"Oh, can't you understand? I was a stranger among you. I was young and headstrong and had made so many enemies. I had no one to turn to—only Miles and Captain Arnold. They were English; they understood a little what I felt. And I suffered, Hildegarde. It was as though I had been infected with some frightful fever which left me no calm, which magnified every word and look into a taunt and an insult. Once I did fight against it because I did love Wolff and because I knew that our whole happiness was at stake. But in the end it was too much for me. That night when we all thought war had been declared, I could bear it no longer. I rushed home. My brother had already gone——" She stopped a moment as though some terrible new thought had flashed through her brain, and the last trace of colour fled from her cheeks. "I followed him. At the station I could not find him, but Captain Arnold was there. He took me with him—home to my people. I did not go to him intentionally: I could not have done so, because I did not love him and never had loved him. I went home. That is all."
"And the papers?"
They looked each other in the eyes.
"I think I know. God pity me—that disgrace is indeed mine!"
"No, no, not yours! Nora——." The old tone of tenderness had crept into the shaken voice. She said no more, and they stood silently side by side, overwhelmed with the disgrace that was another's, but which yet seemed to surround them with its ugly shadow.
It was Nora who at last broke the silence.
"He must have been mad!" she said, as though she were thinking aloud. "He must have thought that he was serving his country."
But Hildegarde stopped her with a scornful gesture.
"He hated Wolff," she said, "and for the good reason that Wolff had helped and befriended him for your sake. He paid his debts with money which my mother had given him——"
"Don't, Hildegarde! Don't tell me any more—not now. I cannot bear it!"