"Mother, it is a sacrifice Wolff will never ask of me."
"Life will ask it of you—not even Wolff can alter the laws of life. The day may come when Circumstance will say to you that you must choose. And what then?"
Nora was silent. Then she lifted her head.
"Then, mother, I should have to choose. It is true—my love is strongest in me."
Mrs. Ingestre sank back among her pillows.
"God help you, dear!" she said under her breath.
Nora waited a moment. There was something more that she had to tell—the story of a letter written in a fervour of self-sacrifice, and of another letter written two weeks later, a pitiful letter containing a confession and a plea for forgiveness. But she recognised the signs of exhaustion, and crept softly back to the fire. After all, it would do another day. Another day! That most pitiful of all excuses had haunted her from the moment that she had felt Wolff von Arnim's arms about her, and she was honest enough to despise it and herself. But she was afraid. She was convinced that Wolff would not understand either her old friendship with Robert Arnold or her subsequent folly in accepting a man she did not love. Nor could she explain, for the one explanation possible was the sacred secret of Hildegarde's heart. She was equally convinced that her mother would disapprove of her silence and demand that she should deal honestly with the man she was to marry. She knew that her mother would be right, and indeed she meant to tell the truth—but not now. The new happiness was too insecure. And then, the episode, foolish and even disloyal as it had been, was closed and done with. Robert Arnold had obviously accepted her final acknowledgment of the truth, and had silently gone his way. He had not answered either letter, and probably they would not meet again, or, at any rate, not until the wound had healed and been forgotten. Was it not wiser, therefore, to keep silence also—for the present? Thus Nora argued with her own conscience, and, torn between a natural rectitude and a headstrong love, came to no conclusion, but let the matter drift until that well-known "some time" which, had she been wiser, she would have recognised as an equivalent for "never."
But at least the great battle for her liberty had been fought and won. An invitation was promptly sent to Karlsburg and as promptly accepted, and the day dawned which was to see Wolff's triumphal entry into the enemy's stronghold. Even Miles, though the permission to "keep out of the way" would have been willingly granted him as far as Nora was concerned, insisted on making his future brother-in-law's arrival an excuse for returning on leave.
"The sooner I get the blow over the better," he said, and gratuitously undertook to accompany Nora and her father to the station when the unloved guest was expected.
There were more people on the platform than was usual at that time of the day. From one source and another, Delford had got to know all about Nora's engagement; and though, from the station-master's "Well, I call it a real downright shame that a pretty girl should throw herself away on one of them there Proosians!" to Mrs. Clerk's "Dear me, how dreadful!" the chorus of disapproval had been rung on every possible change, still, a good many of the disapprovers had found it necessary to be present at the arrival of the London express. Nora herself noticed nothing unusual. She was overwhelmed by a sense of unreality which made the incidents of the last months seem like pictures from a confused dream. Everything had happened so swiftly. Love, despair, and happiness had trodden on each other's heels; and in the same moment that she had grasped her happiness with both hands, she had been swept away, back into the old surroundings where that happiness had no place. And now that it was coming to her, seeking her out, as it were, in the enemy's territory, she could hardly be sure whether it were really true, whether Wolff himself were not some dream-figure who had won her in another and less everyday existence.