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 "How can you think that I would have—yesterday?"

Gert was silent. Then he said wearily:

"I cannot quite make you out."

She was suddenly seized by a wish to hurt him.

"In a way it would not be wrong to say that there was another—a third person."

He looked at her searchingly, then clutched her arm all of a sudden:

"Jenny—good God!—what do you mean?"

But she regretted her words already, and said hurriedly:

"Yes, my work—my art."

Gert Gram had risen to his knees before her:

"Jenny—is there anything—particular—tell me the truth—don't lie to me—is there anything the matter with you?"

She tried for a second to look him straight in the eyes, then bent her head. Gert Gram fell forward with his face in her lap.

"O God!—O God!…"

"Gert, dear, compose yourself. You irritated me with your talk about another. I ought not to have told you. I did not mean to let you know until afterwards."

"I would never have forgiven you for not telling me," said Gram. "You must have known this some time. Do you know how…?"

"Three months," she answered shortly.

"Jenny"—he seized her hands in awe—"you cannot break with me now—not in this way. We cannot part now."

"Oh yes." She stroked his face caressingly. "If this had not happened I daresay we could still have been together some time, but now I must arrange my life accordingly, and make the best of it."

He was silent a moment.

"Listen to me, little one. You know I was divorced last