“There is no forgiveness for me in Heaven,” she said.  “Shall there be none on earth!  Not even a little, from you to me?”

“There is no question of forgiveness between you and me.  You have not injured me, but Israel Kafka.  Judge for yourself which of us two, he or I, has anything to forgive.  I am to-day what I was yesterday and may be to-morrow.  He lies there, dying of his love for you, if ever a man died for love.  And as though that were not enough, you have tortured him—­well, I will not speak of it.  But that is all.  I know nothing of the deeds, or intentions, of which you accuse yourself.  You are tired, overwrought, worn out with all this—­what shall I say?  It is natural enough, I suppose—­”

“You say there is no question of forgiveness,” she said, interrupting him, but speaking more calmly.  “What is it then?  What is the real question?  If you have nothing to forgive why can we not be friends as we were before?”

“There is something besides that needed.  It is not enough that of two people neither should have injured the other.  You have broken something, destroyed something—­I cannot mend it.  I wish I could.”

“You wish you could?” she repeated earnestly.

“I wish that the thing had not been done.  I wish that I had not seen what I saw to-day.  We should be where we were this morning—­and he perhaps would not be here.”

“It must have come some day,” Unorna said.  “He must have seen that I loved—­that I loved you.  Is there any use in not speaking plainly now?  Then at some other time, in some other place, he would have done what he did, and I should have been angry and cruel—­for it is my nature to be cruel when I am angry, and to be angry easily, at that.  Men talk so easily of self-control, and self-command and dignity, and self-respect!  They have not loved—­that is all.  I am not angry now, nor cruel.  I am sorry for what I did, and I would undo it, if deeds were knots and wishes deeds.  I am sorry, beyond all words to tell you.  How poor it sounds now that I have said it!  You do not even believe me.”

“You are wrong.  I know that you are in earnest.”

“How do you know?” she asked bitterly.  “Have I never lied to you?  If you believed me, you would forgive me.  If you forgave me, your friendship would come back.  I cannot even swear to you that I am telling the truth.  Heaven would not be my witness now if I told a thousand truths, each truer than the last.”

“I have nothing to forgive,” the Wanderer said, almost wearily.  “I have told you so, you have not injured me, but him.”

“But if it meant a whole world to me—­no, for I am nothing to you—­but if it cost you nothing, but the little breath that can carry the three words—­would you say it?  Is it much to say?  Is it like saying, I love you, or, I honour you, respect you?  It is so little, and would mean so much.”

“To me it can mean nothing, unless you ask me to forgive you deeds of which I know nothing.  And then it means still less to me.”