"'And will you always love me now?' I ask; for even now I cannot realise it yet.
"'Oh, you--you,' she says, 'I love you more than anything else in the world,' and hides her face upon my neck.
"But now, uncle, hear what followed! When I see her dark head of curls lying so submissively upon my shoulder the question arises within me: 'Is this the same Olga who, a few days ago, turned from you so calmly and proudly when you modestly and humbly asked her consent?'
"So I said to her: 'Olga,' said I, 'how could you torture me so? Have I become a different man in this short space of time?' Then I see her grow as white as the chalk on the walls, and hear her voice in my ear: 'Do not question me; for God's sake do not question me!'
"A feeling of terror awakens within me lest I may perhaps lose her to-morrow--as I have won her to-day.
"'Olga,' say I, 'if you are so changeable in your decisions, who will give me surety----?'
"I stop short, for in her face lies something which commands silence. She tears herself away from me and flings herself into a chair.
"'As you wish to know,' she says, and the while with darkening brows stares upon the ground--'I was afraid--I doubted your love, and thought you might let me feel that I came to you without a penny----'
"And with that the lie makes her face all aflame.
"'Olga,' I cry out, 'could you think that of me? Do you remember 'What I reminded her of was one night on her father's estate when I came wooing Martha and thought to return sadly with a refusal; for Martha was ready to sacrifice herself and her happiness, so that I might marry another. Then she--Olga--had come to me in the middle of the night, and had opened my eyes for me, blind fool that I was, and spoken words to me, words full of contempt for mammon, which sounded like Love's song of triumph in my ears. Those words I spoke to her now; for each one was indelibly stamped on my memory.