“And then all my love, my first and only abiding passion, my life, which I would gladly lay down at your feet—­all goes for naught, merely because a foolish dream has taken possession of you.  Ah, you are ill, my darling, you are nervous.”

“No, no, do not kiss me.  Not to-night, Victor, not to-night.”

The horrible discovery had completely stunned me.  I stood as if spell-bound, and could neither stir nor utter a sound.  But a sudden rustling of the leaves within broke through the torpor of my senses, and, with three great strides, I stood at the entrance to the arbor.  Dannevig, instantly recognizing me, slipped dexterously out, and in the next moment I heard him leaping over the fence, and running away over the crisp sand.  Miss Hildegard stood still and defiant before me in the twilight, and the audible staccato of her breath revealed to my ears the agitation which the deepening shadows hid from my eyes.  An overwhelming sense of compassion came over me, as for one who had sustained a mortal hurt that was beyond the power of healing.  Alas, that simplicity and uprightness of soul, and the boasted womanly intuitions, should be such poor safeguards against the wiles of the serpent!  And yet, I knew that to argue with her at this moment would be worse than vain.

“Fraulein,” I said, walking close up to her, and laying my hand lightly on her arm, “with all my heart I deplore this.”

“Pray, do not inconvenience yourself with any such superfluous emotion,” she answered, in a tone, the forced hauteur of which was truly pathetic.  “I wish to hear no accusations of Mr. Dannevig from your mouth.  What he does not choose to tell me himself, I will hear from no one else.”

“I have not volunteered any revelations, Fraulein,” I observed.  “Moreover, I see you are posing for your own personal gratification.  You wish to convince yourself of your constancy by provoking an attack from me.  When love has reached that stage, Miss Hildegard, then the patient is no longer absolutely incurable.  Now, to convince you that I am right, will you have the kindness to look me straight in the eyes and tell me that there is no shadow of doubt in your heart as to Mr. Dannevig’s truthfulness; that, in other words, you believe that on one occasion he assumed the attitude of indignant virtue toward me, and in holy horror rebuked my profligacy.  Dare you meet my eye, and tell me that?”

“Yes,” she exclaimed, boldly stepping out into the moonlight, and meeting my eye with a steady gaze; but slowly and gradually the tears would gather, her underlip would quiver, and with a sudden movement she turned around, and burst out weeping.

“Oh, no!  I cannot!  I cannot!” she sobbed, sinking down upon the green sod.

I stood long gazing mournfully at her, while the sobs shook her frame; there was a child-like, hearty abandon in her grief, which eased my mind, for it told me that her infatuation was not so hopeless, nor her hurt so great as I had feared.