from the dread of again receiving the
answer: take me as I am, or leave me! In hours such as the present, or
in the agony of sleepless nights, these thoughts rent his brain. The
question was such an involved one, and he never seemed to come any
nearer a solution of it. Sometimes, he was actually tempted to believe
what her words implied: that it had been wilfully done, with a view to
getting rid of him. But against this, his reason protested; for, if the
letter from Krafft had not arrived, he would have known nothing. He did
not believe she would have told him--would there, indeed, have been any
need for her to do so? Nothing was changed between them; she lived at
his side, just as before; and Krafft was out of the way.--At other
times, though, he asked himself if he were not a fool to be surprised
at what had occurred. Had not all roads led here? Had he not, as she
most truly said, for long harboured the unworthiest suspicions of
her?--suspicions which were tantamount to an admission on his part that
his love was no longer enough for her. To have done this, and
afterwards to behave as if she had been guilty of an unpardonable
crime, was illogical and unjust.--And yet again, there came moments
when, in a barbarous clearness of vision, he seemed to get nearest to
the truth. Under certain circumstances, so he now told himself, he
would gladly and straightway have forgiven her. If she had been drawn,
irresistibly, to another, by one of those sudden outbursts of passion
before which she was incapable of remaining steadfast; if she had been
attracted, like this, more than half unwilling, wholly humiliated,
penitent in advance, yet powerless--then, oh then, how willingly he
would have made allowance for her weakness! But Krafft, of all
people!--Krafft, of whom she had spoken to him with derisive
contempt!--this cold and calculated deception of him with some one who
made not the least appeal to her!--Cold and calculated, did he say? No,
far from it! What COULD it have been but the sensual caprice of a
moment?--but a fleeting, manlike desire for the piquancy of change?

These and similar thoughts ran their whirling circles behind his closed
eyes, as he lay in the waning twilight of the March evening, which
still struggled with the light of the lamp. But they were hard pressed
by the contents of the letter: on this night he foresaw that his fixed
idea threatened to divide up into two branches--and he did not know
whether to be