Nora smiled mechanically. She had had the feeling that the words were nothing, that he had tried to convey an unspoken message to her which she had neither understood nor answered. She gave herself no time to think over it. She switched on the electric light, and turned to Arnold, who was still standing watching her. "Sit down, Robert," she said. "As Wolff said, we have a great deal to say to each other—at least, I fancy you have come because you have a great deal to say to me." Her words contained a slight challenge, which, the next moment, she felt had been out of place. Arnold sank down in the chair nearest to hand. It was as though he had hitherto been acting a part, and now let the mask fall from a face full of weary hopelessness. "You are right," he said. "I have something to say, Nora—I suppose, though, I ought to call you Frau von Arnim?" "You ought," she answered, irritated by his tone. "But it does not matter. I don’t think Wolff minded." A grim smile passed over Arnold’s lips. "Wolff seems a good-natured sort of fellow," he said. There was again something disparaging in his tone which brought the colour to Nora’s cheeks. "He is everything I could wish," she answered proudly. And then the hollow cheeks and sunken eyes reminded her that she had done this man a cruel injury, and her heart softened with pity and remorse. "How pale and thin you have grown!" she exclaimed. "Have you been ill?" "Very ill," he answered. "I caught some swamp fever or other out there in the wilds, and it was months before they could get me back to the coast. That is why you never heard from me. As soon as I reached port I set straight off for home—to you." "To me——!" she repeated blankly. He nodded. "Yes; to the woman I believed was to be my wife." "Then you never got my second letter?" "Did you write a second letter?" He was looking her earnestly in the eyes, and there was a stifled, tragic wretchedness in his own which was terrible to look on. "I wrote and explained everything," Nora, answered, controlling her voice with an effort. "I have behaved badly to you, but not so badly as to leave you undeceived." "You sent me an explanation," he said slowly. "Nora, it is that explanation which I have come to seek. When I first heard of your marriage, I made up my mind that you were not worth suffering for. I thought that I would go back to the forest and forget you—if I could. I meant never to see you again—I felt I could not bear it. But, Nora, a man’s love is not only a selfish desire for possession. If he loves truly, he puts into that love something of himself which is a vital part of his life and being—his ideals and his whole trust. I suffered—not only because I had lost you, but because I had lost my faith in every one. You seemed so good and true, Nora. I felt I could never trust another woman again. That was unbearable. For my own sake I had to come and ask you—if you could explain."