"Your wife!" cried Mrs. Vanderlyn. "Good heavens!" She sank back in her chair as much aghast as Kreutzer had been when she had amazed him by accusing Anna.
"And I bought that ring and gave it to her," John went on. "The dear girl! It's our engagement ring."
Kreutzer, who had been staring at him with the strained and anxious look of one who sees salvation just in sight, but cannot understand its aspect, quite, relaxed now and, also, sank into a chair.
"Oh, mine Gott sie dank!" he fervently exclaimed. "Mine Gott sie dank! You gave it to her! Oh, oh, oh, thank God!"
"Why certainly I gave it to her. It's our engagement ring. Bless her heart—she's promised me to wear it as soon as Herr Kreutzer gives consent."
Mrs. Vanderlyn found this too much for calm reception. She did not wish to, she would not believe.
"Why do you say such things?" she demanded of her son. "You're just trying to save him. Why did he confess?"
Kreutzer, now, looked at her with calm, cold dignity. His turn had come. Had she been a man he would have taken it with vehemence and pleasure; because she was not a man he took it with a careful self-repression but no lack of emphasis.
"I will tell you, Madame, why I made confession. It may be that you will not understand, but so it is. I told you that it had been I who stole the ring because I love my little girl so much that I would go to prison—ah, Madame, I would die!—rather than permit that she should suffer. For a mad moment, overborne by your amazing claims, I did believe that she had taken that ring. I thought that she had taken it to help her poor old father—the old flute-player who never has been able to give to his daughter what he wished to give, or what she deserved to have. I thought, perhaps, that Anna, swept away by sorrow for my struggling, had yielded to temptation to help me—the mistaken impulse of a loving child. No crime—no crime! I understand, now, what she meant when she was speaking with me. Her 'secret!' Her 'temptation!'"
He turned to John, now, and addressed him, solely. "Her 'temptation' was to be your wife when I had made her promise that she would not think of men until I came to her and told her that I had picked out the one for her. I see it, now; I see it. Her 'temptation'—it was only to become your wife!"