"Then he only thinks as you command—you have made him believe me beautiful!" cried the girl.
"I see you already forgive me," said Volmer, quietly.
"I cannot!" she exclaimed. "Ah! Volmer, let him go. Take him away again. Take him back to Paris. His life must not be ruined!"
"Wild horses would not drag him away from you," said Volmer, sardonically. "And you do not consider me at all. Unless you marry this man, Nasha, I am lost! Marry him, and I promise to turn over a new leaf."
"Is this the truth?" asked the girl, regarding him fixedly. He returned her gaze with an earnest look of his strange, inscrutable eyes, which seemed to her to dilate, and in some horrible manner to lay hold upon her.
"Yes," said Volmer, and the monosyllable dropped into her consciousness like a plummet breaking through weak, intervening barriers, and seemed to lie, a dead weight, in the bottom of her mind. Her heart was assailed by a great temptation, and she could not, try as she would, rally the forces of her intellect and her scruples against it. In her brother's eyes, which did not leave her face, she seemed to read all the marvellous transformation that might come over her existence. Ivo made, by some strange power, to see her as she longed to be, loving her as she yearned to be loved, and taking eagerly all the wealth of love which she had to give him!
She, the sad, lonely, hungry woman to whom Nature had been so cruel, could be his honoured, cherished wife, the mother of his children, the companion of his bright and of his cloudy days. She could have the right, as she knew she had within her the power, to entrance, to soothe, to sustain him; to live for him as he would live for her, his twin soul, his needed half, and together they would grow into a perfect being. Nasha was a mystic; her heart's cravings had taught her some truths which are only revealed by the two great teachers, Pain and Joy. Pain had hitherto schooled her; but now, in this supreme moment of temptation, she felt the presence of neither pain nor joy; she was only conscious of a mighty power within her, responding to a mighty power outside of her, of an impetuous rush of her will to a decision, and she accepted the life which Fate, through her brother, proffered.
She drew a long, quivering breath after those moments of tension, during which her heart had scarcely seemed to beat.
"If he ever learns the truth he will kill you," she said quietly, as she turned away.
"No," laughed Volmer, "he will kill you."
Her courage did not fail. There were moments, out of Ivo's presence, when conscience stirred within her. There were moments when, after the passionate delight in gazing at his beloved face with all the wild but secret worship of a soul ardent for self-sacrifice, a terrible fear dominated her, and conscience stabbed her cruelly. At such times she would fling herself on her knees before the altar in the little chapel, and lie in mute supplication, or she would walk half-way down the mountain to confess to the old curé in the village; but she always turned back before she reached him. She could not bring herself to speak of the love that filled her. Not to a creature apart from Ivo could she utter a word of the sacred marvel, the secret and the crown of life which she and he had discovered together. So she allowed the moments of torment to pass in silence, and her heart grew stronger till she almost forgot that Ivo was deceived. After all, was that a fraud which revealed her true self to him?
For some sinister purpose of his own Volmer hurried on the marriage, which was solemnized in the ugly little chapel, the bride wearing the peasant's dress in which her lover had first seen her, and which had charmed his artist eyes. Volmer and Getha were the only witnesses of the ceremony, and after it was over the former left the wedded pair to their honeymoon; but he returned, like a bird of ill-omen, after a brief three weeks' absence.
"I could almost believe I had hypnotised myself," he told Nasha an hour after his arrival, as he watched her supervise the preparations for his supper; "you have come wonderfully near to being beautiful!"
Ivo's wife made a movement of impatience, and did not immediately respond; then, in a low voice, and with downcast eyes, she answered him with a question:—
"How long is this to last?"
"What? Are you tiring of your idyll already? It will last, if you must know, just so long as I live."
"Then—should you die—"
"Your dream will be over. Make the most of it. Not that I intend to die yet, but one never knows."
"It was not for my sake at all that you worked this spell?" said Nasha.
"No. It was partly to test my powers,
