Why should he put that upon her, too,
to hurt her as it had him, shake her faith as it had tried to shake his?
But his moment of silence could not be redeemed. "Karl,"--her voice was
strangely quiet--"it wasn't, was it?"
He groaned, and she had her answer.
She sprang away from him, standing straight. "Then," she cried--he would
never have dreamed Ernestine's voice could have sounded like that--"I
hate the world! I despise it! I will not have anything to do with it! It
fooled us--cheated us--_made fun of us_! I'll despise it--fight it"--the
words became incoherent, the sobs grew very wild, she sank to the floor,
crouching there, her hands clenched, sobbing: "I hate it! Oh how I want
to pay it back!"
He was long in quieting her, but at last she would listen to him.
"Ernestine," he said, his voice almost stern, "if you start out like that
you cannot help me. It is to you I look. If you love me, Ernestine, help
me not to hate the world. If we hate the world, we have given up.
Sweetheart,"--the voice changed on that word--"even yet--even yet in a
different way, I want to win.
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