"Yes; to prison. Gladly would I go to prison for my Anna, if, by doing so, I could save her one moment's pain."
"Well, I'm going to suggest a thing not half so hard as that. I will give consent to my son's marriage to your daughter if you will agree to give her up entirely—to give her up entirely. You understand? You must never see her any more."
This was too much. The old man drew back with a cry of pain. "I give my Anna up! I never see her any more! Madame, do you know what you ask?"
She was not vividly impressed. "I suppose it may be hard, at first," she went on, casually, "but—"
He interrupted. "Hard! I am old—and poor. I have nothing—nothing—but that little girl. All my whole life long I work for her. My love for her has grown so close—close—close around my heart that from my breast you could not tear it out without, at the same time, tearing from that breast the heart itself. You hear, Madame? She is my soul—my life—all I have got—all—all—"
"But am I not giving up a great deal, too? I had hoped my son would marry well—perhaps, even, among the foreign nobility. That's what I took him off to Europe with me for. I'm simply wild to be presented at some court! Surely if I give all that up for my son's sake, you can do as much, at least, for Anna's."
"As much? Why, what you ask of me, Madame, is to abandon all!"
Mrs. Vanderlyn became impatient. It seemed to her that he was most unreasonable.
"I tell you that unless you do, I shall do nothing for them," she cried petulantly. "My son has no idea of money. He's never had to earn a dollar and he don't know how. They'll starve, if you don't yield, and it will be your fault—entirely your fault."
Herr Kreutzer bowed his head. His heart cried out within him at the horrible injustice of this woman, but, as he saw life, to yield was all that he could do. To stand in Anna's light, at this late day, when, all his life, he had, without the slightest thought of self, made sacrifices for her, would be too illogical, too utterly absurd. "Madame, I yield," he said. "I know too well what poverty can be—what misery! Yes, Madame, I will go. But sometimes I shall see her."