Thea started up. All her lately-formed resolutions were forgotten. He, against whom she believed herself to have such just cause for complaint, dared to take her to task thus! She could not and would not lie; it was just as impossible for her at this moment to answer his question frankly. She stood erect before him. Her pale cheeks glowed, and her eyes gleamed angrily. "You certainly have no right to ask that question. You less than all others." The words passed her lips quick as thought. The next instant she repented of them, but they were spoken, and they had their effect. A terrible alteration took place in Bernhard's face. For an instant he looked as though about to crush to the earth the woman before him; then he suddenly turned away, without a word, and left the room. "Bernhard!" Thea called after him; but the door was shut and he did not return. "Past and gone!" echoed in Thea's soul. "Past and gone!" a voice muttered in Bernhard's heart. Of what avail was it that she wrung her hands, and that he, in his room, hid his face and wished himself dead in Lothar's place rather than live through all this? The doors between the husband and wife were closed, and neither could overcome self so far as to open them and cry out to the other, "I love you,--I love you in spite of everything!" The reconciling words remained unspoken. Thus they parted. Bernhard returned to Berlin to await the close of the Reichstag, and Thea was alone again,--really alone now, since she knew that there was no union between Bernhard and herself even in thought. Werner had departed immediately after Lothar's funeral, and Thea shortly afterwards sent Alma home. Their mother was quite ill; there were fears of her becoming blind, and Alma was much more needed there than at Eichhof. Thea exacted from her a solemn promise that she would never mention the contents of Adela's letter. What the future had in store for her she could not tell, only one thing she was resolved upon, that the unhappy state of affairs existing between Bernhard and herself should be concealed from the world as long as possible. While he had been in Eichhof her illness had made such concealment entirely feasible, and in future--yes, what was to be done in future she could ponder upon in her solitude at her leisure. But upon this Bernhard had also pondered, and a few days after his departure Thea received a letter from him. Her heart beat so strongly when this letter arrived that she held it for a moment in her hand without being able to open it. And when at last she did so, the characters of the familiar handwriting danced so before her eyes that at first she could scarcely decipher them. Bernhard wrote: