"Why did I accept your offer, do you mean?" Her eyes sank to the ground, and a gentle shade passed over her face, whilst, with a low voice, the peculiarly painful tone of which pierced to his heart, she continued--"I was scarcely more than a child, I had learnt nothing beyond my mother's sick room, but care, sorrow, and many other things more difficult to bear. The first ray of sunshine which falls upon such a childhood is seldom denied entrance. You came back then from the capital in all the brilliance of your rising talent, admired by all in our little town. You told me of your love, and I--did, what every girl of sixteen does, whose heart is still free. I dreamed myself into the idea that I loved you, whilst I really only cherished an affection for my old playfellow. That this feeling was not love, I began to find out, when we separated, now--now I know it!"
The last words came almost inaudibly from her lips, but there was indescribable pain in them. Eugen had hitherto controlled himself with manifest difficulty, and now he broke out with painful bitterness--
"No, Gertrud, that is not true! It cannot be, you deceive yourself and me. You tell me this, and desire me to be calm, and you do not know how it makes me still more miserable, if I can no longer believe in your love to me. If you knew how unhappy I am in these golden fetters, in this marriage with a wife who sees in me only a plaything for her varying moods, whom she idolises at one moment, and at another reminds, in the most humiliating way, of his unimportance; if you knew how deeply I repent the unhappy course, which I once--"
"Let us put an end to this conversation, Eugen," interrupted she gravely, "it goes beyond the limits which are drawn between us. You have heard the truth from me. I cannot alter anything that I have said, now farewell!"
She would have extended her hand, but he took no notice, but continued in rising agitation--
"Too late, I see what I once possessed in you, what I gave up in foolish madness, and what I have exchanged for it. The fruits of that foolish passion have been reaped long ago, and now that Fate had again led us together--now the old love flames up mightily, and tears me again to your feet--"
In the deepest indignation Gertrud retreated a step.
"You forget yourself, Herr von Reinert, and deeply insult both me and your wife through such words. Leave me, instantly, I will not hear a word more!"
But even these energetic, commanding words, which would not usually have failed in effect, were powerless against a passion which tore Eugen away from the bonds of sense and reason. He fell on his knees, and repeated his former words, in that glowing, raving language with which he had once wooed the girl of sixteen, and which, a year later, Antonie had heard from his lips. This time Gertrud did not reply. With a look of unconcealed scorn she turned silently away, and would have gone, but this seemed to make him beside himself. He sprang up, seized her arm, and tried to keep her back by force.
With a cry of indignation, Gertrud endeavoured to free herself, but there was no longer need. At the moment Eugen dared to touch her, he tottered, thrown back by a powerful arm--