The girl continued in a whisper, "I am already so deeply humiliated that no shame can bring me lower; I have no more to lose in this world. If you were not here, I should have already killed myself. I belong not to myself, but to you--say, what shall I be to you? I have lost my senses, and all is the same to me; kill me, if you choose--I will not stir."
Herr Katschuka, during this passionate speech, had worked out the problem of what he was to answer. "Fraülein Athalie, I will speak frankly--you know I am an honest man."
"An honest and chivalrous man would be ashamed to take advantage of the misfortune of a woman for the satisfaction of his lowest passions. I will give you good advice as a well-meaning friend, as one who has a boundless respect for you. You tell me you have an uncle in Belgrade: go to him. He is your blood relation, and must receive you in a friendly way. I give you my word of honor that I will not marry, and if we meet again I shall always bring you the same feelings which for years I have experienced toward you."
He told no lie when he gave this promise. But from what his face showed at this moment, Athalie could read what he did not say--that the captain neither now nor for years past had loved her, that he loved another, and if this other was poor and made a beggar, he had good reason to promise on his word of honor that he would not marry. This it was which Athalie read in the cool expressions of her faithless bridegroom. And then something flashed through her brain like lightning. Her eyes flashed too.
"Will you come to-morrow," she asked him, "to escort me to my uncle in Belgrade?"
"I will come," Katschuka hastened to reply. "But now go home. Did any one come with you?"
"What imprudence! Who is to take you back?"
"You need not," she said, bitterly. "If at this hour any one saw us together, what a scandal it would be--for you. I can walk alone. I am not afraid. I have no longer anything worth stealing."
"He shall do nothing of the sort. The patrol might arrest the poor devil. After the last post he must not be seen in the streets. I will find my way alone. So then--to-morrow--"
Athalie wrapped herself in her black cloak, and hurried away before Katschuka had time to open the door for her. It seemed to her as if the captain was putting on his sword almost before she had left his door. Is he perhaps going to follow her in the distance?