Bernhard rose in his turn, and looked her full in the face. "Pity?" he repeated. "What do you mean, Thea?"
"I mean that you are sorry for me, that you think it will be hard for me to leave the place where my child lies in his grave, the house in which he was born. But I have borne heavier griefs, and I can bear that too; and, although I know that your happiness does not depend alone upon your freedom, I am too proud to remain where I am only endured!"
He stared at her as if she were some phantom. "For God's sake, Thea, tell me what you mean," he cried.
The expression of his face bewildered her. She paused again for a moment.
Then he took her hand, and said, in a voice vibrating with emotion, "This is perhaps the last time that we shall stand thus face to face,--our last conversation. Thea, will you not answer truly and frankly one question?"
"I have always been true," she replied, gazing past him as into space.
"Tell me, then, do you believe the cause that separates us to exist in me? Do you believe that I desire our separation? and is there no reason known only to yourself, no memory in your soul, to keep us asunder?"
She covered her eyes with her hand, as if dazzled by a sudden light. A slight tremor passed through her frame, and a delicate flush coloured the pale, resigned face. Bernhard gazed at her in breathless eagerness; but, even before she spoke, he was overpowered by the conviction that this woman could not be false; that he had been the victim of an illusion.
"I have no such memory," said Thea, helplessly dropping her clasped hands before her. "Nothing in this world except yourself could ever separate me from you. I thought----"
Before she could utter another word she was clasped in his arms. "Thea! my own Thea! what useless misery we have caused each other!"