"Then if I have been cruel, I have been most cruel against myself," he answered. "But I meant to do what was right—I meant to act honestly. It is true when I say I love Hildegarde. I do love her—not perhaps as a man should love his wife, but enough, and I had sworn that I would make her happy, that I would compensate her for all that she has lost. I swore that to myself months ago—before Nora came. When Nora came, Aunt Magda"—his voice grew rough—"there are some things over which one has no power, no control. It was all done in a minute. If I had been honest, I should have gone away, but it would have been too late. And as it was I deceived myself with a dozen lies. I stayed on and saw her daily, and the thing grew until that morning when Bruno bolted. I lost my head then. When it was all over I could not lie and humbug any more. I had to face the truth. It was then Hildegarde fell ill. I felt it as a sort of judgment."
He spoke in short, jerky sentences, his face set and grey with the memory of a past struggle. He sprang to his feet and stood erect at Frau von Arnim's side.
"Whatever else I am, I am not consciously a cad," he said. "What I had done wrong I was determined to put right at all costs. I loved Hildegarde, and I had dedicated my life to her happiness. Nothing and no one must turn me from my purpose. That is why I am here this morning." He made an impatient gesture. "I have been a fool. You have seen through me—you have made me tell you what torture would not have dragged out of me. But that can alter nothing."
For a moment Frau von Arnim watched his stern, half-averted face in silence. Then she too rose.
"I have a message for you from Hildegarde," she said quietly.
He started.
"For me?"
"Yes. Those who suffer have quick eyes, quicker intuitions. She saw this coming, and she asked me to tell you—should it come—that she loved you too much to accept a useless sacrifice. For it would have been useless, Wolff. You deceive yourself doubly if you believe you could have made Hildegarde happy. Yes, if you had brought your whole heart—then, perhaps; but it is almost an insult to have supposed that she would have been satisfied with less. Since her illness she has told me everything, and we have talked it over, and this is our answer to you: Take the woman you love; be happy, and be to us what you always were. In any other form we will have nothing to do with you!"
She was smiling again, but Arnim turned away from the outstretched hands.
"It is awful!" he said roughly. "I cannot do it—I cannot!"