Emotion and suspicion fought within him for the mastery. If she was capable of making such a tremendous sacrifice for him, it was nothing more nor less than saying, "I love you.... I love you still."
She guessed his thoughts. "Don't misunderstand me," she began again, "and think that I am trying to win you by tricks. Look at me, Leo! I am a mass of lies and deceit. My very face seems given me to dazzle and mislead, but hell is in my soul. And as sure as there is a God in heaven, so sure as Ulrich is sacred to us both----"
"He is to you?" he asked eagerly, drawing a step nearer to her.
"Yes," she raised her fingers voluntarily, as if to take her oath upon it. The expression of her eyes was pure and grave.
"Give me your hand," he said.
She laid her fingers quietly in his right hand, and as she did so her glance fell on the sapphire hoop.
"Leo," said she, with a sad little laugh, "I am glad to see that you still wear my ring."
He recoiled from her. Oh, fatal, cursed forgetfulness! Instead of locking it away when he got up that morning, he had stuck it on his finger as usual.
"Don't look so alarmed," she went on, "the poor ring has done nothing. Go on wearing it. Once it served as a symbol of our common sin; for the future it shall tell us that we are as one in being truly penitent for what has happened; and if we ourselves can never be happy again, we will at least unite in making another happy, who must be dearer to us than each other."
"That is an excellent sentiment, Felicitas," he said, "and if you keep to it all may yet be well."