"Sit down, Robert," she said. "As Wolff said, we have a great deal to say to each other—at least, I fancy you have come because you have a great deal to say to me."
Her words contained a slight challenge, which, the next moment, she felt had been out of place. Arnold sank down in the chair nearest to hand. It was as though he had hitherto been acting a part, and now let the mask fall from a face full of weary hopelessness.
"You are right," he said. "I have something to say, Nora—I suppose, though, I ought to call you Frau von Arnim?"
"You ought," she answered, irritated by his tone. "But it does not matter. I don't think Wolff minded."
A grim smile passed over Arnold's lips.
"Wolff seems a good-natured sort of fellow," he said. There was again something disparaging in his tone which brought the colour to Nora's cheeks.
"He is everything I could wish," she answered proudly. And then the hollow cheeks and sunken eyes reminded her that she had done this man a cruel injury, and her heart softened with pity and remorse.
"How pale and thin you have grown!" she exclaimed. "Have you been ill?"
"Very ill," he answered. "I caught some swamp fever or other out there in the wilds, and it was months before they could get me back to the coast. That is why you never heard from me. As soon as I reached port I set straight off for home—to you."
"To me——!" she repeated blankly.