The following day Cornelia awoke with the first glimmer of dawn. The vague expectation excited by Heinrich's ambiguous words had kept her long awake, and now drove her from her couch earlier than usual. She made a hasty toilet and hurried out into the autumn morning. It was damp and gloomy; a thick fog made earth and sky vanish in a gray cloud; the withered leaves fell from the wet bushes with a low rustle as her garments brushed against them. She did not heed it. Spring was in her heart, and the warm life in her breast seemed to glow through the chilling scene around her. Mechanically she entered the path she was most accustomed to follow. It led to the churchyard. She walked through the long rows of graves, apparently the only living creature in the broad place of death; but as she approached the well she suddenly saw, at a few paces' distance, two grave-diggers lowering a little coffin into the earth. She approached and asked, "Whose child is this you are burying so entirely alone?"

"It is illegitimate," said one of the men, dryly.

Cornelia shuddered. "Oh, how terrible!"

"Yes, it's a pity for silly girls to allow themselves to be so blinded. If they thought more of their honor, they wouldn't meet with misfortune. And the poor children always have to suffer for it. This one was put out to board with strangers, who neglected it so that it fell sick and died. The girl to whom it belonged was obliged to go out to service again because her lover deserted her before the child was born, so she couldn't trouble herself about it, and was obliged to leave it to die."

"Poor, poor child!" thought Cornelia, looking at the grave with tearful eyes. "Usually when a child is born it is received with joy and love; but shame stood beside your cradle, shame hovers over your lonely grave. No happy father took you in his arms, no gladsome mother's eyes answered your first trusting smile; nobody wanted you, and the only one who loved you was obliged to deny you until God had compassion upon you and took you to himself. Now your forsaken mother may perhaps be stretching out her arms despairingly to grasp the empty air, and must conceal her anguish as deeply as her darling has just been buried in the earth. Terrible fate! May God protect every loving woman from it!" Tears flowed more and more quickly down her cheeks; she turned away and wept out the emotion that had seized upon her on the graves of Veronica and Reinhold. As she went home she noticed for the first time that it was misty and dreary, and entered the house in a graver mood than she had left it.

"Marie," she said to her chambermaid, "while I was at the churchyard it occurred to me that this is Veronica's birthday. Order some wreaths for her grave; I wish to have it adorned on such anniversaries."

The hours dragged slowly away. Ottmar did not appear at the usual time; but instead the evening paper announced his appointment as minister. That was why he had been so absent-minded yesterday, why his words had contained a vague promise of a speedy decision of her fate; so this was the secret. Surely the turning-point in her life must now be reached; he had obtained what he desired, and might dare to marry. Her heart beat more and more violently. Quarter of an hour after quarter of an hour passed away. He could not come today: he probably had too much to do; and yet she longed so anxiously to see him.

Her servants asked whether they should carry the wreaths the gardener had just skillfully arranged to the grave. "Yes, go," said Cornelia, absently; "no one will come to-day now." But scarcely had the maids left the house when the bell was impatiently pulled. Cornelia opened the door with trembling expectation, and sank upon Ottmar's breast.

Henri had just met the two servants in the street. Had Cornelia ventured to send them away when she knew he was coming? or was she preparing to leave the house? He could form no conclusion, but explained the incident in his own favor; knew himself to be alone with Cornelia, and gave himself up entirely to his own excited feelings.

"You are a minister," she began. "You have now obtained that for which you struggled. It will afford you no greater happiness than your present position; but I perceive this throws too heavy a weight into the scale not to outbalance my counsels."

"Come here, my Cornelia do not let us discuss such matters now," said Henri, drawing her upon his knee. "I can do nothing to-day but look at and caress you. Do not grudge me the sweet refreshment after long hours of burdensome ceremonies and fatiguing business. My mind is so wearied that I can no longer think of anything, only feel that I clasp you to my heart, that you are mine, wholly mine! Is it not so?"

