"What you suggest is impossible," she said. "There are things one cannot forget—at least not until they have been explained. We must therefore look for the explanation."
"I have none to give," Arnold returned, with bitter truth.
"Then we must look elsewhere."
"It would be better to do as I suggest, and leave the matter alone, or lay it to my account—to my own stupid muddle." He spoke hurriedly, for he felt afraid of this woman, with her haughty, resolute face. It was as though, unwittingly, he had roused to action a force which had passed out of his control.
"If there is any shadow of wrong connected with my nephew's marriage, it must be cleared," Frau von Arnim answered. "That is the only wisdom I know."
Arnold bowed a second time, and went.
For a long time after he had gone the two women remained silent, motionless, avoiding each other's eyes. The action seemed to imply that nothing had happened.
Hildegarde had long since fallen wearily back upon her couch. She roused herself then, and turned her white, troubled face towards her mother.
"The man must be mad!" she said, almost violently. "Nora could never have done such a thing. She is so frank and honest. She would have told us from the beginning. I could have sworn that she never cared for a man before she loved Wolff. I do not believe a word of it."
"Nor I," her mother answered calmly. "As you say, the man may be mad—though he did not seem so—or there may really be some mistake. But we must make sure, for our own peace of mind, and Nora is the only one who can help us. Even so we must have patience and wait. We have no right to trouble her so early in her married life with what, I pray, may be a false alarm."