"
"You still care for him!"
"Ernst!"
His face was very white with the pallor of repressed
emotion, and his eyes were like the blue flame that one
sees flashing above a bed of white-hot coals.
"You do care for him still. But yes! You can stand
there, quite cool--but quite--and tell me that you would
not hurt him, not for your happiness, not for mine. But
me you can hurt again and again, without one twinge of
regret."
There was silence for a moment in the little bare
dining-room--a miserable silence on my part, a bitter one
for Ernst. Then Von Gerhard seated himself again at the
table opposite and smiled one of the rare smiles that
illumined his face with such sweetness.
"Come, Dawn, almost we are quarreling--we who were to
have been so matter-of-fact and sensible. Let us make an
end of this question. You will think of what I have
said, will you not? Perhaps I was too abrupt, too
brutal. Ach, Dawn, you know not how I--Very well, I will
not."
With both hands I was clinging to my courage and
praying for strength to endure this until I should be
alone in my room again.
"As for that poor creature who is bereft of reason,
he shall lack no care, no attention.
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