Cornelia leant silently upon his breast. "At last, at last he will utter the word I have so longed to hear!" she thought, clinging to him in a fond embrace. He pressed his lips to her ear, and whispered so low that she could not understand him, but felt he must be making promises of eternal love and tenderness, while his hot breath bewildered her like the fumes of opium. Then a word fell upon her ear more distinctly, causing a thrill never felt before. He had called her his "wife." Overwhelmed with happiness she closed her eyes, her head sank upon his shoulder, and tears of unspeakable delight stole from beneath her long lashes. In this name, for which she knew but one meaning, he had expressed the fulfillment of her fairest hopes. She remained in this blissful confidence a moment longer. Henri's voice grew still more persuasive, fell still more distinctly upon Cornelia's ear. Suddenly the veil which had surrounded her soul was torn away; she was forced to hear, forced to understand, what she had never been willing to believe. Springing up, she stood before Henri as if frozen into a statue; there was neither life nor color in the face blanched to the pallor of marble, save in the eyes, which rested with increasing firmness and brilliancy upon his startled countenance.

Henri had prepared himself for an outburst of indignation or grief; this speechless amazement, this frozen horror, first revealed to him how deep her trust had been, and how he had ascribed many things to levity, or believed them a triumph of love, which had been rooted wholly in the security of this unshaken confidence. He perceived he had prepared Cornelia badly for his plans; but it was too late: he could not unsay what had been said. At last her lips moved, and word after word began to struggle through them.

"So this is the meaning you give to the sacred words 'my wife,'--in this way I shall not be denied the privilege of becoming yours? This relation does not dishonor--the--minister!"

"Cornelia," cried Henri, with a slight shudder, "not this scorn! I cannot bear it. Do you not understand that I have inviolable duties towards my position and the dignity with which my prince trustfully invested me? that there are barriers far more difficult for a man to overleap than for a woman to pass the bounds prescribed by what we call morality? Speak, Cornelia: could you expect me, the representative of the highest aristocracy in the country, the supporter of the most rigid despotic principles of government, to suddenly present to the astonished world as my wife the daughter of a fugitive traitor, who has herself hitherto moved exclusively in plebeian and democratic circles? Would not your pure brow flush beneath the contemptuous glances which would see only your origin, not yourself? I could not present you at court; and would it not be far more humiliating if, as my lawful wife, you were excluded from the circles to which I belong, if you were always compelled to conceal yourself in the darkness of obscurity, like one proscribed, while feeling that the lofty name you bore was a burning-glass to draw upon you the fiery rays of public curiosity?"

Cornelia pressed her hand upon her heart as if she felt the stroke of a dagger.

"Could you bear this ignominy?--could you suffer your husband to bear it with you? You know that to me you are a queen; but the world in which I live would never weary of preparing humiliations for you that even I, as your husband, could not always prevent, and which would perhaps lower my proud, noble love in my own eyes. All this you can avoid if you will remain outside the sphere into which our marriage would bring you, if you will live in seclusion as the sweet wife of my heart, unknown and unnoticed, but surrounded by the glory with which a great self-sacrificing love invests a woman. That I would be a faithful husband to you, my Cornelia, I swear by every solemn oath. No other shall ever stand at my side; no one shall bear the name which, before God, belongs to you, and which I dare not give you before the world. I will open a heaven of bliss to you, and at the end of our days you shall tell me whether, in the true, real sense of the word, you have not been my wife, whether I have not deserved the sublime confidence with which, without the customary guarantees, you placed the happiness of your life in my hands. Come, Cornelia, come to my heart." And, as he uttered the words, he threw himself on his knees before her, extending his arms imploringly.

Cornelia still stood motionless. She saw him at her feet, looking so noble with that mute entreaty on his lips, gazed at him for a second, then, like a despairing cry of agony, the words burst forth,--

"Oh, Heinrich, why, why must it come to this?"

