"We will go to your mother, Gertrude, and beg her to pardon us for loving each other so much--come!"
He had said this to comfort her, and because he felt that something must be done. His own desire would have been to take the young girl by the hand and lead her away out of this house.
She freed herself from him and looked at him in amazement. "Ask pardon? And for that?"
"Gertrude, don't misunderstand me." He felt almost embarrassed before her great wondering eyes.
"I meant that we should show your mother calmly and quietly that we cannot give each other up. Say something to her in excuse for your vehemence. Come, I will go with you."
"No, I cannot!" she cried, "I cannot beg forgiveness when I have been so injured in all that I hold most sacred. I cannot!" she reiterated, going past him to the deep window.
He followed her and took her hand; a strange feeling had come over him. Until now he had only seen in her a calm, reasonable woman. But she misunderstood him.
"No!" she cried, "don't ask me, Frank. I will not do it, I cannot, I never could! Not even when I was a child, though she shut me up for hours in a dark room."
"I was not going to urge you," he said; "only give me your hand, I must know whether this is really you, Gertrude."
She bent down and pressed a kiss on his right hand. "If _you_ were not in the world, Frank, if I had to be here all alone!" she whispered warmly.
"But you have all this trouble on my account," he replied, much moved.
"Only do not misunderstand me," she continued, "and have patience with my faults. You will promise me that, Frank, will you not?" she urged in an anxious tone. "You see I am so perverse when I feel injured; I get as hard as a stone then and everything good seems to die out of me. I could hate those people who thrust their low ideas on me! Frank, you don't know how I have suffered from this already."
They still stood hand in hand. The snow whirled about before the window in the twilight of the short winter day. It was so still here inside, so warm and cosy.
"No, no. We will bear with each other's faults and we will try to improve when we are all alone by our two selves."
"You have no faults," she said, proudly, in a tone of conviction, drawing closer to him.
