She extricated herself in utter bewilderment from his embrace.
"And do you still love me, then?" she asked.
"More deeply and truly than on our marriage-day," he said, fervently.
"And Julutta Wronsky----"
"Ah, dearest child, let me tell you all. I will confess everything to you,--all the doubts that have so tortured me."
She looked at him in amazement. "Doubts?" she repeated.
"Yes, my darling; foolish doubts. I know them to be so now, but they were terrible. Do you remember refusing me any explanation with regard to Lothar? Then I----"
"Ah, poor Lothar! I, too, have something to tell you, Bernhard."
She nestled close to him, and he told her of his adventures with Julutta Wronsky. He did not even suppress the account of the fleeting emotion of that moment when he thought he loved her; he told her all; and she listened to him, without doubt, without reproach, with the entire confidence of a woman who loves.
"We have both been blind," she said; "but only when we doubted of each other's love did we learn how valueless life was to us without it. Oh, Bernhard, how wretched we have been!"