"Why? How can it be otherwise?" cried Henri, starting up. "Cornelia, be more merciful than the fate that denies you to me. Could I reject my prince's call to the aid of the throne, withdraw my powers from the service of the state at the moment they were most needed? Ought I to have made such a sacrifice to my love when I was sure you would joyfully offer the lesser one, which is necessary to our happiness? What have you to fear? You are living in exceptional circumstances, have no one's permission to ask, have told me a hundred times that you despised the judgment of the world, that you felt within your own heart a higher power, which justified you in taking your own course. If I had believed any woman capable of a love which had sufficient morality in self to be able to cast aside all laws without degenerating, it would have been yourself; and you are such a woman, you alone. In your lofty breast human nature has developed free and unfettered, as it came from the hand of the Creator; it does not judge according to the ordinances of the church-police, or so-called moral tradition, but, pure and undefiled, unquestioningly follows the guidance of the love which pervades all creation, and which mankind first disfigured and chained by arbitrary laws."

"Indeed!" said Cornelia. "And our ideas of virtue, of the sacredness of marriage, they would lack all firm foundation had not God placed a guard upon our passions in our own breasts."

"Cornelia, can you ask such questions? They are a protection to the weak, of course. Marriage, as a sacrament, is a great institution, which the infirmities of human nature rendered necessary; but for those strong exceptional natures that feel themselves nearer the deity it is an empty form."

"So would be morality, honor, family happiness,--all would be mere illusions, and our most immediate aim nothing more than to become thinking animals. This would bring us nearest to our divine origin."

"Do not scorn me thus, Cornelia; I do not deserve it, for I am in solemn earnest. Is marriage, then, merely a civil union formed under the eyes of the church-police? Is it not rooted in those who truly love each other? Cannot they, without marriage-certificate or altar, found a true, peaceful family life apart from society, and therefore the more untroubled? If they have become truly one in spirit, do they need the compulsion of the world and the church to remain faithful to each other? Is not marriage a mere superfluous ceremony to such beings? and is not a relation that depends upon the most profound mental and physical sympathy, and endures through its own power, more moral than a so-called legal marriage, which exists only in form where two persons are united that are repulsive to each other,--two souls that do not understand each other,--where people seek refuge from despair in crime, and, after committing infidelities, play the old falsehood to themselves and the world until loathing and constraint stupefy their souls and the individual sinks into a mere animal? Is this more moral, Cornelia? Could the church consecrate what was commonplace, disunited, separated? Is not such an alliance a greater blasphemy than if two beings, with the loftiest feelings, give themselves to each other for a life of free love and voluntary faithfulness?"

"And would it be blasphemy if two such beings sanctioned their alliance before the world by a marriage, if they made that which is hallowed in itself saved in the eyes of society?" asked Cornelia.

Henri's eyes fell before her glance. "It would not be blasphemy; and any one whom circumstances permitted to do so would be very wrong not to avail himself of the beautiful form, with its many benefits. But where it would disturb a whole life, natures like ours have a right to dispense with it."

"And wherein does this disturbance of the whole life consist? In the possible loss of the portfolio! This is the lofty object to which everything else must yield, even the feeling whose 'divine power,' according to your views, might dispense with the sanction of the law."

"Oh, no, my angel! Shall I love you less if you are mine of your own free choice? On the contrary, I shall but hold you the more tenderly in my heart. You are too noble, too unselfish, to compel me to sacrifice either the proud goal of my efforts, or the happiness of my love, when it is in your power to afford me both."

"But if I do not possess this unselfishness,--if I asked your hand as a proof of your integrity,--then I must yield to the interests of your ambition, and the statesman would conquer the lover."

"Cornelia, I no longer know you. Is this the self-sacrificing woman who has always cared only for others, never for herself? and could you now suddenly transform yourself into a calculating egotist, who bargains and higgles for a price, and demands the sacrifice of a whole career in return for her love? Cornelia, an unconditional sacrifice, a complete forgetfulness of self, might have won me to anything, but this is not the way to obtain my hand."

