A year ago! It might have been ten years, ten ages. The moment when he had held her in his arms for the first time might have been a dream and this the reality, grim, cold, and intolerable. She heard the key turn in the lock, the crack of the door as it opened. She heard Wolff's heavy step on the parquette, and then once more the closing of the door and the noise of the key twice turned and withdrawn. Then silence. She went on writing—words that had no meaning. Her pulses were at the gallop with suspense, fear, and an emotion which she did not stop to analyse. They had not met since the night before. What would he say to her—or she to him?
"How cold it is!" he said quietly. "The fire has gone out. You must be freezing!"
She did not lift her head for a moment, so startled was she by the perfect equanimity of his words and tone. And yet it was what she might have expected. It was all in perfect harmony with his whole character, with his whole conduct. He had seen the last link between them break and had gone back to his room and worked steadily throughout the night, and now he came and talked to her—about the fire!
"Johann is out," he went on, "but I dare say I can manage."
She turned then, and looked at him. He was kneeling by the stove trying to rekindle the dying embers with some sticks he had found in the coal-scuttle. He had changed his clothes for his full uniform, and the helmet with the plume lay at his side on the floor, together with the sword and white kid gloves. A bitter, sarcastic smile relaxed Nora's set lips. She wondered that it had never struck her before how prosaic, almost plebeian he was. The splendid clothes had, after all, only been the gilt covering to a piece of machinery working in blind accordance with thousands of others in its one great task—a dull, brute thing, for whom the finer emotions were a sealed book. She saw him in a new light as he knelt there, his shadow thrown up against the wall by the rekindling fire. She felt as though he were a total stranger against whom she felt an increasing antagonism.
Presently he rose, dusting his hands on his handkerchief.
"I think it will do now," he said. "Do you want the light? You can't possibly see."
"I would rather be as I am," she answered coldly.
She covered her face with her hand and appeared to forget his presence. But in a rapid, inexplicable revulsion of feeling, the first fear and suspense returned, and though she did not see him she followed his every movement, her ears translating every sound with the precision of a second-sight. She heard him pick up sword and helmet, then the soft, familiar click of his spurs as he crossed the room to the farther door. Then the sound stopped, and she knew that he was looking at her. The silence seemed to last an eternity. It suffocated her; she felt that if it lasted another instant she must scream out, so frightful was the strain, and yet, when as though obeying an irresistible behest he came back upon his steps and put his hand upon her shoulder, she prayed for that silence to come back, anything rather than that he should speak to her.
"Gott segne dich und behüte dich, meine Frau!" he said, and bent and kissed her hand.