Silence ensued.
Her guilty look glided past him and rested on the photograph on the desk, which leered at her with its crafty, worldly eyes, as if to say:
"My child, I know you much better than you do yourself."
Something familiar and confidential lay in them, like a reflection of the merry world which a moment ago had seemed to her the abode of torture.
She did not venture to remove her gaze from those omniscient eyes, which smilingly examined and disrobed her, and killed her last shy hope.
The unbroken silence in the room became a burden.
Suddenly Konrad and Lilly heard a low moan. It came from the next room, where the sick girl lay, who, because of her secret sin, had been wrestling with her poor life for weeks. The next instant the sound was partially stifled, as if she had stuck a handkerchief into her mouth.
Then it broke out again all the more violently. Anxious words of comfort mingled with the groans. They came from the mother, who probably slept in the farther room, and had come in to find out the cause of her daughter"s outburst of grief.
Konrad"s and Lilly"s eyes met.
"She heard everything," their look said.
For a brief instant the stranger"s unhappiness caused them to forget their own. The great flood of the world"s suffering poured over them easing the sting of guilt and drowning their personal pain.
The sobbing in the next room was m.u.f.fled under pillows.
"My own darling," the comforting voice implored, and each tone swelled with love. "Don"t worry. It isn"t so bad. We will take the little baby.
Even if he doesn"t marry you, what difference does it make? Think of it, we have the baby! And then it will smile at you and say mama. You see, it isn"t so dreadful."
The sobbing quieted down, and turned into a heavy breathing, the first earnest of peace.
"Oh," thought Lilly, "it must be good to have someone say: "It"s not so dreadful.""
n.o.body would say that to her.
A burning desire to be petted and comforted, like the young sinner next door, arose in her.
"She has her mother," she groaned, bursting into tears, "but whom have I?"
Konrad leaned over and took her hands from her face. His troubled eyes shone with such infinite loving kindness that they seemed not to be of this world.
"Am I not here?" he asked.
"What can you do for me?" she complained. "How can you bear me?"
There were no sounds from the other room any more.
Now the mother also knew that Konrad had a visitor at that late hour.
"Listen," he whispered, his mouth close to her ear again. "We mustn"t talk much more. Besides, my head"s in a whirl. But there"s one thing I see clearly: how ridiculous everything called guilt is when two people love each other, and when one has suffered like you. You have always been a saint to me, and you shall--continue to be in the future."
"Future," Lilly faltered, starting up anxiously, "what sort of a future?"
He wiped his forehead, yellow and dank with sweat.
"I don"t know," he said. "All I know is I can"t live without you."
She closed her eyes. She wanted to dream longer.
"To be sure, it cannot be what we wanted." She noticed the hesitating, dragging gait of his speech. "Everything, of course--will have to be different."
"Your life must not be different--it ought not to be different."
"You can"t blink facts, darling. Of course, I don"t know _where_ we will live. But we"ll manage to find some spot on the globe where n.o.body knows us."
Now she understood.
And forgetting herself and the sick girl and everything around she sank down at his feet with a cry and sobbed:
"I don"t want you to--you mustn"t. You"re entirely too young. You don"t know the world. You don"t know what you"re doing. I don"t want the sacrifice. I don"t want to ruin you. I love you too much for that."
He bent her head back and stroked her hair from her forehead.
If only his eyes had not shone with that suffering loving kindness.
The unhappiness of a lifetime already glowed in them.
"If the question of sacrifice enters," he said, "then _I_ must ask a sacrifice of _you_. Will you make it for my sake?"
"Everything, everything! Shall I die? Tell me."
"I want only one thing of you. Come to me as you are. Don"t bring a single possession of yours with you. Never return, not once, to your--to that apartment. From this moment on nothing of all that is to be. Will you promise me?"
Lilly battled against violent alarm.
Not to return home! Never to see her dear drawing-room again; never to feed the little canary or Peter--never!
An ugly feeling, that such a sacrifice was rank folly, came and went again, as if a daub of dirt had been flung upon her, and immediately been wiped away. Then she decided hastily, and replied:
"Yes, I promise."
He drew a deep breath.
"Now we will be perfectly quiet," he said. "The patient ought to sleep, and to-morrow morning I"ll explain the matter to my landlady."
"But what is to become of your great work?" Lilly asked, self-reproach rising up in her again.
A melancholy smile pa.s.sed over his face.
"Who knows? That will depend upon my uncle. If he gives his consent, we can live as we please. Everything will be all right."
"But if he doesn"t?"