"Erika!"
She came towards him lovely as an angel. Her head was bare, and her golden hair gleamed in the moonlight.
"Erika!" he exclaimed, hoarsely, without advancing a step towards her. He took her for an illusion conjured up by his fancy. But as she drew near he felt the reality of her young life beside him. "Then it is really you?" he murmured. "I thought it a phantom to deceive me. Why are you here?"
"No wonder you ask," she said, and her voice expressed unutterable compassion. "I come to bid you farewell."
"Farewell!" he gasped. "Then I was right to doubt you. And yet how bitterly I have reproached myself because----"
"Because----?" she asked, sadly.
"Because I ventured to suppose you had lost courage. What could I think? I waited for you at the station from one train to the next: you did not come. Then I told myself that you had simply treated me to a farce. But I cannot believe that now: as I look into your dear face I can find there no cowardice, nothing paltry. You have been detained against your will, and you are here yourself to tell me so. It is noble of you, Erika! my Erika!"
He drew closer to her, and extended his arms towards her: she evaded them.
"All is over between us," she said, wearily. "It cannot be."
She saw him turn ashy pale in the moonlight.