He looked up and recoiled a step in horror, for before him stood the gorgon he had once imagined in those eyes. The disheveled hair seemed to move; her gaze rested upon Henri with petrifying power. At last the tension of the nerves relaxed, the blood surged into her face, and her noble indignation flushed her cheek with as deep a crimson as it had before been pale. "Heinrich!" she cried, "I have borne your fiendish dialectics long enough! I wished to know you thoroughly, and therefore forced myself to be calm. Now this must cease; the measure is full! Do you really believe I would so far humiliate myself as to bargain and beg for your hand? Do you really suppose the sacrifice you ask would be too great for me, if I could justify it before God and my own conscience,--if you were worthy of it? That you are not you have now shown me. I was obliged to hear the answer you gave me with my own ears, or I should not have believed it; therefore I asked the question. I was forced to learn your falsehood from your own lips, to be able to offer you the only thing you deserve, my scorn. Yes, my nature is so healthful that I have strength to thrust evil from me, though my very life should cleave to it. Oh, Heinrich, that it must come to this! You have stripped the bloom from my existence, stolen the most sacred emotions of a young, trusting heart, wished to take from me honor, faith, all that affords support and protection to a woman, torn the wings from my soul to chain me, and then, when you wished to disown me, to say 'fly away.' Oh, treacherous soul-murderer, beautiful and winning as no other can ever be, for whose creation an angel must have mated with a fiend, I love and hate you with equal fervor! I would gladly ennoble you, yet feel already how you have corrupted me. Yes, I understand that no one resisted you,--that you conquered wherever you went; but here, proud man, is the limit of your victory. The shame you destined for me does not humiliate me, for I am conscious I have not deserved it. See, it rouses every hostile power within me. I feel, with a shudder, how they are taking possession of my heart, calling mockingly in my ears, 'Count Ottmar's mistress,' and painting scenes,--scenes which might well drive me to madness. And there stands the man who loves me, and from pure affection dooms me to such tortures; who will not suffer me to stand by his side before the world; will not give me his name in return for the life he demands: and all this is from pure love; and I,--why do I not from pure love thrust a knife into his false breast to avenge the law he derides?"

"So that is it? Because I will not make you Countess Ottmar! That is what causes you such bitter grief? Oh, Cornelia, you are far more haughty than virtuous!"

"Oh, my God, how have I deserved this?" cried Cornelia. "Heinrich, Heinrich, vengeance will come upon you! You will some day be compelled to answer before God for the heart you have crushed! You wish by your sophisms to drive me to sacrifice my virtue, merely to prove that I am noble and unselfish, that I love the man and not the count. Oh, it is a clever calculation, and may already have led many a gentle heart astray! But it recoils from my firm reason, for the supposition is false, Heinrich. If your love and esteem are only to be obtained by sin, you are so evil that you are not worth the trouble of winning. Believe that I am more haughty than virtuous; believe that my anger is only roused because I am not to become Countess Ottmar; I cannot convince you to the contrary, for God and his commands are higher than you, and God sees my heart and knows how it bleeds and quivers!"

"Do not be so violent, Cornelia; you cannot leave me. You are mine; own that you are. You have inhaled the sweet poison from my lips, and your soul absorbed in full draughts the fiery language of my passion. You have foreseen all the joys of love; womanhood has unfolded its perfect flower. You cannot go back. Come, my dove, you are fluttering timidly, and yet feel that you are bound. Come, my angel, demand my vows; I will give them all to you as if before the altar. Does not Christ himself, to whom you pray, say, 'Where two are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them'?"

"Hold, blasphemer, to whom nothing is sacred!" cried Cornelia, releasing herself from his arms in mortal terror; and with sudden resolution she rushed to the door, along the passage, down the staircase,--heard him following her, and hurried through the dark streets. She did not know herself what she wanted, or where she was going; "away, away from him" was her only thought. A door stood ajar, and a faint light streamed through the opening. It was the church of the Jesuits. She fled into it. The house of God was empty, only a priest was praying at the altar beneath the red glow of the ever-burning lamp. Henri's steps echoed behind her. She rushed up to the dark figure, and sank senseless before him.

"Heaven has apparently chosen me to be your good spirit, Count Ottmar, since I always stand in your way when you are in the act of doing things you might afterwards regret," said the Jesuit, bending over Cornelia.

In the haste of the pursuit Henri had recognized Father Severinus too late. Now he stood before him in amazement, and beheld his precious treasure lying senseless in the arms of his mortal enemy. Henri was painfully embarrassed. "Severinus," said he, "I assure you this whole scene is the result of the folly of an innocent, enthusiastic girl, and that you may safely trust me to escort her home."

