Page:Karl Gjellerup - Minna, A novel - 1913.djvu/247

 right to call you his—he will also in time resign himself to what is inevitable. Only if you choose wrongly, if you mistake your feelings, well, then you will make all three of us unhappy."

"It is dreadful! To be obliged to make such a choice! If only some one could choose for me, if only a duty existed in this case, which said: 'You must do this, otherwise you will be doing wrong!' … But I do wrong whichever way I decide, for I have already done wrong, and it will continue."

"No, no! You must not yield to such thoughts! Do not add scruples of this kind to all the rest"

"Harald!" she exclaimed, getting up and looking steadily into my eyes, "dare you make the choice for me? Have you the courage? Understand me rightly, I mean is your conviction so strong, that you with a clear conscience can say: 'Your duty is to come with me. You have given me your word, and I cannot give it you back because I am convinced that if you act otherwise it will be your ruin'?…"

A shiver of joy passed through me, as I suddenly saw our fate placed in my own hands, and the comforting knowledge that I only had to grasp it made me momentarily forget the seriousness of the responsibility. But before I could answer, Minna stretched out her hand, as if she would place it on my lips, and with an anxious pleading look continued

"But do remember, Harald, that although you get a wife who loves you, and whom you love much more than she deserves,—indeed I know that—she may not ever be able to make you happy, for she has an inner wound which will never quite heal, and which might kill her. I should never be able to forgive myself for being unfaithful to my