and opening the door of the salon, announced:‘A gentleman asks to see the gracious lady.’Wellfield saw the lighted room, the figure seated, writing, at a table. A moment afterwards he was alone with her; she had risen and stood looking at him with a strange, alarmed, alien expression, which sent a dismal chill to his very heart. She did not speak. She stood looking at him, and, as he could not help seeing, with an expression of aversion, of shrinking distaste. Her hand grasped the back of the chair from which she had risen, as if for support.His voice first broke the silence:‘Have I startled you, Sara? Forgive me, but I—’She drew a long sigh, as if then first realising that she was not in some strange dream.‘What–what brings you here?’ she asked in an almost inaudible voice.‘I was in Frankfort,’ he said. ‘By accident I heard your name, and heard that you were here and alone. I tried to fight against it, but the impulse was too strong. I felt as if I should repent it all my life if I did not see you once more, while I could.’‘You seem to forget that your visit must be very unwelcome to me; and that you had no right to come. Had I known of your intention I should have ordered my servant not to admit you. You must know that you are acting very wickedly.’‘Wickedly!’ he repeated, scornfully and bitterly, ‘of course I am wicked. Have I not been wicked all along? Do you suppose I do not know it?’‘I do not know, I am sure,’ she repeated, in the same low, almost frightened voice, and with the same look of aversion in her eyes, and a sort of alarmed wonder, which expression galled him beyond what words can express; ‘I do not know how wicked you have been, but I think youforget yourself strangely in thus forcing your presence upon me. Will you go away, please, and leave me? You can have nothing to say to me that I can listen to, and I have nothing at all–not one word–to say to you.’‘Not one? Have you no feeling for me, Sara? Do you suppose that I am happy–that I enjoy my life? Look at me! I look happy, do I not?’‘I pity you from my soul!’ she replied. ‘And if my pity can be of the least use to you, take it. I should indeed be inhuman if I withheld it.’She spoke very gently, never losing her expression of pain and aversion. Wellfield saw it; saw that she was bewildered, tortured by his presence. The scorn and the withering contempt he had expected were not there. What was there was far more hopeless for him–much harder for him to bear. He had had wild visions of falling at her feet andforcing her to own that she, too, loved him as he loved her. Such a course was now out of the question. He felt degraded and humbled, and, worse than that–a fool–ridiculous and absurd.‘At least hear me when I tell you that I shall never cease to repent what I did in my madness. I shall never know happiness again, in feeling that I have destroyed yours, Sara.’‘You are quite mistaken,’ she replied, suddenly and clearly, as she stood up without support, folding her hands before her, and looking him full in the face. ‘You have not destroyed my happiness; it is out of your power to do so. You turned it into bitter wretchedness for a time, I own. I am not superhuman. I loved you devotedly, and trusted you implicitly; and when you betrayed me, I suffered as I hope few women do have to suffer. But you did not destroy my happiness, for that consists in loving and trying to do what is good and noble and honest, and youare none of them. But you cannot destroy those things, nor my joy in them, do what you will. Surely that is enough. Please leave me now, or I must ring the bell and ask them to show you out.’‘You mean to tell me that you will be happy married to Rudolf Falkenberg? how do you account for that?’ he asked, unheeding her words, and advancing a step nearer to her, with eyes fixed upon her face, and breath coming and going eagerly.Sara drew herself up, recoiling a step from before him. Then, looking at him with a glance devoid of the slightest feeling for him, she replied, in a deep, calm voice:‘Because he is all those things that you are not; he is good and noble and honest; he is faithful, and would be faithful unto death–because he saved me when you had almost killed me and quite driven me mad–and because he is my husband, and I love him.’‘You love—’ he began, and stopped abruptly; then, with a short, miserable laugh, said: ‘After that I will go, certainly. And for the future I beg you will spare me your pity. I do not need it. Good-night.’He turned on his heel and left the room. He did not know how he groped his way to the door and opened it, for he could see nothing. At last he found himself in the dank, soft, misty outside air again, just entering the market-square of Lahnburg, repeating her last words to himself over and over again, blankly, vacantly, and mechanically: ‘Because he is my husband, and I love him.’
Decorated Heading
‘There is nothing more galling than to receive pitywhere we would fain inspire love.’
Decorated First Letter.
Therehad been a long and stormy meeting of creditors–fierce disputes over the accounts which were brought forward, much vituperation, much gesticulation, and Jerome Wellfield had sat through it all, like a man in a dream, scarcely hearing a word.
