"Were you then already decided not to wait for the sentence?"
Sonnenkamp nodded with a smile of triumph. There was a long pause. He held her hand firmly. At last she asked hesitatingly,—
"Would not my flight confirm the injurious suspicion, the suspicion that Clodwig was"—
"Fie!" interrupted Sonnenkamp; "as if it would not have been easier to desert a living husband than to murder him first!"
Bella shuddered at the words, and Sonnenkamp exclaimed,—
"O Bella! noble soul, alone great among women, cast away all these European casuistries; with a single step put this whole, old-maidish Europe behind you!"
A still longer pause followed: there was no sound but the screaming of the parrot.
"When do you start?" asked Bella.
"To-night, by the railway."
"No, by boat. Is no boat going?"