"You must think me very stupid," he said, and his voice was painful to listen to. "I beg of you to speak more clearly. You will perhaps understand what it means to me when I tell you what you seem not to know—that Miss Ingestre is to be my wife."
"Captain Arnold, you are labouring under some strange delusion. Miss Ingestre is already married."
It was Frau von Arnim who spoke. She had advanced almost unconsciously, and now stood half-way between him and Hildegarde, who had risen to her feet.
Arnold said nothing. His eyes were fixed full on Frau von Arnim's face, but his expression was absolutely blank, and he did not seem to see her. She waited, too disturbed to move farther forward along the path of inevitable explanation, and after a minute, in which the man's whole moral strength seemed to be concentrated in the fight for self-mastery, Arnold himself broke the silence.
"I can only believe that there is a misapprehension on both sides," he said. "Are you speaking of Miss Nora Ingestre?"
"Of Miss Nora Ingestre that was."
"And you say she is already married?"
"In April—five months ago."
"To whom?"
"To Hauptmann von Arnim, at present officer on the Staff at Berlin."