He sighed and looked away from her with an irritated expression. "Little stupid!" he muttered--she didn't appreciate him and he was a fool to expect it. But "art for art's sake"; and he went on in tones of gentle melancholy. "I love you, but fate has again caught me up. I am being whirled away. I stretch out my arms to you--in vain. Do you understand?" It exasperated him for her to be so still--why didn't she weep? She shook her head and replied quietly: "No--what is it? Don't you love me any more?" "Love has nothing to do with it," he said, as gently as he could in the irritating circumstances. "My mysterious destiny has--" "You said that before," she interrupted. "What is it? Can't you tell me so that I can understand?" "You never loved me!" he cried bitterly. "You know that isn't so," she answered. "Won't you tell me, Carl?" "A specter has risen from my past--I must leave you--I may never return--" She gave a low, wailing cry--it seemed like an echo of the music. Then she began to sob--not loudly, but in a subdued, despairing way. She was not conscious of her grief, but only of his words--of the dream vanished, the hopes shattered. "Never?" she said brokenly. "Never!" he replied in a hoarse whisper. Mr. Feuerstein looked down at Hilda's quivering shoulders with satisfaction. "I thought I could make even her feel," he said to himself complacently. Then to her in the hoarse undertone: "And my heart is breaking." She straightened and her tears seemed to dry with the flash of her eyes. "Don't say that--you mustn't!" She blazed out before his astonished eyes, a woman electric with disdain and anger. "It's false--false! I hate you--hate you--you never cared--you've made a fool of me--" "Hilda!" He felt at home now and his voice became pleading and anguished. "You, too, desert me! Ah, God, whenever was there man so wretched as I?" He buried his face in his hands. "Oh, you put it on well," she scoffed. "But I know what it all means." Mr. Feuerstein rose wearily. "Farewell," he said in a broken voice. "At least I am glad you will be spared the suffering that is blasting my life. Thank God, she did not love me!" The physical fact of his rising to go struck her courage full in the face. "No--no," she urged hurriedly, "not yet--not just yet--wait a few minutes more--" "No--I must go--farewell!" And he seated himself beside her, put his arm around her. She lay still in his arms for a moment, then murmured: "Say it isn't so, Carl--dear!" "I would say there is hope, heart's darling," he whispered, "but I have no right to blast your young life. And I may never return." She started up, her face glowing. "Then you WILL return?" "It may be that I can," he answered. "But--"