"DEAR SIR! To succeed in all undertakings equally well is not given to any one, not even to the most favored knight. You will therefore, it is hoped, understand why a person, who has watched with much astonishment the process you have made in the favor of a certain lady, is anxious to become personally acquainted with the magic charm you possess, and therefore desires to see you. If you are disposed to afford him this pleasure, you are requested to take a walk this evening, at eleven o'clock, near the smaller Grenwitz gate. Under the old beech-tree on the road to Berkow you will, if you consent, find a carriage to convey you to the place of rendezvous. There you will find everything required to begin a more intimate acquaintance.

"It need hardly be mentioned, that, of course, an affair of so much delicacy has to be treated with the utmost secrecy. The coachman will ask you 'Qui vive,' and if you answer 'Moi,' he will know that you are the right person. Au revoir, monsieur!"

This was the text of a letter which the mail-carrier from the neighboring town handed Oswald on the evening of the next day.

He read the odd note several times before he could recover from his surprise. Who was the "person" who wished to make his personal acquaintance? What "lady" was meant? Had the mystery of the forest chapel fallen into indiscreet hands? Could Baron Cloten be the author of the challenge? The peculiar, cool manner of the young nobleman at their last meeting favored this presumption. Or was the meeting accidental, and the mysterious rider the real writer? Was he, perhaps, one of Cloten's spies? On the other hand, was not the conversation which Baron Barnewitz had had with Oldenburg, and which Oswald had heard as an unwilling listener, sufficient evidence that Cloten had quite enough to do with his own difficulties?

Oswald passed in his mind all the young nobles in review whose acquaintance he had made at the ball, and his suspicion was finally fixed upon young Count Grieben, that tall blonde youth who made such amusing efforts to be brilliant, and to win favor with the coquettish Emily--efforts in which he failed with equal success. He seemed to be most likely to be the author of some of the phrases in the letter.

What was he to do? Should he expose himself to the perhaps very ignoble vengeance of the young noblemen? Should he enter the lists without knowing anything of the weapons, the witnesses, the place, or even his adversaries? Could any fair-minded man blame him if he took no notice of the challenge of an anonymous writer?

But he probably had not to deal with fair-minded men. Had he not already found out, and seen it proved by his experience, that in these privileged circles the pleasure of the individual stood for right, and the most frivolous whim of the moment served as a motive for action? Had he not found this to be so even in the two characters which were so far above the common mass, in Melitta and Oldenburg?

And would they not charge him, if he declined the challenge, with want of that delicate sense of honor of which these nobles were so proudly boasting?

No, no; he must take up the gauntlet, however contemptible the hand might be that had thrown it down in the dark. He must show these young noblemen that he was not afraid to meet their revenge alone, friendless, and unarmed.

His blood was boiling. He walked up and down in his room in great excitement.

"Come on! Come on!" he hissed through his teeth. "I wish they would place themselves one by one opposite to me; my hatred would give me strength to overthrow them all. Quite right! Quite right! What have I to do here among these wolves? To be torn or to tear. I ought to have foreseen that."

Oswald felt how a new evil spirit rose from the deepest bottom of his soul, which his eye had never yet fathomed. A wild passion, a burning thirst for revenge, a mad desire to destroy seized upon him; it was the intense, frantic hatred of the nobility which he had felt as a boy, while he loaded the pistols for his father behind the city wall, when the latter shot at the ace of spades and each time aimed at the heart of a noble man; when he read at school, in Livy, of the haughty arrogance of the Tarquins, or in his room, of the tearful story of Emilia Galotti. And they were no fictions! Here, in this castle, perhaps in these same rooms which he now occupied, a victim of the cruelty of a nobleman had bled to death; here the poor, unhappy, and beautiful Marie had paid with a thousand burning tears for her folly in believing the word of a noble tempter.

She had been victimized because she was a frail woman, and because she had no weapons but tears--tears which found no pity. Those tears had never been atoned for. How if he should arise as her avenger--if he should avenge those tears of a low-born maid in the blood of a nobleman?

Such thoughts passed through Oswald's mind while he was making a few hasty preparations for the case of an unlucky event--little as he thought it likely to happen, for he saw himself only in the part of an avenger. He burnt a few letters which he did not wish to fall into strange hands; he arranged his other papers, and finally wrote a few lines to Professor Berger; but he soon tore them up again and threw them into the fire.

