"Yes, I am German, bone and blood," he said. "That's true enough. And you are my wife. I wonder, though——"
He stopped, and then suddenly he bent and lifted her like a child in his arms and carried her to the big chair opposite.
"Now I can see you better," he said quietly. "I want to ask you something which your face will tell me better than your words."
He had fallen on one knee beside her and was looking her earnestly in the eyes. She bore his scrutiny, but only with a strong effort of the will. She felt that he was looking straight into the secret places of her heart, that he was reading the pain that her words, "I am not English any more," had caused her and how little they were true.
"Tell me," he said, "are you happy, Nora? Are you not the one who is disappointed?"
"I? Wolff, how should I be? how could I be?"
"All too easily—sometimes I think inevitably. I am not blind, Nora. I see how petty and small your life must be compared to what you perhaps thought—to what might have been. The people you meet are accustomed to it all—at least they have learnt to make the best of what little they have; but you have come from another world and another life. You are accustomed to breadth and light and freedom. You have never known this brilliant poverty which we know so well, and it is hard on you—too hard on you. I have never seen it all so clearly as I see it now. If I had seen it then I would have trampled my love for you underfoot rather than have asked so great a sacrifice. But I was blinded—I did not understand——"
"Wolff, have I complained? Have I been so ungrateful—so wicked?"
"No, Nora. You have been very brave and good, but I have seen, and I have reproached myself bitterly—terribly. When I came in to-night and saw that you had been crying, I felt that I would do anything—that I would give you up——"
He stopped short, and with a pang of indescribable pain she felt that this soldier kneeling at her feet was fighting for his voice, that his quick, broken sentences had been the outburst of a long-suppressed and bitter struggle.