Mona is crying. Now she understands herself—why she suggested this to Oskar and why Oskar has carried it out. If only peace would come the barrier that divides them would be broken down! God send it! God send it!
Her breath on the window-pane has frosted the cold glass, but she is sure she sees somebody coming towards the house. It is a man, and he is stumbling along, half doubled up as if drunk or wounded. He is making for the front door. Trembling with half-conscious apprehension of the truth, Mona runs downstairs to open it.
The man is Oskar Heine. By the light of the lamp she had left burning on the table she sees him. He is clutching with one hand a bough of the trammon tree that grows by the porch, and in the other he holds a sheet of blue paper. His cap is pushed back from his forehead, which is wet with perspiration, his eyes are wild, and his face is ashen.
“May I come in?”
“Indeed yes.”
He comes into the house, never having done so before, and drops heavily into the old man’s seat by the fire, which is dying out.
“What is it?” she asks.
“Look,” he says, and hands her the paper. “It has just come. The post was late to-night.” His voice seems to be dying out also.
Mona takes the paper. It is in English, and, standing by the lamp, she begins to read it aloud:
“American Consulate—Mannheim.”