“Wait!” he said, and his voice shook. “The other story is that she took pity on him, and fancied, poor child, from her ignorance of the world, that she really could love him, and so consented to be his wife. And he, in his madness, believed it—believed that his whole life could begin anew; but she saw herself that she had deceived him and that he had deceived her. … But let us drop the subject finally,” he ended, clearly unable to say more; and then he began to walk up and down in silence before me.
Thought he had asked that subject should be dropped, I saw that his whole soul was hanging on my answer. I tried to speak, but the pain at my heart kept me dumb. I glanced at him—he was pale and his lower lip trembled. I felt sorry for him. With a sudden effort I broke the bonds of silence which had held me fast, and began to speak in a low inward voice, which I feared would break every moment.
“There is a third ending to the story,” I said, and then paused, but he said nothing; “the third ending is that he did not love her, but hurt her, hurt her, and thought that he was right; and he left her and was actually proud of himself. You have been pretending, not I; I have loved you since the first day we met, loved you,” I repeated, and at the word “loved” my low inward voice changed, without intention of mine, to a wild cry which frightened me myself.
He stood pale before me, his lip trembled more and more violently, and two tears came out upon his cheeks.
“It is wrong!” I almost screamed, feeling that I was choking with angry unshed tears. “Why do you do it?” I cried and got up to leave him.
But he would not let me go. His head was resting on my knees, his lips were kissing my still trembling hands, and his tears were wetting them. “My God! if I had only known!” he whispered.
“Why? why?” I kept on repeating, but in my heart there was happiness, happiness which had now come back, after so nearly departing forever.