ble and the second still
less. And now your answer?"

"You know, Innstetten, I am at your disposal. But before I know about
the case, pardon me the naive question, must it be? We are beyond the
age, you know--you to take a pistol in your hand, and I to have a
share in it. However, do not misunderstand me; this is not meant to be
a refusal. How could I refuse you anything? But tell me now what it
is."

"It is a question of a gallant of my wife, who at the same time was my
friend, or almost a friend."

Wuellersdorf looked at Innstetten. "Instetten, that is not possible."

"It is more than possible, it is certain. Read."

Wuellersdorf ran over the letters hastily. "These are addressed to your
wife?"

"Yes. I found them today in her sewing table."

"And who wrote them?"

"Major von Crampas."

"So, things that occurred when you were still in Kessin?"

Innstetten nodded.

"So, it was six years ago, or half a year longer?"

"Yes."

Wuellersdorf kept silent. After a while Innstetten said: "It almost
looks, Wuellersdorf, as though the six or seven years made an
impression on you. There is a theory of limitation, of course, but I
don't know whether we have here a case to which the theory can be
applied."

"I don't know, either," said Wuellersdorf. "And I confess frankly, the
whole case seems to turn upon that question."

Innstetten looked at him amazed. "You say that in all seriousness?"

"In all seriousness. It is no time for trying one's skill at
pleasantry or dialectic hair-splitting."

"I am curious to know what you mean. Tell me frankly what you think
about it."

"Innstetten, your situation is awful and your happiness in life is
destroyed. But if you kill the lover your happiness in life is, so to
speak, doubly destroyed, and to your sorrow over a wrong suffered will
be added the sorrow over a wrong done. Everything hinges on the
question, do you feel absolutely compelled to do it? Do you feel so
injured, insulted, so indignant that one of you must go, either he or
you? Is that the way the matter stands?"

"I don't know."

"You must know."

Innstetten sprang up, walked to the window, and tapped on the panes,
full of nervous excitement. Then he turned quickly, stepped toward
Wuellersdorf and said: "No, that is not the way the matter stands."

"How does it stand then?"

"It amounts to this--that I am unspeakably unhappy. I am mortified,
infamously deceived, and yet I have no feeling of hatred o