She shrugged her shoulders and smiled.
"A moment's impulse—or loneliness. That's all."
"And a bit of remorse, don't you think so?"
"Remorse? For what? You have nothing with which to reproach yourself.
Was not our agreement made to be kept?"
"And yet I couldn't wholly avoid the feeling as if my unbroken silence must have left a sting in your soul which would embitter your memory of me."
Thoughtfully she stirred her tea.
"No," she said at last, "I'm not so foolish. The memory of you is a sacred one. If that were not so, how could I have gone on living? That time, to be sure, I wanted to take my life. I had determined on that before I came to you. For that one can leave the man with whom…. I never thought that possible…. But one learns a good deal—a good deal…. And now I'll tell you how it came to pass that I didn't take my life that night. When everything was over, and I stood in the street before your house, I said to myself: 'Now the river is all that is left.' In spite of rain and storm, I took an open cab and drove out to the Tiergarten. Wasn't the weather horrible! At the Great Star I left the cab and ran about in the muddy ways, weeping, weeping. I was blind with tears, and lost my way. I said to myself that I would die at six. There were still four minutes left. I asked a policeman the way to Bellevue, for I did remember that the river flows hard behind the castle. The policeman said: 'There it is. The hour is striking in the tower now.' And when I heard the clock strike, the thought came to me: 'Now my husband is coming home, tired and hungry, and I'm not there. If at least he wouldn't let his dinner get cold. But of course he will wait. He'd rather starve than eat without me. And he'll be frightened more and more as the hours pass. Then he'll run to the police. And next morning he'll be summoned by telegram to the morgue. There he'll break down helplessly and hopelessly and I won't be able to console him.' And when I saw that scene in my mind, I called out: 'Cab! cab!' But there was no cab. So I ran back to the Great Star, and jumped into the street-car, and rode home and rushed into his arms and cried my fill."
"And had your husband no questions to ask? Did he entertain no suspicion?"
"Oh, no, he knows me, I am taken that way sometimes. If anything moves or delights me deeply—a lovely child on the street—you see, I haven't any—or some glorious music, or sometimes only the park in spring and some white statue in the midst of the greenery. Oh, sometimes I seem to feel my very soul melt, and then he lays his cool, firm hand on my forehead and I am healed."
"And were you healed on that occasion, too?"