Wally sat like a statue and struggled for breath. She felt as if the mountains and the whole world were whirling round her. Now all was clear--now too she understood what Afra had said by Joseph's bedside. She held her head with both hands, as if she could not grasp the meaning of it all. If it were indeed true, how gigantic was the wrong she had done. It was not a heartless man who had scorned her for a lowly maid-servant--it was a brother fulfilling his duty to a sister that she would have killed--she would have bereft a poor orphan of her last remaining stay for the sake of a blind movement of jealousy. "Good God, if it had been so!" she said to herself. She felt giddy--she buried her face in her hands, and a dull groan escaped her. Joseph, who did not observe her agitation, went on.
"So it came to pass that up at the Lamb I swore before them all that I would take down thy pride, and do to thee as thou'd done to Afra, and so we hatched the plot among us, in spite of Afra who'd not have had it done. And all went well; but when we wrestled with one another, and when that dear and beautiful bosom lay upon my heart, and when I kissed thee, it was as if my veins were filled with fire. I'd say no word to thee, because I'd been thy enemy so long,--but from hour to hour the fire grew, and in the night I clasped my pillow to me and thought that it was thou, and when I woke, I cried out loud for thee and sprang out of bed for the ferment and fever I was in."
"Stop, stop--thou'rt killing me," cried Wally, with cheeks and brow aflame; but he went on passionately: "So I went out whilst it was still night, and wandered up to the Sonnenplatte. I'll tell thee all,--I meant to knock at thy window before break of day, and I was full of joy to think how thou'd put out thy sleepy face, and how I'd hold thy head, and make amends for all, and ask thy pardon a thousand, thousand times. And then--then a shot whistled past my head, and directly after another hit my shoulder, and as I stumbled some one sprang on me from behind and hurled me down from the bridge. And I thought, now all is over with love and everything else. But thou came, thou angel in maiden's form, and took pity on me, and saved me, and cared for me--Oh, Wally!" He threw himself at her feet, "Wally, I cannot thank thee as I ought--but all the love of all the men in the world put together is not so great as the love I have for thee."
Then Wally's strength gave way altogether--with a heart-rending cry she thrust Joseph from her, and flung herself in wild despair face downwards on the earth. "Oh, so happy as I might have been--and now all is over--all, all!"
"Wally, for God's sake!--I believe thou'rt really mad! What is over? If thee and me love each other, all is well!"
"Oh Joseph, Joseph, thou doesn't know--nothing can ever be between us two; oh, thou doesn't know, I am outcast and condemned--thy wife I can never be--trample on me, strike me dead--me it was that had thee flung down yonder."
Joseph shrank back at the awful words--he was not yet sure that Wally was not mad. He had sprung up, and was looking down at her in horror.
"Joseph," whispered Wally, and clasped his knees, "I've loved thee ever since I've known thee, and it was because of thee that my father sent me up to the Hochjoch, because of thee that I set fire to his house, because of thee that for three years I wandered lonely in the wilds, and was hungry and frozen and would have died sooner than be married to another man. And out of pure jealousy I treated Afra as I did, because I thought she was thy love and would take thee from me. And thou came at last after long, long years that I had waited for thee, and thou asked me to the dance like a bridegroom--and I believed it, my heart was bursting for joy, and I let thee kiss me as a bride, but thou--thou mocked me before everyone--mocked me!--for all the true love with which I had longed for thee--for all the sore trouble that I had borne for thee--then all at once everything was changed, and I bade Vincenz kill thee."
Joseph covered his face with his hands. "That is horrible," he said in an undertone.
"Then in the night I repented," Wally went on, "and I went out, and would have hindered it--but it was too late. And now thou'st come to tell me that thou loves me, and all would be well if I could stand before thee with a clear conscience. And I have brought it all on myself with my blind rage and wickedness. I thought no wrong could be so great as that thou did to me, and it is all nothing to what I have done to myself--but it serves me right--it serves me quite right."