"Tant de bruit pour une omelette," he said, "the wretches do not deserve that I should give myself so much trouble for their sake."

He awaited the appointed hour with impatience.

At last the great clock struck ten. He heard the servants going to bed; even from Albert's room a light was shining down upon the dark garden. It struck half-past ten. Oswald dressed himself carefully, took a rose from a bouquet which he had gathered in the garden, and put it in his button-hole.

Then he slipped noiselessly down the narrow steps on which Marie, on that stormy night had escaped from the chÂteau into the garden, through the garden and out at the gate which led into the courtyard, and from which it was only a short distance to the little gate where he was told he would find the carriage.

The night sky was covered with clouds, through which a few scattered stars only pierced their way; it was so dark that Oswald had to walk very slowly, until his eye had become accustomed to the darkness, if he did not wish to risk falling into the ditch on either side of the road.

Suddenly a large dark object loomed up before him, and at the same moment a rough, deep voice cried out: "Qui vive?"

"Moi!" answered Oswald.

He saw the outlines of a tall form which opened the door of the carriage and let down the steps.

As soon as he had got in the door was closed after him, and the horses started; he could not see whether the person had jumped upon the box, or whether it was the coachman himself.

Coachman and horses must have known the road well, or be able to see as well at night as in open daylight, for the carriage drove with a swiftness to which even an impatient lover could have had no objection. The road was in good order, and although now and then a stone was lying in the track, the carriage was so well hung on excellent springs that one hardly perceived the jolt.

Oswald leaned back in the swelling cushions. The soft velvet seemed to exhale a perfume, which filled the narrow compartment like the boudoir of a pretty woman. Oswald even fancied it was the same perfume which Melitta ordinarily used. And suddenly he felt as if Melitta were sitting by his side--as if her soft warm hand were touching his--as if he felt her breath on his brow--as if her lips were lying lightly like a zephyr on his own.

And this delicious dream effaced the reality. Oswald forgot what was before him; he did not think of the future; he knew not where he was--and only she, she herself filled his soul. The memory of her sweet grace, her goodness, her intoxicating beauty overcame him like a spring-tide of bliss. The precious images of those happy hours which he had spent by her side, at her feet, rose before his mind's eyes with marvellous clearness; he saw them all, from his first meeting on the lawn behind the chÂteau at Grenwitz, to the moment when she turned from him, tears in her eyes, in that night of hapless memory, when the demon of jealousy struck its sharp claws into his wounded heart.

"Forgive me, Melitta! forgive me!" he groaned, burying his head in the cushions.

Suddenly the carriage stopped. The door opened, the tall man who had let down the steps before helped him get out, gave him his hand, led him a few steps up to a large glass door, where, through the red curtains, a faint light was bidding him welcome. The door opened, and Oswald found himself in the garden-room in Melitta's chÂteau, and Melitta wound her arms around his neck, and Melitta's voice whispered: "Forgive me, Oswald! Forgive me!"

"You cruel man," said Melitta, after the first wild storm of delight, with its showers of joyous tears, had passed away. "How could you shut up your heart for so many days when you knew I was standing outside knocking for admission? But I will not scold. You are here and all is right again."

She leaned her head on his breast and looked up at him smiling through her tears. "Is it not, darling? Is not all right again? Now Melitta is again what she was before to you, what she will ever be to you, in spite of all pretty girls of sixteen, be their name Emily or----"

"Melitta!"

"Or Melitta! For there is but one Melitta, if thousands bore that name, and that one am I! And how could you forget such a weighty matter! What trouble you have caused old Baumann! I will say nothing of myself, for joy follows grief and grief follows joy, and if two love each other honestly, a few tears more or less, a few sleepless nights, a few letters begun and torn to pieces again, matter, after all, very little--but poor Baumann! Just imagine! The first day I was very calm, for I thought: he will come soon enough, and fall down at your feet and ask your pardon! But when you did not come, nor on the second, nor on the third day, then my heart failed me, and I dare say I looked wretched enough, for as I was sitting here, resting my head in my hands, I suddenly felt a hand on my shoulder, and when I looked up, good old Baumann was standing before me, and said: Shall I go and see why he is staying away so long?--Ah do, dear Baumann, I said. Then the good soul went, without saying a word, and did not return till late at night. Did you see him?--Yes, ma'am! He is well and hearty; I have had a race with him."

