She read the first page over and over again. She felt stunned and sickened. Her mind refused to grasp what had happened.
"My darling," Robert had written two months before, from some far-off African village, "a miracle has happened! Your letter has come! It must have missed me at Aden, and had followed me from place to place until at last it has reached my hands. And all these months I have been thinking that you had no answer for me, or at the most the one I feared. Nora, need you ask me if I will take what you have to offer? I love you, dear, and I know my love will awaken yours and that I shall make you happy. My whole life shall thank you for the trust you have given me. I can hardly write for my joy, and the time that must elapse before I can see you seems intolerable. I cannot return for at least two or three months, as I have promised a friend to accompany him on an inland expedition, but when that is over I shall make full steam for home—or, rather, to Germany if you are still there. In the meantime, write to me, dearest. Even though weeks may pass before the letters reach me, yet the knowledge that they are there waiting will give me hope and courage. I am sending this letter to the coast by a native carrier. Heaven knows if it will ever reach you, but..."
Nora looked up, conscious that she was no longer alone. Wolff stood in the doorway, dressed for departure, his hands outstretched.
"Are you ready, kleine Frau?" he said. "We are all waiting for you——" He broke off, and took a quick step towards her. "Nora!" he exclaimed. "How pale you are! What is the matter?"
It seemed to her that a full minute must have elapsed before she brought her lips to move, but in reality she answered almost immediately:
"It is nothing—nothing whatever. I am quite ready—I will come now."
Outwardly pale and calm, she had lost all inner self-possession, and in a kind of frenzied fear was tearing the letter into a thousand pieces. She had no thought for the future; blindly and instinctively she was saving herself from the present.
Wolff watched her in puzzled silence. Then, when the last fragment fell to the ground, he came and took her hands.
"Nora, something is wrong. Did that letter trouble you? What was it?"
"No, no. If it is anything, it is just the thought of leaving them all. Surely you understand?"