He leaned back in his chair, his hands in his pockets and his face set, his eyes fixed frowningly upon the green leather top of the table at which he sat. Two sentences which he had heard, earlier in the day,exchanged between two gentlemen in the coffee-room of his hotel, had banished all other subjects from his mind.
‘When is Falkenberg going to be back from that immenseReise in’s Blauethat he undertook in May? and has he left his wife alone all this time?’
‘Oh, I fancy no one knows when he will be back. His wife is at his place at Lahnburg. She is very quiet, they say, and people think they have had a quarrel. Don’t know how much of it is true, I am sure.’
He had heard every word of it. The two speakers had sat at the next table to his as he breakfasted that morning. Ever since, heart and head alike had been in a tumult. Not an hour’s journey distant from him, and alone! Of course he must not go to see her, it would be the height of folly and presumption and wickedness; but could he not get one glimpse of her, take one glance into her face unseen by her; have a view ofher, perhaps, as she walked in her garden–or behold some outline of her form at the window. That would be enough. There would be nothing wrong in that; he could see her, and she would not see him; having seen her, he could return home with a quieter heart.
The mention of her name, the knowledge of her proximity to him, had revealed, as such incidents do reveal, his own inmost soul to himself, and shrined there he found Sara Ford still, and knew not whether to rejoice that he yet loved her whose equal he had never seen, or whether to mourn that he could not cast that love aside, and content himself with the things that were his.
Thus he debated and debated within himself, endeavouring to find reasons why he should go to Lahnburg, while all the time, deep in his heart there was the full consciousness that he ought on no consideration to go near the place, that to do it would be an insultto Sara and to his own wife, and could bring nothing but misery to himself.
The meeting had been held at Frankfort in the forenoon, and was over by two o’clock. Jerome, when it was over, went into the hall of his hotel, and looking round, found what he had come for, though he had not even in his own mind confessed so much–a railway time-table fixed against the wall. He studied it, and saw that there were many trains on the Lahnburg line; one at five o’clock from Frankfort, arriving at Lahnburg at six. Three hours were before him in which to decide, and he said within himself:
‘I will have some lunch, and think about it, but I don’t think I shall go.’
Yet, when he had ordered some lunch and sat in the coffee-room waiting for it, he caught himself thinking what a long time it would be before the time came to set out for the station.
Should he go, or should he not? He ate and drank something, andstrolled out of the hotel into the town, and passed by the people who wanted to show him the sights, and he thought he was trying to decide not to go. He repeated to himself all the arguments against going, and they were numerous and cogent. Then he caught himself wishing ardently that he had something to keep him in Frankfort–some engagement that would prevent his leaving the town that evening. Then he went back to the hotel and compared the clock there with his watch. A quarter before five. The station was close at hand–must he go, or must he stay? A man came up to him–one of the merchants who had been present at the meeting, and with whom he had a slight acquaintance, and said politely:
‘Mr. Wellfield, if you are staying in the town, and have no other engagement to-night, will you do me the honour of dining at my house? we are having some friends, and I should be delighted to introduce youto my wife and daughters.’
‘Thank you,’ replied Wellfield, after a scarcely perceptible pause; ‘you are very kind, and I should have been delighted, but I have an engagement out of town, and must go to the station now, if I am to catch my train.’
The die was cast, and he went quickly out of the hotel, and down the street to the station. Ten minutes later, he was in the train, on his way to Lahnburg.
When he arrived there it was dusk, as it is in October at six o’clock. He knew the place well, though he had not been of the party on that day of Sara Ford’s first visit there. He knew the way, too, to Falkenberg’s house, and quickly he walked there, and pushed open the gate, stood in the garden, and surveyed the old mansion. Behind one or two of the blinds he saw lights. Everything was very still in the dank, sad air of the autumn evening. Not a sound came from the house. The treesstood drooping and motionless, saturated with the autumnal dew, which is heavy and soaking and dank, not lying lightly like a gossamer mist as that of summer does. He could see the lights of the town twinkling here and there, and a faint hum came up from that direction; but to the right and straight before him there was only a great veil of mist, hiding field and hill, river and distance, alike.
He went up to the door, and rang the bell. A man-servant opened the door, and Wellfield began:
‘Is–’ but his tongue refused to say Falkenberg’s name. ‘Is thegnädige Frauat home?’
