At the next moment consciousness came back to him like an ice wind blowing in a furnace. His arms slackened away from Helga, and he said in a cold voice:
"I beg your pardon, Helga. It was wrong of me. I am very sorry."
Helga laughed, a nervous, broken laugh which seemed to say, "Are you sure you are thinking of me?"
"I am betrothed to your sister, and in less than two months I am to be married to her. I had no right to give way to my feelings like that," said Oscar.
The nervous, broken laugh came again, and it said, as plainly as words could speak, "Do you know what you are saying, Oscar?"
Oscar trembled like a withered leaf. He was like a man standing on the hot ground of the geysers, where the crust was thin and cracking under his feet.
"Let us go home," he said.
"Take off my skates then," said Helga.
She sat on the bank in the moonlight, and while he knelt at her feet and fumbled with the straps, his tongue went on with rambling sentences, but every word was tearing as at a torn tendon.
"When a man has engaged himself to a good woman, he ought to be true to her. It is his duty, and whatever the consequences to himself, he ought to do it. If he has to suffer, he must suffer, Helga, and if he has to sacrifice himself----"