Despair lent Agatha courage enough to revert to the one point on which, as she had observed more than once during the last day or two, Erna was most sensitive.
"I will grant it all," she said. "I will believe all you assert about yourself, for I cannot read your heart. But Herr Bertram's heart is not your heart, and what is going on in his heart, Heaven only knows; you do not know it, at least he has never betrayed it to you by word or look. And I hold that he would have done so long ago if he loved you. What reasons should he have for hiding his love?"
"A thousand!" exclaimed Erna. "Or is it not a reason that he should have tortured himself for days with the idea that I might be fond of the Baron?"
"That idea he has assuredly given up ere this."
"Then, that mamma will be furious."
"For all that, he might tell you what he feels for you."
"And what if he doubts whether I love him?"
"Good Heavens, dearest! how can he doubt that?"
"He can indeed. During the first few days I was not clear about it myself. And when I was feeling that I loved him, I often was odd and capricious and defiant; and above all, when I discovered that the letter was missing from my blotting-book, and I hunted for it everywhere, and when suddenly it turned up again, having in the meantime passed through I do not know how many hands, and having very surely been read by mamma too--I was so indignant, I could see that he sometimes did not know what to think of me."
"You did not make him feel your indignation; on the contrary, you gave him one token of your favour after the other."