"Der Herr Hauptmann ist unten und wartet," she said. "Gnädiges Fräulein mochten sofort kommen!"
She spoke in a tone of command which her intense respect for "den Herrn Hauptmann" more than justified. Was not her "Schatz" in the Herr Hauptmann's battery, and did not he say every Sunday, when they walked out together, that the whole Army did not contain a finer officer or a more "famoser Kerl"?
"Ich komme gleich," Nora answered. She thrust the half-read letter into the pocket of her loose-fitting coat and ran downstairs. All the way she was thinking of Robert Arnold with a strange mingling of affection and pity. She thought how good and honest he was, and of the life of a woman who entrusted herself to his care—and then abruptly he passed out of her mind like a shadow dispersed by a broad, full ray of sunshine. Wolff von Arnim stood in the hall. His face was lifted to greet her, his hand outstretched. She took it. She tried to say something banal, something that would have broken the spell that had fallen upon her. Her lips refused to frame the words, and he too did not speak. Side by side they went out into the cold morning air. The orderly stood waiting with the two horses. Arnim motioned him on one side, and with sure strength and gentleness lifted Nora into the saddle.
"Are you comfortable?" he asked; and then, with a sudden change of tone, "Why, what is the matter? Did I hurt you? You are so pale."
Nora shook her head.
"It is nothing—nothing. I am quite all right. I lost my breath—that is all. You lifted me as though I were a mere feather."
She tried to laugh, but instead bit her lip and looked down into his face with a curious bewilderment. He had not hurt her, and yet some sensation that was near akin to pain had passed like an electric current right to the centre of her being.
"I am quite all right," she said again, and nodded as though to reassure him. "Please do not be so alarmed."
To herself she thought, "What is the matter with me? What has happened?"
These were the questions she asked herself incessantly as they walked their horses through the empty streets. She found no answer. Everything in her that had hitherto been was no more. All the old landmarks in her character, her confidence, her courage, her inexhaustible fund of life were gone, leaving behind them a revolution of unknown emotions whose sudden upheaval she could neither explain nor control. Her world had changed, but as yet it was a chaos where she could find no firm land, no sure place of refuge.