"And this is the sentence for which I begged. I am then, in your eyes nothing more than a—reprobate?"
"A lost man, perhaps—you have forced me to this avowal."
Hartmut stepped slowly back a few steps.
"Lost," he repeated in bitter tone. "That is probably what you think. You may be at rest, my dear madam. I will never approach you again; one has no desire to hear such words a second time. You stand so proud and firm upon your watch tower of virtue and judge so severely. You have no conception what a wild, desperate life can make of a man who goes through the world without home or family. You are right. I believed in nothing in the heavens above or on the earth beneath—until this hour."
There was something in his tone and in his whole bearing which disarmed Adelheid.
She felt she had no cause to fear a further explosion of passion, and her voice grew milder as she answered:
"I judge no one, but I belong heart and soul to another world, with other laws than yours. I am the daughter of a father whom I dearly loved, who, all his life long, trod but one path, the earnest, rigid path of duty. Upon this he raised himself from poverty and privation to wealth and honor, and he taught his children to follow in the same way, and it is this thought which has been my shield and protection in this hard hour. I could not endure it if I were compelled to lower my eyes before the noble image which my memory holds. Your father is no longer alive?"
There followed a long, oppressive pause. Hartmut did not answer, but his head sank under the words of whose crushing significance the questioner had no knowledge, while his eyes seemed to pierce the ground.
"No," he said at last, slowly.
"But you have the memory of him and of your mother?"