"Then old Baumann was the mysterious horseman?"

"Of course, and he laughed in his quiet way when he told me that you had been after him, as if he meant to say: The children! They thought they could overtake me on Brownlock!"

"Then that was Brownlock, of whom Bruno has told me so much! Well, now I can explain it all."

"Can you? Then you will also explain it, I hope, why Baumann sat down and wrote that letter at my dictation. The old man refused, and said: A duel is no child's play, and that is carrying the joke too far. But I laughed and wept till he gave way; so he took Brownlock once more this morning and rode to town to mail the letter."

"And if I had not accepted the challenge?"

"Baumann asked me the same question, and I answered: Fie, are you not ashamed to say such a thing, Baumann?"

Oswald laughed. "Of course! we must always be ashamed when we say or do something that does not suit the world, as it exists in your little heads."

Melitta made no reply, and Oswald saw that a shadow flitted across her face. He knelt down before her and said, seizing her hand as it hung by her side:

"Have I offended you, Melitta?"

"No," she said, "but you would not have said so a week ago."

"How do you mean?"

"Come, get up! Let us go into the garden. It is hot in the house; I long to breathe the cool night air!"

They went down into the garden and walked up and down, arm in arm, till they came to the low terrace, where Oswald had found Melitta when he called upon her that Sunday afternoon. They sat down under the pine-tree, which spread its branches over them as if in protection. The night was marvellously silent. The trees stood quiet, not a leaf stirring, as if they were fast asleep; fragrant perfumes filled the warm, dry air, and glow-worms were wandering through the night like bright tiny stars.

"You did not answer my question, Melitta," said Oswald. "What is it the last eight days have changed in me? Am I not the same I was; only that the bitter regret at having hurt your feelings has made my love for you deeper and warmer?"

Melitta made no reply; suddenly she said, speaking low and quick:

"Have you seen much of him since that Sunday at Barnewitz?"

"Of whom, Melitta?"

"Well, of--of Baron Oldenburg. God be thanked, I have said it. It is so childish and foolish in me to have hesitated so long to speak of Oldenburg, and to tell you what our relations have been,--and yet I felt you had a right to know it, and I was bound to lift the veil from my past, wherever it might appear dark to you. This feeling grew so overwhelming in me, especially when I found that you had become intimate with the baron, that I wanted to see you at any price, and this suggested to me the foolish plan."

"I have no such right as you say," replied Oswald, "to be foolishly curious. I have to be grateful for the love which you grant me, and I am grateful for it, as for a sweet gift from on high. There was a time, I confess, when my love still knew what doubt was, but that was not yet true, genuine love. Now I cannot imagine that I could ever cease to love you, or that you could ever do so. I feel even as if this love was not only intended to be eternal, but had actually existed before, in all eternity. I do not know if you ever loved before; it may be, but I do not comprehend it, and would not comprehend it, even if you were to say so expressly."

"And I assure you," said Melitta tenderly, coming closer to Oswald, "I have never loved till I saw you; for what I before called love was only unsatisfied longing after an ideal which I bore in my heart, which I could find nowhere, and which I had long despaired of ever finding."

"And you fancy that I am this personified ideal? Poor Melitta! How soon you will awake from this dream! Awake, Melitta! awake--it is time yet!"

"No, Oswald, it is too late. There is a love which is as strong as death, and there is no awaking from it. No! No awaking. I feel it. I know it. And if you were to turn your face from me, and if you were to push me from you--with you I know not what offended love, what insulted pride are--nothing but immeasurable, unfathomable, inexhaustible love. Till now I only knew that I could love; how much I could love, you first have taught me....

"And now also I can speak freely of the time when I did not yet know you--for then my life was only apparent life and all I felt and thought was only a vague dreaming without connection and sense. I know that now--now since I have opened my eyes in the sunlight of your love, and life lies clear and transparent before me, so that the deep night which surrounds us looks to me brighter than formerly the brightest day. Now I can speak of the Melitta of former days as of a strange person for whose doings and sayings I am no longer responsible; now I can and will tell you what that portrait in my album means--that detached leaf which frightened you so, darling.--Yes, I saw it all; you changed color, and you did not comprehend how I could ask your opinion of a man whom you could not but think my lover. And yet Oldenburg never was my lover, or there must be strange degrees in love, of which the lowest is as far from the highest as the earth is from heaven.

