* * * * *
When I said good-night to her to-day she seemed suddenly
unaccountably distracted and moody. What was occupying her?
"I am sorry you are going," she said when I was already standing on
the threshold.
"It is entirely in your hands to shorten the hard period of my
trial, to cease tormenting me--" I pleaded.
"Do you imagine that this compulsion isn't a torment for me, too,"
Wanda interjected.
"Then end it," I exclaimed, embracing her, "be my wife."
"_Never, Severin_," she said gently, but with great firmness.
"What do you mean?"
I was frightened in my innermost soul.
"_You are not the man for me._"
I looked at her, and slowly withdrew my arm which was still about
her waist; then I left the room, and she--she did not call me back.
* * * * *
A sleepless night; I made countless decisions, only to toss them
aside again. In the morning I wrote her a letter in which I declared
our relationship dissolved. My hand trembled when I put on the seal,
and I burned my fingers.
As I went upstairs to hand it to the maid, my knees threatened to
give way.
The door opened, and Wanda thrust forth her head full of curling-
papers.
"I haven't had my hair dressed yet," she said, smiling. "What have
you there?"
"A letter--"
"For me?"
I nodded.
"Ah, you want to break with me," she exclaimed, mockingly.
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