Severinus gazed with increasing admiration at Cornelia's pure, pale features, as he aided her to rise. "It depends on the decision of the lady herself whether she will go with you, or place herself under my protection."

"Cornelia!" cried Henri, in tones so loud, so full of agony, that she opened her heavy eyes. "Cornelia, angel of my life, do not abandon me! Come with me, and forgive me for having alarmed you. Give me your dear hand, and let me take you home. Cornelia, have you no longer a single glance for your Heinrich?"

She stood trembling before him with downcast eyes, and did not move. "If this reverend gentleman will take me, I will ask him to accompany me. With you, Heinrich, I shall go no more."

"Come, my daughter," said Severinus, with inexpressible gentleness.

Deep grief, such as he had never felt before, overmastered Henri. He tried to kiss her hand, but she withdrew it. "Will you act in opposition to the dictates of your own heart, Cornelia?" he exclaimed. "My love, do not cause yourself so much pain. See, you are pitying me almost more than I pity myself. Be more womanly, Cornelia; you cannot treat the man in whom your life is rooted thus. This is not the place for such discussions. I will forgive your want of confidence and your having exposed me to this gentleman in such a manner. To-morrow, my Cornelia, I shall hope to find you more reasonable."

"More reasonable? You will never find me again."

"Cornelia!"

"I think you will feel yourself that between us no reconciliation is possible. We are parted!"

"Cornelia! and you have loved me!"

"Because I have loved, still love--I fear you," she breathed almost inaudibly. "Should I need to fly from you if I hated you as I ought?"

She fixed her eyes once more on the wondrously beautiful features, now ennobled by pain; tear after tear rolled slowly down her cheeks; she shivered violently, and sank sobbing at the feet of a life-size figure of Christ, resting her burning head against the cold stone.

"Oh, Cornelia," whispered Henri, his voice trembling with emotion; "unhappy child, why do you lacerate your own heart and mine so cruelly? Tell me, wherefore do you now suffer all this? wherefore do you renounce me, do you bear this anguish?"

"Wherefore?" she said, looking up to the Christ to which she still clung. "Ask Him. He will teach you."

Severinus had stood a little apart, watching Cornelia as if in a dream; he was deeply moved. With a manner more tender than Henri had ever seen in him, he now approached and offered her his arm. She obeyed him almost unconsciously, and passed slowly by Ottmar. The latter threw himself before her, and pressed her dress to his lips.

"Girl, girl, I will not leave you! It is not possible that you can cast me off,--it is unnatural! Cornelia, am I to lose you? can it be? will you take all the joy and happiness from my life?"

Cornelia stood with her hands pressed upon her bosom, struggling for breath.

"Have you no longer a word, a glance, for me? can you see the head you have so often cradled an your bosom at your feet, and not bend and raise it forgivingly to your heart? will you not look smilingly into my eyes, and say, 'Enough of punishment, I am appeased'? Draw your arm from that stranger's and place it around my neck, and I will bear you through the world as lovingly, as watchfully, as a god. See, I kiss the spot where your heart is beating, and it does not burst; its blood does not gush forth upon my breast with infinite sorrow at the thought of a separation. You do not stir; you let me plead, let me extend my arms despairingly to you, and will not throw yourself into them,--say no word of compassion to the man whom you have called a thousand times by every fond name love could utter."

"Heinrich! Heinrich!" cried Cornelia, throwing her arms around him and pressing her lips to his, "this is more than human nature can bear!"

"Oh, my Cornelia! Do you then feel you are mine?--that all your purposes are false?--that nothing is true and eternal except our love?"

"My daughter," said Severinus, gently, "be steadfast as you were just now."

Cornelia looked up and brushed the tears from her face. "I thank you; I am steadfast," she replied, with firm resolution. "Good-night, Heinrich, for the last time."

She turned to leave the church with Severinus.

Henri started up like a wounded tiger; all tenderness was transformed into fury. "Go, then!" he shouted, trembling with rage; "you are no woman,--you are a fiend! You have deserted me, not I you; now we are quits."