"I knew Oldenburg from my childhood. My father's estate adjoined Cona, where you were yesterday. My aunt, who undertook my education after my mother's death, and Oldenburg's mother were warm friends, and met almost daily. So did we children. Oldenburg was several years older than I, but as girls are always ahead of boys in their development, we did not feel the difference in age much; we played and worked together; we were good comrades--ordinarily, for not unfrequently we fell out, and then we had sharp words and quarrels and tears. I rarely gave cause for them, for I was not obstinate, and always ready to give way, but Adalbert was excessively sensitive, stubborn, and self-willed. The double nature of his character, which he afterwards tried to harmonize and to conceal from all but the most sharp-sighted, was then very evident. It was impossible not to become interested in him, but I doubt if anybody really loved him. This he felt, and this feeling, which he bore about with him like a concealed wound, made him early a hypochondriac and a misanthrope. It was of little use to him that everybody admired his eminent talents, and that no one doubted his courage, his love of the truth--his stubborn, self-willed ways repelled all and offended all. Even his tall, ungraceful figure and his awkward motions contributed to turn the hearts of men away from him. At least it was so with me. I had from childhood up felt irresistibly attracted towards all that was beautiful and graceful, and had a real horror of what was ugly and ill-shapen. I could not love Adalbert, although he was sincerely attached to me with great tenderness, which he carefully hid under an appearance of coldness and rudeness. When his passionate temper got the better of his attempted calmness, he would even reproach me bitterly on account of my heartlessness and my fickleness.

"Such were our relations till Adalbert, at sixteen, went to college, for he had persuaded his guardian--his mother had also died in the mean time--to let him go to the city. Now he came but rarely to Cona, and then only for a few days. Then I was for two years at boarding-school. Thus it came about that we met only in passing, till he went to the University at Heidelberg. When he returned from there, and from a long journey, I had been married two years.

"He did not come to Berkow till a considerable time afterwards. Our meeting was strange enough. He seemed to accept the changed state of things only as a fait accompli, which we submit to because we cannot help ourselves. He did not trouble me with questions; he asked for no confidential communication, which the sole friend of my childhood and early youth might well have demanded. He did not reproach me; he did not tell me that he had loved me, that he had hoped to obtain my hand, although I afterwards learned that that had been so, and that the news of my marriage, which he received at Heidelberg, had nearly driven him mad, and laid him for weeks and months upon the sick-bed. He tried by silent observation to obtain a clear idea of my situation. I saw that nothing escaped him, that not a word I uttered, not a gesture I made remained unnoticed. This consciousness of being continually watched by such sharp eyes was by no means agreeable, especially as there was much that ought to have been very different from what it actually was. Soon we were as we had been in childhood; only there occurred no violent scenes, as our passions had subsided. As he then had brought me all the pretty shells, and stones, and flowers which he found on the beach, among the rocks, and in the garden, so he now told me all his indefatigably active mind could discover in the field of science: now a fine poem and now a deep thought--and he felt it not less deeply now, if I treated his treasures as carelessly as I had done with the flowers which I allowed to perish, and the stones and shells which I threw away. I knew I had no better friend than he, and he knew that in all I felt for him there was no love; all the more disinterested was his friendship, and all the more unwarrantable the fickleness with which I treated him.

"His friendship was soon to be proved. The melancholy into which Carlo had fallen, soon after Julius' birth, assumed a more and more dangerous form. Attacks of unexpected violence, the precursors of the last fearful catastrophe, became more frequent. He would now admit no one near him but Adalbert, although he, the bon-vivant of former days, had been in the habit of laughing ruthlessly at the baron, who was his junior, and yet thoughtful and melancholy himself. How often had he ridiculed him, how often called him contemptuously the Youth of SaÏs! Now he accompanied him everywhere; now Oldenburg's voice was the only one which could drive away the dark demons that fought for his mind, at least for the moment. And the self-sacrificing spirit with which Oldenburg performed this service of love cannot be sufficiently praised, and I ought to thank him for it all my life long. Then came the catastrophe. Oldenburg stood faithfully by me in those dark days, or rather, he took all the burden and the responsibility upon himself, and managed all and everything with such energy and sagacity that I had only to consent.

