rds. But it was only
because she heard Edwin's step overhead, and all her former emotions
again awoke. She forgot that Lorinser had asked her a question, nay
even that he was in the room.

"You delay your answer, Christiane," he began again. "I don't wonder at
it and greatly as I desire to have a clear understanding between us, I
have no wish to hasten this explanation. Perhaps the most favorable
thing for which I can hope, is to have your soul hover in a sort of
twilight, so strangely compounded of sullen hate and dawning affection,
that neither can gain the victory. Such a condition may be singular and
mysterious to your strong nature, which is usually so quick to decide;
you think you can shake it off by ridding yourself of the man who
causes the mood. You're mistaken, Christiane. You may deceive yourself:
I know that I'm already too near to you to be crowded out of your life
so easily. You must go on until you arrive at either hate or love. No
one capable of a real emotion, has ever yet had a half feeling toward
me." He had approached nearer and was standing beside her with folded
arms, gazing at her face which in profile was distinctly relieved
against the dark curtain. His vicinity, his low, quiet words, the
firmness with which he asserted his position, angered her more and
more. With a quick indignant gesture, she threw her cloak over the back
of the chair and rose.

"I must earnestly beg you to leave me," said she. "Only on condition
that you respect my wishes now, will I consent to take no farther
notice of the manner in which you've intruded here. If you were as well
acquainted with human nature as you profess to be, you would give up
the crazy idea that I could ever give you any power over me either for
good or evil. Our characters are entirely unlike."

"You talk like a child," he answered quietly, "or you don't know what
you're saying. If the difference between us were not as wide as heaven
and hell, we never could be anything to each other. Only opposite poles
attract each other, simply because they seem to repel. Can there be a
victory without a conflict? What you are to me, Christiane, I know only
too well. What I am or shall be to you--you will soon learn, though you
may now thrust the knowledge ever so far away. Or do you know another
man," he continued gazing steadily into her face, "who in the hour when
you are forsaken by all, when you feel more wretched than you have ever
felt before, would come