The young girl tottered out of the church with Severinus without casting another glance behind.

Both reached Cornelia's house in silence. Severinus paused. "Command me, FrÄulein. Shall I leave you alone, or can I be of any further service to you? A young girl doubtless needs protection against such a man as Ottmar."

"Do you know him?" asked Cornelia.

"I do."

"May I ask you to come in with me?"

"Most joyfully."

The servants, on their return, had found the house open, and were in the greatest anxiety about Cornelia. Her maid came to meet her, crying, "Oh, heavens, how you look!"

They entered the drawing-room, the apartment so short a time ago the scene of peace and joy; whose atmosphere was still pervaded with Henri's glowing breath. There lay the gloves he had forgotten in his haste. Her tears burst forth afresh. It seemed as if she had just come from his funeral, and could not part from these last sad tokens of his life. She mutely motioned Severinus to be seated; she could not speak,--could not express her emotions in words. Severinus understood her thoroughly, and watched her in silence. She sat with bowed bead, speechless and pale; her hands resting on her lap; her loosened tresses falling around her, wet with tears. She still saw the impression made on the soft carpet where he had knelt before her; there lay a velvet ribbon he had torn from her arm; with a deep blush she looked up at the priest, as if he could read her thoughts. Now, for the first time, she noticed his delicate features, the melancholy expression of his large dark eyes, and gazed at him more earnestly. With an involuntary motion he pushed the hair from his brow, and a broad scar became visible.

"You are Severinus!" she exclaimed, starting up and seizing both his hands.

"Did you not know it?" he asked, in astonishment.

"No, I did not hear your name just now; but I think I once saw you in a brighter hour than this."

"In the churchyard a few months ago."

"Yes. Ah, it was a fleeting happiness!" she murmured. "It is strange that we should meet. Oh, I salute you: the only person of whom Heinrich always spoke with reverence, whom God has sent to be my preserver!"

"May the Almighty grant that I shall prove so! But what can I do for you? Will you raise me to the rank of your friend, that as such I may console you, since I am not permitted to bestow the blessings of my ecclesiastical office upon a Protestant?"

"How do you know I am of the Lutheran faith?"

"Because I have long known you, long watched your quiet labors in the prison; and of late, since the report of your relations with Ottmar went abroad, prayed that the Almighty might save the honor of a being whom he had created or his glory, if at any time she was in danger."

"A report? Oh, God! had matters already gone so far with me? Ah, this despicable world!"

"Calm yourself, my daughter. Do not accuse the world: you yourself are not wholly blameless. Had you submitted more to the laws of womanly custom, everything might now be very different."

Cornelia covered her face. "Alas, I believed all men as pure as myself!"

"You are right. If you had been less innocent, you would have paid more attention to appearances. Yet you now see yourself where it leads when a woman breaks down the barriers that protect her. If you had belonged to our church, and had a confessor whom you trusted, he would have called your attention betimes to the dangers that threatened you, and spared you many a bitter pang."

"Alas, many faithful friends warned me, but I would not listen: I had no thought for anything except this man. I was bound by a magic spell, which permitted me only to breathe with his breath, live in his life. I had forgotten God and the world for him; and therefore I am now punished."

"You recognize the hand of God, my child. Ah, yes! I know it rests heavily upon those he loves. You had suffered yourself to become absorbed too thoughtlessly in the passions of earth, and therefore he tore you away to the purer sphere of self-sacrifice and sorrow. Many an earthly happiness can still bloom for you, but you will be purified and enjoy it with grateful consciousness. This is the blessing of your sorrow."

"Oh, how nobly you speak! Go on," pleaded Cornelia, clasping her hands and kneeling like a little child beside the arm-chair which Severinus was seated.

