“I—I did not know that you had decided for certain. Poor Vincent!”
He looked at her with a quiet smile; not quite recovered from his weakness, it rather soothed him to be pitied.
“Do you pity me so?”
“Yes—indeed, I pity. You are beginning your wanderings again, and who knows if I shall ever see you again. Perhaps never, never again!”
She sighed.
“I am always happiest when I am on my wanderings.”
She felt an eager desire to ask him if she might accompany him, [[230]]if she might by his side also seek her fortune far away. But she did not know how to shape her question, and she waited to see if perhaps he would say something. For did he not love her? had he not wanted to go away for her sake? Now there remained nothing more that need separate them.
“He is afraid to speak,” she thought, and she could not say whether she was glad or sorry that he was afraid.
“Happiest on your wanderings!” she repeated musingly. “It is possible—you are a man, you can wander. But I am a girl, I have always lived a quiet life here. Happy am I? Heavens! No, that I am not!”
He glanced at her for a moment, as if about to ask her something; but for a while he remained silent. Then he asked—