She laid a finger on his lips. "Don't," she said; "I can't bear it."
"I vill not be a vagabond in mein own gountry; we vill be very happy. Gome mit me, Liebchen."
He would not be a vagabond in his own country. The information that would have been worth much to her once was worth nothing now. She scarcely heard it.
"I can't do that," she said. "You must go, and I must stay here and do as I have promised; but I wanted to tell you that I know I have been very cruel, and that I am very sorry. It was hard for me, too, and I could not trust myself to be kind."
It seemed but a moment she had been sitting there with his arms around her and his head upon her breast, but the east was red and the sun was almost up. Lydia rose wearily. The sense of defeat, that was more fatiguing than the struggle, clung to her. "It's time you were gone," she said. He took her hands in his and asked, with searching earnestness,
"If you love me, vy vill you not gome mit me?"
"I can't," she answered, too tired for explanation.
"Is it your fader?" he asked.
She nodded, and said good-bye, looking up at him with a tender glow on her face. The hair streaming about her shoulders had caught the flame of sunrise like a torch. He stooped and touched it with his lips as reverently as he would have kissed the garment of a saint.