Mrs. Vanderlyn found this too much for calm reception. She did not
wish to, she would not believe.

"Why do you say such things?" she demanded of her son. "You're just
trying to save him. Why did he confess?"

Kreutzer, now, looked at her with calm, cold dignity. His turn had
come. Had she been a man he would have taken it with vehemence and
pleasure; because she was not a man he took it with a careful
self-repression but no lack of emphasis.

"I will tell you, Madame, why I made confession. It may be that you
will not understand, but so it is. I told you that it had been I who
stole the ring because I love my little girl so much that I would go
to prison--ah, Madame, I would die!--rather than permit that she
should suffer. For a mad moment, overborne by your amazing claims, I
did believe that she had taken that ring. I thought that she had taken
it to help her poor old father--the old flute-player who never has
been able to give to his daughter what he wished to give, or what she
deserved to have. I thought, perhaps, that Anna, swept away by sorrow
for my struggling, had yielded to temptation to help _me_--the
mistaken impulse of a loving child. No crime--no crime! I understand,
now, what she meant when she was speaking with me. Her 'secret!' Her
'temptation!'"

He turned to John, now, and addressed him, solely. "Her 'temptation'
was to be your wife when I had made her promise that she would not
think of men until I came to her and told her that I had picked out
the one for her. I see it, now; I see it. Her 'temptation'--it was
only to become your wife!"