Martha still stood a few paces off. That shyness and dread of him which, since the "accident," had been felt by all about him, had fettered her also. For weeks she had avoided every meeting, all contact with him, but to-day the old inclination had sprung up again strong within her, and had drawn her forcibly to the spot where he was. She was not deceived by that strange calm, she guessed what lay behind it.
"You cannot get over the desertion of the men?" she asked gently. "But half of them are with you still, and Karl will stand by you to the last minute."
Ulric smiled contemptuously.
"To-day there are still half, to-morrow there will be a quarter, and the day after---- Don't talk of it, Martha! As for Lawrence, he has never had more than half a heart for it. He has stood by me and not by the cause; by me, because I was his friend, and there will soon be an end of his friendship too. He cares far too much for you to have any very honest liking for me now."
The girl turned to him with a hasty gesture.
"Ulric!"
"Well, there is nothing in that to hurt your feelings. You would not have me when I asked you to be my wife. If you had, it would have been better in many ways."
"It would not have been better," said the girl decidedly. "I am not made of stuff to endure all that Karl puts up with so patiently from day to day, and things would have been between you and me much as they are now between me and him, only I should have been the one who had all to bear. I never had the least bit of your heart, your love was given elsewhere, in quite a different place."
There was bitter reproach in her words, but even this allusion could not rouse Ulric to-day. He was standing up now and gazing over towards the park as it lay shadowy in the distance, searching, as it were, for something between the trees.
"You mean I might have done better nearer at home, if I had sought for it, and you are right; but this is not a thing to be sought after, Martha. It seizes you all at once, and never looses you again while there is breath in your body. I have learnt to know it I have given you pain, my girl; now for the first time I know how much. But, believe me, no blessing comes with such love; it gives one more to suffer than the bitterest hate."