His voice sounds harsh, but his eyes still supplicate her, tenderly, despairingly. He cannot believe that all is over, that she will let him leave her thus. She will yet find a friendly word for him as farewell.
She stands silent, resting her hand on the mantel, her eyes turned from him. She wishes to say something, but it does not pass her lips. Her face is ashy pale; she trembles; dizzily she gropes for a support.
Forgetting all, he makes a step forward to assist her, to support her. As if in deadly fear, she repels him. Her face expresses a kind of horror.
A last time his eyes rest on her longingly, desperately--then he goes.
When Sophie, a little later, returns, she finds Nita deathly pale, stretched on her bed, her hands folded over her breast, "like a corpse in the coffin," said Sophie, when she told of it later.
She wished to steal away on tip-toes, so as not to disturb her friend, but Nita held her back. She looked anxiously, piercingly, in her face. Then Sophie bent over her. "I have just met Nikolai," says she. "I know what has taken place. Oh, Nita, Nita, you have given him up for my sake, and now you are breaking your heart over it!"
"I?"--Nita smiled sadly--"on his account? I am sorry that he suffers, but else--no, no, my poor Sonia, you are mistaken."
"Then I do not understand," says Sophie in astonishment. "What has so shocked you?"
"Me?" Nita holds her hand before her eyes. "A slight heart cramp; I have it at times. I was frightened. It was very foolish, but I cannot help it. It comes over me suddenly sometimes. Poor Sonia, poor, dear little Sonia! Are you not, then, angry with me?"
Sophie had seated herself by her friend's bed; she was pale, but bore up bravely. "What is there to be angry about?" said she, wearily. "I do not understand why I did not long ago notice it. It is natural that he loves you."