Free eBooks at Planet eBook.com pursued by disgrace, by the theft he had committed, and
that blood, that blood!... But yet it was easier for him then.
Then everything was over: he had lost her, given her up. She
was gone, for him — oh, then his death sentence had been
easier for him; at least it had seemed necessary, inevitable,
for what had he to stay on earth for?
But now? Was it the same as then? Now one phantom,
one terror at least was at an end: that first, rightful lover,
that fateful figure had vanished, leaving no trace. The terri-
ble phantom had turned into something so small, so comic;
it had been carried into the bedroom and locked in. It would
never return. She was ashamed, and from her eyes he could
see now whom she loved. Now he had everything to make
life happy... but he could not go on living, he could not; oh,
damnation! ‘O God! restore to life the man I knocked down
at the fence! Let this fearful cup pass from me! Lord, thou
hast wrought miracles for such sinners as me! But what,
what if the old man’s alive? Oh, then the shame of the other
disgrace I would wipe away. I would restore the stolen mon-
ey. I’d give it back; I’d get it somehow.... No trace of that
shame will remain except in my heart for ever! But no, no;
oh, impossible cowardly dreams! Oh, damnation!’
Yet there was a ray of light and hope in his darkness. He
jumped up and ran back to the room — to her, to her, his
queen for ever! Was not one moment of her love worth all
the rest of life, even in the agonies of disgrace? This wild
question clutched at his heart. ‘To her, to her alone, to see
her, to hear her, to think of nothing, to forget everything, if
only for that night, for an hour, for a moment!’ Just as he