to embolden him. At the subsequent duel Sanin gets off the first shot but misses, while his opponent, the Baron von Dönhof, shoots deliberately into the air. The officer, feeling his honor has been satisfied, then apologizes for his drunken behavior, an apology Sanin readily accepts. Sanin feels somewhat disgusted afterward that the whole duel was a farce. Pantaleone, however, is overjoyed with the outcome. Returning to Frankfurt with Pantaleone and Emilio (who had secretly followed him to the duel site), Sanin discovers that Emilio has in turn told Gemma about the duel. Sanin is a little put off by the indiscretion of this pair of chatterboxes, but cannot be angry. Back in Frankfurt, Sanin soon learns from a distraught Frau Lenore that Gemma has cancelled her engagement to Klaus for no apparent reason than that he did not defend her honor sufficiently at the inn. Frau Lenore is frantic at the idea of the scandal this will cause and Sanin promises to talk to Gemma and convince her to reconsider. In Sanin's subsequent talk with Gemma, she professes her love for him but tells him that for his sake she will reconsider her estrangement from Klaus. Astonished and overcome by her confession of love, Sanin then urges her to do nothing just yet. Sanin then returns to his rooms to orient himself to this new development and there pens his own declaration of love to Gemma and gives it to Emilio to deliver. Gemma sends her response telling Sanin not to come to their home the next day, without providing an exact reason. So the next day Sanin spends with a delighted Emilio in the countryside and that evening returns to his rooms to find a note from Gemma asking him to meet her in a quiet public garden of Frankfurt at seven the next morning. This Sanin does and the two declare their love for one another and Sanin proposes marriage. Frau Lenore is shocked and hurt to learn of Sanin's love and thinks Sanin a hypocrite and a cunning seducer. But Sanin demands to meet with the disconsolate Frau Lenore and eventually convinces her of his noble intentions as well as his noble birth and his income sufficient to care for Gemma. Sanin decides he must sell his small estate near Tula in Russia in order to pay for his planned nuptials and settling down with Gemma.