It was a terrible state which wrapped her poor fluttering heart in absolute night, and yet even then there was something like a faint glimmering of the star of hope. If Kurt had ever loved her--and he had--he had done so once--how could he love another woman, who, however charming and seductive, was yet in all things the very opposite of herself? Kurt, who had so often assured her that he hated all display and all vanity, that he loved her because there was nothing of display, nothing, of vanity about her, because she was his own rose, which, in its dewy freshness, he would not exchange for a world of brilliant exotics!
And his large brown eyes had shone down upon her so gravely and lovingly as he spoke, and his lips had trembled with genuine emotion--and had all this been naught but lies on the part of him whom she in her turn had loved, because he had appeared to her as a lofty and lordly image of truthfulness and fidelity?
But then, again, what had she done? What was she to do when the other one, that good and noble man, to whom--so Agatha said, and her own heart could not but confirm it--she had given such unequivocal proof of her affection, when he came into her presence and said: "I have come to take you at your word. Not all the Flavios in the world would have kept Hilarie from loving her uncle, had she been convinced that he truly loved her. And you know it: I love you!" What could she do, but, with Hilarie, say: "I am yours for ever"? He would not fall at her feet and exclaim: "You make me the happiest man beneath the sun," but she knew,--she knew that he would be happy!
Ah me!--why had she not obeyed the voice which called to her that first evening when she met him in the wood, and he laid his heart open to her: "Open thy heart to him too," the voice had said, "tell him all." That would have been the time, the only right time. For the very next day she had read in his eyes what now made her so proud--so happy. So happy? Gracious heavens!
This was happiness, was it, that she now desired nothing better than death, swift death, to escape from the torments that tore her heart to pieces?
Did he divine nothing of these torments! Why had he not come to her last night? He might surely have spared her a minute--he had given the Princess a full hour. It was, perhaps, a relief, a sort of recreation, for him, seeing he had so long had to dispense with any intellectual conversation. Was she perchance the beautiful widow in the novelette who consoled the uncle for the loss of Hilarie? And had Hilarie already got to the point of wishing and longing for such consolation for her uncle?