Her utter silence recalled him to a sense of how she must be hurt. Could he have looked into her eyes just then he would never have ceased to regret those words.
There was contrition in his face as he turned back. He reached out for her hands—those faithful, loving hands he had thrust away. For just a minute she did not give them, but that was only for the minute—so quick was she to forgive, so eager to understand.
"Forget that, sweetheart—quick. I didn't know what I was saying. Why, liebchen—it's only you makes it bearable at all. If I did not have you I should—choose the other way."
"Karl!"—in an instant clinging to him wildly—"you hadn't thought—you couldn't think—"
"Oh, sweetheart—you've misunderstood. Now, dearie—don't—don't make me feel I've made you cry. All I meant, Ernestine, was that without you it would be so utterly unbearable."
He stroked her hair until she was quiet. "Why, liebchen—do you think anything under heaven could be so bad that I should want to leave you?"
"I should hope I had not failed—quite that completely," she whispered brokenly.
"Failed?—You? Come up here a little closer and I'll try to tell you just how far you've come from having failed."
At first he could tell her best in the passionate kiss, the gentle stroking of her face, the tenderness with which his hands rested upon her eyes. And then words added a little. "Everything, liebchen; everything of joy and comfort and beauty and light—light, sweetheart—everything of light and hope and consolation that comes to me now is through you. You've done more than I would have believed in human power. You have actually made me forget, and can you fancy how supreme a thing it is to make a man forget that he is blind? You've put the beautiful things before me in their most beautiful way. Do you suppose that alone, or with any one else, I could see any beauty in anything? You've made me laugh! How did you ever do that—you wonderful little Ernestine? And, sweetheart, you've helped me with my self-respect. You've saved me in a thousand little ways from the humiliations of being blind. Why you actually must have some idea of what it is like yourself!"
"I have, Karl. I have imagined and thought about it and tried to—well, just trained myself, until I believe I do know something of what it is like."