Now you know why I may not be your wife. If you desire my kisses, come. I am not fit for anything else.

Lilly."

It was nearly eleven o'clock. Adele had gone to bed. It occurred to Lilly that she would have to go down to mail the letter herself.

But the storm that had been impending the whole afternoon, was just then giving full vent to its fury. The rain was coming down in sheets, and gusts of wind blew through the open window across Lilly's desk.

Once a shower of drops spattered the paper, at which she was staring with hot, dry eyes. It looked as if tears had fallen upon it while she was writing.

"Very good," she thought.

Then she felt ashamed. The time for farce was ended. But when she started to rewrite the letter, she stopped short with a shudder.

What did those monstrous self-accusations signify? Were they the truth?

Perhaps so in the mouth of a backbiting woman who needs facts about her friend in order to twist them into a crime, or in the mouth of one of those social hangmen who hold a halter in readiness for everybody's past.

For herself, who knew how everything had come about, how from inner need and outer compulsion, from trustfulness and defencelessness, link after link of the chain had been forged which now clanked about her body, a burden of sin--for her there was another, a milder truth, which must win pardon and atonement for her in the eyes of every person who understood.

She tore up the sheet, and began anew. She draughted a sketch, and polished it until it thoroughly satisfied her.

"My dearly beloved friend:--

She who writes this letter to you is a most unhappy woman, whom you know only slightly, and who had to deceive you until to-day, because what is most sacred to her, her love of you, was at stake.

And now, with these lines, I am losing that love. I am sacrificing it to your happiness, to the divine fire which sanctified my life.

The world has treated me badly. It robbed me of my belief in man, my ideals, my will power; and so deprived me of the right to go through life at your side.

I began my course full of confidence and hope, pure to the core of my being. Each man who stepped into my existence broke off a piece of my virtue.

I raised my eyes in devotion to my aging husband, who promised to be my hero, master, model, and idol. He converted me into a tool of base desires.

Another man came, who was young like myself and had been left without ties like myself, and whom I wished to save while I sought refuge with him. He took me and tasted me. I was a fascinating adventure to him, and in the course of his adventure he went to perdition.

He wrote a treacherous letter to a friend placing me in his care. That friend exploited my spiritual and physical needs for his own advantage, and by a shameful trick made me so dependent upon him that for a long time I lived as his creature while thinking myself free and untouched. Helpless and broken as I was I became his entirely, nor ventured even to feel angry at him, I was so slavishly in his power--until now.

So my destiny was fulfilled. I tried desperately to struggle out of the dull night in which my spirit was enveloped, but nowhere was there a path leading up to the light. With ardour I seized each hand held out to help me, but each thrust me still lower, until my whole being sank into a torpid state of discouragement.

Then you came, my beloved, my saviour, my redeemer! It grew light about me, the world blossomed forth again, the drained sources began to flow afresh, the Song of Songs resounded.

And with pride and rapture I realised that nothing shameful had taken firm root in my character, that the times of ignominy had pa.s.sed over my head without destroying my inner worth, my desire for purity, my instinct for a great, n.o.ble humanity.

These had been merely dormant, and you, beloved, awakened them to activity.

Even if I may not be your wife--your wife should be free of stain--I want to be worthy of you, whether by your side or at a distance--wherever you tell me to go.

Long ago I decided to shake off my chains, which, in fact, have been merely external, and with unenc.u.mbered limbs climb up to a new life in harmony with the demands of my genuine self. You have pointed the way, and in grat.i.tude I kiss your dear, tender, industrious hands.

Farewell, beloved! If you would chastise me, never come again.

If you will and can put up with the love of one who loves you as no other woman on earth will love you, then do not turn me adrift. I have nothing to give you but what I am, though that belongs to you unto death.

Lilly."

She read and reread the letter, and read herself into a state of enthusiasm over it.

Now the truth wore quite a different aspect.

Then suddenly the question arose in her mind:

"_Is_ it the truth?"

Had she not luxuriated in choice words? Had she not smuggled in high-flown emotions foreign to her nature? Phrases like "dull night in which my spirit was enveloped" and "tried desperately to struggle"

belonged in sentimental novels. They were inapplicable to her life. She had suffered not so much from despair as from boredom and during that "dull night" she had enjoyed herself greatly on many an occasion.

Richard, the good fellow to judge by her insinuations, was a rank despot, and she herself a sorry, subjugated victim, whereas in reality she had been able to do or leave undone whatever her caprice dictated.

It _was_ the truth, and yet it was not. Just as much and as little as in the first, dreadful letter. Each was correct enough in its way, and many another might have been written equally correct; but the truth, the genuine truth, which penetrated and illumined the whole, would appear in none. That truth she herself did not know, nor did anybody else. That truth vanished with the moment in which an event occurred, and no earthly power could summon it back. All that her words reflected were distorted images varying as her mood varied and as her pen travelled over the paper.

"But I don't want to lie," she cried to herself. "I want to be true to-day."

So she tore up the second letter also.

What now? Should she write a third letter?

It was long past midnight. Her eyes burned. Her temples throbbed with over-excitement, and Konrad was to hear from her by the first mail in the morning. She had promised him.

At this point the full force of what had happened suddenly struck her.

She realised that in the last four hours she had been face to face with the danger of losing him at once and forever.

She was beset with an anguish of fear that threatened to rob her of her senses. She cried his name aloud, ran about the apartment, reeled, knocked against the walls, and wanted to throw herself from the window.

She must go to him forthwith. That was the one idea she was capable of grasping. She would have the porter open the front door; she would wake Konrad up, force her way into his room and stay with him that night and forever. No matter what the consequences! It was all the same. Only to rid herself of that dread which burned her body like a living flame.

The storm had subsided, but the rain was falling in a steady downpour.

Lilly scarcely took the time to put on a cloak.

In low shoes, without hat or umbrella, she dashed out on the street and splashed through the puddles.

Light was shining from the two third-storey windows.

She clapped her hands and cried:

"Konni, Konni, Konni!"

Again and again.

But the windows were closed. He did not hear her.

She saw his figure glide back and forth like a shadow, from one end of the room to the other, to and fro, to and fro, ceaselessly.