She sat down suddenly. She, too, had changed during the last few months. Her face was thinner; there were lines under her eyes. She had lost something of the fresh, delicate splendour of youth which had made her seem so dazzling.
"I can't believe that you are in earnest," she faltered.
"There isn't any doubt about it," he assured her. "Send round and hurry your uncle."
She moved to the writing-table and wrote a few lines hastily. Then she rang the bell and gave them to a servant. She was still without a vestige of colour.
"I can't dare to feel hopeful," she observed gloomily, when the door had been closed and they were once more alone. "We trusted you before, we believed that everything would be well. You were brutal to us both—to me as well as to my uncle."
"I made no promises," he reminded her. "I broke no ties. I was a people's man; I still am. I took the course I thought best. I thought I saw a way to real freedom."
"It was Maxendorf!" she exclaimed, under her breath.
He nodded.
"Maxendorf was too clever for me," he confessed. "Perhaps, just at this moment, he is a little sorry for it."
"What do you mean?" she asked hastily.