"No, not for me," said Waldemar, bitterly. "All the strength and love in you are given to your father. What shall become of me, how I am to endure the misery of separation, you do not stay to enquire. I was a fool when I believed in that impulse which threw you into my arms in a moment of danger. You were 'Wanda' to me but for an instant. When I saw you next day, you spoke to me as Countess Morynska, and are so speaking to me to-day. My mother is right. Your national prejudices are your very heart's blood, the food on which you have been nourished since your infancy; you cannot renounce them without renouncing life itself--to them we are both to be offered up--to them your father is ready to sacrifice his only child. He would never, never have consented that you should accompany him, if the man, who loved you, had been a Pole. I being that man, he will agree to any plan which may part you from me. What matter, if only he can preserve you from the German, if he stand faithfully by the national creed? Can you Poles feel nothing but hate--hate which stretches even beyond the grave?"
"If my father were free, I might perhaps find courage to set him and all that you call prejudice at defiance," said Wanda, in a low voice. "As it is, I cannot, and"--here all her old energy gleamed forth anew--"I will not, for it would be betraying my duty as his child. I will go with him, even though it costs me my life. I will not leave him alone in his distress."
She spoke these words with a steady decision which showed her resolution to be unalterable. Waldemar seemed to feel it. He gave up his resistance.
"When do you set out?" he asked, after a pause.
"Next month. I am not to see my father again until we meet at O----. There my aunt will also be allowed one interview with him. She will go with me so far. You see we need not say good-bye to-day; we have some weeks before us. But promise me not to come to Rakowicz in the mean time, not again to assail me with reproaches and arguments, as you have this morning. I need all my courage for the hour of parting, and you rob me of it with your despair. We shall see each other yet once again--until then, farewell!"
"Farewell," he said, shortly, almost roughly, without looking at her, or taking the hand she held out to him.
"Waldemar!" There was heart-stirring sorrow and reproach in her tone, but it was powerless to lay his fierce irritation. Anger and misery at losing his love overcame for the moment all the young man's sense of justice.
"You may be right," he said, in his harshest tone, "but I cannot bring myself all at once to appreciate this exalted spirit of self-sacrifice--still less to share it. My whole nature rises up in protest against it. As, however, you insist on carrying your plan into execution, as you have irrevocably decreed our parting, I must see how I can get through existence alone. I shall make no further moan, that you know. My bitterness only offends you, it will be best that I should be silent. Farewell, Wanda."
A conflict was going on in Wanda's mind. She knew that it only needed one word from her to change all his harshness and austerity into soft tenderness; but to speak that word now would be to renew the contest, to endanger the victory so hardly won. She was silent, paused for a second, then bowed her head slightly, and left the room.
Waldemar let her go. He stood with his face turned to the window. Many bitter emotions were written on that face, but no trace was there of the resignation which the woman he loved had required of him. Leaning his brow against the panes, he remained long motionless, lost in thought, and only looked up at last on hearing his name spoken.