"I shall go this afternoon. Robert was coming, but it does not matter."
"Captain Arnold?" Wolff drew himself suddenly upright. "Were you expecting him?"
"Yes; he was coming to see me. Have you any objection?"
She had heard the colder, graver note in his voice, and it stung her. Was Arnold also to come between them—Arnold, in whose hands lay the one chance of rescue from the coming catastrophe? Was her last friend to be taken from her by a reasonless, unworthy distrust? She looked up into her husband's tanned face with a directness which was not unlike defiance.
"I have no objection," he answered her at last. "You know everything pleases me that makes you happy. I only beg of you to be careful."
"Careful!" she echoed.
"Captain Arnold has been in Berlin a month," he went on. "It is obvious that he has stayed for your sake, and for my part I am glad enough. But there are the evil tongues, little wife."
She sprang to her feet. If she could only have told him, only unburdened her heart of its crushing trouble, then perhaps he would understand, and the widening cleft between them be bridged. The words of a reckless confession trembled on her lips; but she remembered Bauer and his promise: "I swear I will kill him"; and the confession turned to bitterness, to an impotent revolt against the circumstances of her life.
"The evil tongues!" she echoed scornfully. "Why should I mind what they say now? They have taken everything from me—all my friends. I have only Robert left. Is it wrong to have friends in this country—friends who do not listen to the verdict of—of enemies?"
"It is not wrong, but it can be dangerous," he answered. "You have no enemies, Nora, only people who do not understand you and whom you have hurt. You have always been unfortunate in your friends. They have all stood between you and those to whom, by your position, you belong."