"My mother is very ill," she answered faintly. "They have sent for me."
She had descended the last step. The next instant Wolff von Arnim was at her side, and had taken her in his arms.
"Mein Liebling!" he whispered. "Mein armes Liebling!"
She yielded, overwhelmed by the swiftness of his action, by her own wild heart-throb of uncontrollable joy. Then she tried to free herself.
"You must not!" she cried. "It is not right!"
"My wife!" he retorted triumphantly. "My wife!"
She looked up into his face. At no time had he been dearer to her, seemed more worthy of her whole love, than he did then, with his own joy subdued by an infinite tenderness and pity. But the name "wife" had rung like a trumpet-call, reminding and threatening even as it tempted.
"Oh, Wolff!" she said, "you must let me go. It is not possible—you do not understand. I——"
She was going to tell him of the barrier she had raised with her own hands, of the letter that was on its way. She was going to say to him, "I am not free. My word is given to another. Seek your happiness where it awaits you." In some such words she meant to shatter her own life and lay the first stones of the atonement to the girl whose happiness she had stolen. Or, after all, had it been no theft? Was it not possible that she had been deceived? And even if it were true, had it not been said, "A useless sacrifice is no sacrifice at all"? Had she not a right to her happiness? And Wolff was speaking, and it seemed to her that his joy and triumph answered her.
"Nothing can come between us and our love!" he said. "Nothing and no one! Oh, Nora, ich habe dich so endlos lieb!"