"You have conquered, my daughter, and your heart bleeds from honorable wounds; yet do not imagine that the contest is ended with this one victory: it will not save you. In the languor into which the soul falls after great moral efforts, it is all the more defenseless against a fresh assault. You must leave here, must withdraw into solitude, where, as your days form the links of a continuous chain of self-sacrifice, you will obtain a quiet, unassuming victory over your passions. In the stillness of a magnificent, lonely region, you will once more hear the gentle voices in which God speaks to mankind. Beneath shady trees, and beside cool brooks, the tumult of the blood will be allayed, the life and labors of millions of innocent creatures will employ your fancy, lead you back to simplicity and childlike faith, and with devout reverence you will receive the duty that takes up its abode in every purified soul."

"Yes, reverend sir, you are right: I need repentance and rest; and balm for all sorrows can be found only in beautiful nature. I must leave here; but where shall I go? I have traveled very little; know not whither to turn; and since my engagement to Ottmar have become so much estranged from all my friends that I could not now ask any one to accompany me; besides, I know of no one whom I would suffer to look into my heart. You are the only person whom a strange accident has made my confidant, you understand, and in these few moments have become so necessary to me that it would be very difficult for me to part with you. Help, counsel me."

"You still have a faithful maid?"

"Certainly."

"Well, then, promote her to be a 'companion,' and take me for your fatherly guide, if you believe I know how to judge and treat you in the present state of your soul."

"What! would you devote your precious time to me?"

"If you need me, yes."

"If I need you? Oh, reverend sir, how can I thank you, how can I reward you for a sympathy of which I am so unworthy?"

"To save your immortal soul, to reconcile you with God, is the only reward and gratitude I ask. I am only doing my duty if I aid your erring spirit to find its home again."

"Oh, my friend, you arouse an emotion never felt before! I never knew my parents. Let me find in you that of which I have so long been deprived: a father on whose heart I can weep out my sorrows. Alas, I have never enjoyed this blessing I know not what it is when a child, overwhelmed with remorse, falls at its father's feet, and the latter, kindly absolving it from its guilt, says, 'Come, you are forgiven!' I have sinned deeply; yet if I had had my parents, everything would have been different. Father Severinus, can you enter into an orphan's feelings? Ah, one who, clasped in the arms of his family, has never lacked love, cannot know what it is to grow up alone, without that warm affection, that blissful interchange of parental and filial love, and, with an overflowing heart, which in its ardor could contain a world, find only sober friendship and partial understanding! My dear Veronica was an angel! I owe her all the good qualities I possess: she reared me lovingly, and treated me like a mother; but she had not a mother's affection, that rich, gushing tenderness which a warm, childish heart demands. I did not need an angel, but a noble, mature human being, and strict discipline. My powers soon carried me beyond her narrow intellectual sphere; she became more and more beneath me mentally, and indulged me wonderfully. I remained an obedient child, and loved her devotedly; but she could not give me what I required. An unfortunate youthful fancy passed over me like a dream. My aspiring mind knew no bounds; my thirst for love vainly sought satisfaction, in society, in toiling for the poor and miserable. Then I met Heinrich, with his ardor, his winning charm; and all the affection a child has for its father and mother, all the passion a woman can feel, I had for him. Now came the result of my education. Always habituated to do as I pleased, I despised the commands of custom, the warnings of friends. After being so long deprived of love, it burst over me like a flood: I gave myself up to it blindly. Perhaps I thereby forfeited my lover's respect, and apparently justified him in inflicting upon me the humiliation from which I fled to your protection, sir." She sighed heavily. "Ah, thank God that I could pour out my heart to you! For the first time in my life I feel the happiness of confessing a fault with remorseful sorrow, divesting my soul of its pride, and placing myself in the hands of a merciful judge! Impose the punishment, and I will bear it; tell me the penance, and I will perform it; but then, then bend down to me and tell me as my father would have done, 'Come; you are forgiven'!"

She laid her clasped hands upon the arm of the chair, and looked at Severinus imploringly. The latter sat absorbed in thought, gazing into her face.

