He drew aside with a stiff salute. "I have apologised. I can do no more," he said, and turned on his heel. Thus poor Nora toiled her way over the hard, frozen roads alone, her thin-shod feet aching, her heart beating to suffocation with anger and misery. But she was unconscious of pain or weariness. Her English pride, the high love of her land had risen like a tide and swept her forward—to what end she neither knew nor cared. *CHAPTER XIII* *ULTIMATUM* "I do not know if I have done right in telling you," Frau von Arnim said. "I had not meant to do so, but circumstances—and Nora—have forced me. Had she offered me any reasonable explanation, or promised to put an end to her intimacy with this Captain Arnold, I should not have thought it necessary to speak to you on the matter. She chose to ignore my appeal and my advice, and I felt that there was no other course left open to me but to warn you and to give you my reasons for doing so." "I am sure you meant it all for the best," Wolff answered. "All the same—I would rather have waited until Nora had told me herself." He was standing by the window, and did not see the sceptical lifting of his aunt’s eyebrows. She frowned immediately afterwards, as though annoyed at her own display of feeling. "It would have been better," she admitted calmly; "but Nora is in a state of mind which does not encourage hope. I cannot help saying so, Wolff; she has changed very much since the Karlsburg days." "I know," he answered. "She has changed just in this last month or two. Poor little wife!" "Other people have noticed it," his aunt went on. "The Selenecks, the Freibergs, all our best friends have the same complaint to make. She is off-hand, sometimes deliberately rude; and that sort of thing does not help to stop the scandal that is growing round her. Elsa Seleneck does not usually klatsch, but she is merciless where Nora is concerned, and it is all the more unpleasant because they were once good friends. I can only suppose that Nora has come under the influence of her brother and this man—this——" "Nora’s friendship with Captain Arnold is absolutely innocent," Wolff said firmly. "No doubt they have that sort of thing in England." "Perhaps so, but we do not. People see this Englishman at your house day after day. There seems no reason for his constant visits. They call each other by their Christian names and go out together. Who can blame any one for putting the worst interpretation on Nora’s conduct? And they are beginning to blame you, Wolff." "Me?" "They say that you ought not to tolerate her brother’s presence in your house—that you ought to send this Arnold to the right-about." He winced. "I can’t. She would never forgive me." "Wolff! Has she grown more important than everything else in life?"