She passed the day in this state of enthusiastic exaltation. At night she slept better than she had for long, but shortly after she awaked she was assailed by a distracting, feverish agitation. No arrangement had been made as to how she should get the intelligence from Lozoncyi with regard to his wife's consent to a divorce. Would he bring the information himself? would he send her a note? Ten o'clock struck,--half-past ten,--eleven,--and no message came. Her hands, her lips, her brow, burned with fever; she drew her breath with difficulty.
About eleven o'clock the old Countess went to take her forenoon walk. She had been gone but a short time when Lüdecke announced Herr von Lozoncyi.
Erika had him shown up, and the first glance which she cast at his face told her that for him there was no possibility of a release.
Without a word she held out her hand to him. His hand was icy cold and trembled in her clasp; he looked pale and wretched,--the picture of misery.
Possessed absolutely by the pity that had filled her soul, she saw in his face only torturing despair at not being able to rid his life of what so degraded it. What could she do for him now? What sacrifice could she make?
"Sit down," she said, awkwardly, after a pause.
"It is not worth while," he rejoined, in the dull tone of a man crushed to the earth beneath a heavy burden. "I have been waiting for an hour to see you alone, that I might tell you that which must be told. I have spoken with--my wife. She will not consent to a divorce, and without her consent no divorce is possible. She has never given me any legal cause for a separation,--no, never, strange as it may seem in a woman of her class. Yesterday evening I spoke to her, and there was a terrible scene; and now,"--his voice grew fainter,--"now all is over." He laid his hand upon the back of a chair, as if to support himself, and paused for a moment, then resumed: "I ought to have written to you,--it would have been far better,--far,--but I could not deny myself one more sight of you. Farewell. Now all is over."
She stood as if rooted to the spot, pale, mute, searching feverishly for some consolation for him. What more could she offer him? There was a gulf as of death between them. She sought some path that would lead across it,--in vain. She felt faint and giddy.
"Farewell," he murmured. "Thanks--thanks for all--the joy--for all the sorrow---- Good God! how dear it has been!" His voice broke; he turned away, holding out to her, for the last time, a slender, trembling hand.
Why at sight of that hand did memory recall so vividly the half-starved artist lad after whom as a tiny girl she had run to relieve his misery? And now she could do nothing for him,--nothing! Really nothing? Suddenly it flashed upon her.