She was at home, he was told; and Wellfield entered, and told the man his name. The servant perhaps did not catch the sound of the strange name, but seeing a gentleman, composed and calm, asking for hismistress, he concluded it was right, and opening the door of the salon, announced:
‘A gentleman asks to see the gracious lady.’
Wellfield saw the lighted room, the figure seated, writing, at a table. A moment afterwards he was alone with her; she had risen and stood looking at him with a strange, alarmed, alien expression, which sent a dismal chill to his very heart. She did not speak. She stood looking at him, and, as he could not help seeing, with an expression of aversion, of shrinking distaste. Her hand grasped the back of the chair from which she had risen, as if for support.
His voice first broke the silence:
‘Have I startled you, Sara? Forgive me, but I—’
She drew a long sigh, as if then first realising that she was not in some strange dream.
‘What–what brings you here?’ she asked in an almost inaudible voice.
‘I was in Frankfort,’ he said. ‘By accident I heard your name, and heard that you were here and alone. I tried to fight against it, but the impulse was too strong. I felt as if I should repent it all my life if I did not see you once more, while I could.’
‘You seem to forget that your visit must be very unwelcome to me; and that you had no right to come. Had I known of your intention I should have ordered my servant not to admit you. You must know that you are acting very wickedly.’
‘Wickedly!’ he repeated, scornfully and bitterly, ‘of course I am wicked. Have I not been wicked all along? Do you suppose I do not know it?’
‘I do not know, I am sure,’ she repeated, in the same low, almost frightened voice, and with the same look of aversion in her eyes, and a sort of alarmed wonder, which expression galled him beyond what words can express; ‘I do not know how wicked you have been, but I think youforget yourself strangely in thus forcing your presence upon me. Will you go away, please, and leave me? You can have nothing to say to me that I can listen to, and I have nothing at all–not one word–to say to you.’
‘Not one? Have you no feeling for me, Sara? Do you suppose that I am happy–that I enjoy my life? Look at me! I look happy, do I not?’
‘I pity you from my soul!’ she replied. ‘And if my pity can be of the least use to you, take it. I should indeed be inhuman if I withheld it.’
She spoke very gently, never losing her expression of pain and aversion. Wellfield saw it; saw that she was bewildered, tortured by his presence. The scorn and the withering contempt he had expected were not there. What was there was far more hopeless for him–much harder for him to bear. He had had wild visions of falling at her feet andforcing her to own that she, too, loved him as he loved her. Such a course was now out of the question. He felt degraded and humbled, and, worse than that–a fool–ridiculous and absurd.
‘At least hear me when I tell you that I shall never cease to repent what I did in my madness. I shall never know happiness again, in feeling that I have destroyed yours, Sara.’
‘You are quite mistaken,’ she replied, suddenly and clearly, as she stood up without support, folding her hands before her, and looking him full in the face. ‘You have not destroyed my happiness; it is out of your power to do so. You turned it into bitter wretchedness for a time, I own. I am not superhuman. I loved you devotedly, and trusted you implicitly; and when you betrayed me, I suffered as I hope few women do have to suffer. But you did not destroy my happiness, for that consists in loving and trying to do what is good and noble and honest, and youare none of them. But you cannot destroy those things, nor my joy in them, do what you will. Surely that is enough. Please leave me now, or I must ring the bell and ask them to show you out.’
‘You mean to tell me that you will be happy married to Rudolf Falkenberg? how do you account for that?’ he asked, unheeding her words, and advancing a step nearer to her, with eyes fixed upon her face, and breath coming and going eagerly.
Sara drew herself up, recoiling a step from before him. Then, looking at him with a glance devoid of the slightest feeling for him, she replied, in a deep, calm voice:
‘Because he is all those things that you are not; he is good and noble and honest; he is faithful, and would be faithful unto death–because he saved me when you had almost killed me and quite driven me mad–and because he is my husband, and I love him.’
‘You love—’ he began, and stopped abruptly; then, with a short, miserable laugh, said: ‘After that I will go, certainly. And for the future I beg you will spare me your pity. I do not need it. Good-night.’
He turned on his heel and left the room. He did not know how he groped his way to the door and opened it, for he could see nothing. At last he found himself in the dank, soft, misty outside air again, just entering the market-square of Lahnburg, repeating her last words to himself over and over again, blankly, vacantly, and mechanically: ‘Because he is my husband, and I love him.’