The bitterness in his tone no longer affected Erna; she heard only the anguish in his voice, felt only what the renunciation was costing his passionate nature. In gentle entreaty she laid her hand upon his arm: "Ernst, trust me, I know the full extent of the sacrifice you are making for me. You have loved me intensely----"
"Yes, and I was fool enough to fancy that passion such as mine must force you to love in return. I thought that if I carried you to another quarter of the globe, and put an ocean between you and Wolfgang Elmhorst, you would learn to forget, and to turn to the husband beside you. I have learned my error. I never could have torn that love from your heart; if I had killed him you would have loved him dead. Now, in his misery, your whole soul flies out to him. Go to him. I am no longer in your way. You are free!"
"Let us go together," Erna entreated, earnestly. "Offer him your hand in amity; you can, for you are now the generous one, the benefactor. It is you whom we have to thank."
He thrust aside her hand: "No, I never will meet that man again. If I should see him I could not answer for myself, all the fiends within me would break loose once more. You cannot dream what it has cost me to conjure them down; let them rest."
Erna did not venture to repeat her request; she comprehended that so passionate a nature might renounce, but could not forgive. She bowed her head in mute acquiescence.
"Farewell!" said Ernst, still in the harsh, hostile tone which had characterized him throughout the interview. "Forget me. It will be easy at his side."
She looked up to him; her eyes filled with tears: "I never shall forget you, Ernst, never! But I shall always remember sadly that you left me in bitterness and hatred."
"In hatred?" he exclaimed, with an outburst of passion, and suddenly Erna felt herself clasped in his arms, pressed to his heart, while his kisses were rained upon her hair, her brow, with the same wild intensity of tenderness which she had so dreaded and which had always failed to arouse in her the least return of his affection. This time there was in his caress something of the madness of despair. He tore himself away and was gone. The short, stormy dream of the love of his life was over forever!
Meanwhile, the day had fairly appeared. The rain had ceased in the night, and the wind was not so violent,--the wild uproar of nature had begun to subside.
The work of the previous day still went on, however, although, since the Wolkenstein bridge was gone, there was little more to save. This last blow had been the heaviest, although the entire railway had been incalculably injured; very few of the numerous bridges and structures were not in need of repairs, and, in view of the general destruction, the completion of the undertaking seemed impossible. Its author lay dead in his house, and the intended transfer of the railway to the company was of course impossible. How and when, if ever, others would come forward to carry out his schemes time alone could show.