"My dear child, you give me the right to punish and pardon; I can only make use of the latter privilege. Your intellectual development, as you have described it to me, excuses your relations with Ottmar, and your pathetic submission to this unprincipled man. I, too, was orphaned; I, too, have wandered through the world with a loving heart, and never found what I sought. To me also men have seemed cold and empty; they did not respond either to my ideas or feelings. But what drew you down raised me; the overmastering impulse led me to a purer sphere. In our church, Cornelia, reigns the man-born God. I could seize upon him, throw myself into his arms, and there find the love, the condescension, I needed. Our church alone is the bridge which unites the Deity with the earth. The symbols, Cornelia, are the steps by which the clumsy human mind, so long as it is fettered by temporal ideas, climbs upward to the supernatural. Even the most sinful man can reach God, if he makes the symbols his own. While your church requires a purified spiritual stand-point in order to give consolation and edification, ours bends down to the man imprisoned in sensuality and leads him upward, step by step, gradually removing him from his sinful condition." He paused and looked at Cornelia, then continued: "These blessings fell to my lot. My heart also bled when it tore itself away from all the human ties entwined about it; I, too, Cornelia, have struggled until I resisted the false allurements, and so spiritualized myself that the world became dead, and the kingdom of God a living thing to me."

"Oh," exclaimed Cornelia, "I shall never bring myself to that! The world dead! No longer love this beautiful earth, the master-piece of God! No, I cannot; it would be ungrateful to him who created it."

"I do not ask that, my child; I am not one of those bigoted priests who believe that men were made only to pray, that the pious and chaste alone are the elect, and the others the mere wretched laborers of creation, destined to propagate the race. Such a thought is far from me. Whomsoever. God destines to be his servant he calls; and let those whom he does not rejoice in the world for which they were born, and serve God by doing good in their own sphere. I will only warn you not to forget the Giver in the gifts; to remember the Dispenser while you enjoy his alms, is a duty you children of the world so easily neglect. This I will teach you to fulfill, and show you that it does not detract from happiness, but hallows and strengthens it. If you had thought more of God when he gave you Ottmar's love, you would have been more discreet, and perhaps matters would never have gone so far."

"Ah, that is terribly true!" sobbed Cornelia.

"Calm yourself, my child; I do not wish to burden your poor heart still more heavily. You were innocent, and Ottmar's influence was injurious to you. No mortal has a right to decide whether you would have been able to avoid this; I least of all, for I know Ottmar's personal power. I, too, trusted him, and was betrayed, for he is no man's friend, not even his own!"

"Unhappy man! Created in the image of God, so handsome, so noble, so capable of giving happiness, and yet a living lie, a deceitful phantom, which irresistibly allures us, and, as soon as we wish to hold it; melts into thin air. Do you understand, Severinus, that one may love him with all the strength of one's life, and when parted from him be but a broken bough which can do nothing but wither?"

"I understand it, for no other was ever so dear to me. I hoped to make him an instrument for the advancement of the good cause, thought God had given me in him a being to whom the heart might still be permitted to pay the tribute of human feelings, aided with admiration in the development of his great talents, and nursed him with tender anxiety. I listened to his breathing while he slept, watched him like a brother, and saw with delight that his health gradually improved. When he came up to me with beaming eyes, and said, 'My dear Severinus, how shall I thank you?' my heart swelled with proud delight, and I clasped him in my arms." He paused, covered his eyes with his hand, and continued, in a trembling voice: "And when I was compelled to lose him, such sorrow seized upon me that I struggled as if the foul fiend had possession of him and I must wrest Heinrich's soul from his grasp. It was the punishment that befell me because my love did not still belong exclusively to Heaven, as it ought. I endeavored to disarm his malice against the order as much as possible; I had nurtured the serpent, so it was my duty to deprive it of its venom, and thus I was forced to pursue as an enemy one who had been the dearest person on earth to me. Believe me, my daughter, your tears are not the only ones which have been shed for him."

Cornelia seized Severinus's hand with deep emotion; he rose. "I will now leave you alone: you need rest. Compose yourself, and pray. I hope to find you ready to travel early to-morrow morning, and will consider tonight whither I will guide you."

As Severinus went out into the street he met a brother-priest, who was just coming from the Jesuit church.

"Father Severinus!" he said, in astonishment. "How did you come here? what are you doing in FrÄulein Erwing's house?"

"I am gaining a soul for the church!" he answered, proudly, and passed on.