At the door of the Arnims' house Wolff dismounted and helped Nora to the ground. And as they stood for a moment hand in hand, he looked at her for the first time full in the eyes.
"I cannot thank God enough that you are safe," he said.
She heard in his low voice the last vibrations of the storm, and the thought that it was her danger which had shaken this man from his strong self-control overwhelmed her so that she could bring no answer over her lips. She turned and ran into the house, into her own room, where she stood with her hands clasped before her burning face, triumphant, intoxicated, swept away on a whirlwind of unmeasured happiness.
It is the privilege—the greatest privilege perhaps—of youth to be swept away on whirlwinds beyond the reach of doubt and fear, and Nora was very young. Over the new world which had risen like an island paradise out of the chaos of the old, she saw a light spread out in ever-widening circles till it enveloped her whole life. For Nora the child was dead, the woman in her had awakened because she loved for the first time and knew that she was loved.
It was a moment of supreme happiness, and, as such moments needs must be if our poor mortal hearts are to be kept working, shortlived. Even as her eager, listening ears caught the last echo of horses' hoofs outside, some one knocked at the door.
"Fräulein Nora, please come at once," a servant's voice called. "The Fräulein Hildegarde has been taken very ill, and she is asking for you."
"I am coming," Nora answered mechanically.
Her hands had fallen to her side. The whirlwind had dropped her, as is the way with whirlwinds, and she stood there pale and for the moment paralysed by the shock and an undefined foreboding.
CHAPTER IX
RENUNCIATION