"Carlo had been carried to an Asylum at the South, and I was left alone here at Berkow, devoting myself entirely to the education of my Julius, who was then five years old, and for whom I had secured Bemperlein as a teacher and a friend, thanks to Oldenburg's recommendation. The baron came less frequently than formerly, but still quite frequently, as I thought. It seemed to me that a tender note mingled at times with his friendship, and hardly had I noticed this than I thought it my duty to point out to him, as gently as I could, that his visits were probably too frequent. This was perhaps very ungrateful in me, but we women find it very difficult to be grateful to those whom we do not love.

"Next day Oldenburg had left the country. No one knew where he was. Somebody reported him, six months afterwards, in Paris; a year later he was seen in London. He was here, and there, and everywhere, carried about by his wild heart and his insatiable thirst for information.

"Thus four years had elapsed and little had changed in my position. I thought but rarely of Oldenburg; I had nearly forgotten him. I yielded then--now three years ago--to the persuasions of my cousin and his wife to accompany them on a trip to Italy. One evening as we were in the Coliseum Oldenburg suddenly stood before us. 'At last!' he said, pressing my hand. He pretended to have met us quite accidentally; but he confessed to me afterwards that he had heard in Paris, I know not from whom, of our proposed journey, that he had followed us from Munich and missed us everywhere, till at last he had overtaken us here. I must confess I was heartily glad to meet him, and was a little gratified to find that it was not quite accidental. Everything combined to give Oldenburg a good reception. We easily become attached even to strangers in travelling; how much more welcome is the friend of our youth whom we unexpectedly meet with abroad? Oldenburg had travelled all over Italy, and knew the painter of every altar-painting in every church and convent. His instructive conversation contrasted most markedly with the stupid talk of my relatives, and besides, Oldenburg had by this time polished off the rough edges of his character in the intercourse with good society. His manner was, in spite of his almost extreme abandon, as you now see it, thoroughly aristocratic. In a word, he now impressed me in a manner which I would have believed impossible before. It was not love that I felt for him, but it was more than the cool friendship which I had so far offered him alone. But, strange enough, the more I felt my secret antipathy, which I had cherished from early childhood, give way to an almost cordial attachment, the harsher and colder became his manner towards me. When we were all together, he addressed his conversation almost exclusively to my cousin, and treated me like a spoilt child, who is only indulged to keep it from crying. This offended my vanity; and this offended vanity, and the jealousy I began to feel of my cousin, made me try in good earnest to win Oldenburg's affection, which I feared I had lost by some unknown cause. This produced an entire revolution in Oldenburg's manner. He overwhelmed me with attentions; he seemed completely to forget Hortense, and whenever we were alone he exhibited a passion which first made me wonder and then frightened me. And yet he avoided any open declaration, and left me continually in doubt whether this was one of the mad freaks in which he still quite frequently indulged, or the expression of a deep-rooted attachment. It was impossible not to admire Oldenburg at that time. His genius unfolded its most brilliant powers. He was the soul of every society; they vied with each other who was to have him, and as he spoke French, English, Italian, and I know not how many languages, with fluency, every nation seemed to be willing to admit him as one of their own. And yet he made me the queen of every festivity, he compelled all to do homage to me; he displayed the treasures of his richly stored mind only to lay them at my feet;--what wonder that I could not long remain indifferent, and that I soon fancied I loved him? Without openly encouraging him, I let him go on, and permitted him, when we were alone, to treat me with the familiarity of our childish years; when we met in company, to show me all those attentions which we generally accept only from a declared lover."

"Hush, Melitta, I think I hear somebody in the garden."

"I heard nothing."

"Are we quite safe here?"

"Quite so. But let us go into the house; it seems to me the night dew is beginning to fall."

They rose and went arm in arm towards the steps which led from the terrace into the garden. As they came down the last step, a man suddenly stood before them. The meeting was so unexpected to Oswald and Melitta that they involuntarily started back. But it was impossible to escape it, and besides, Mr. Bemperlein--for it was he, and no one else--had already recognized them, as the stars had come out in full splendor, and the light from the window of the garden-room fell directly upon their faces.

"Great heavens, madam! what brings you here?" cried Mr. Bemperlein.

"And I ask that of you," said Melitta; and then to Oswald, whose arm she was still holding, in a low voice: "Be calm, darling, he will not betray us."

"Julius has not had an accident? Speak, Mr. Bemperlein, I have no secrets for--Oswald."

Mr. Bemperlein seized Oswald's hand and pressed it, as if he wished to say: Now I know all, you may rely on me.

"No," he said, "Julius is well and hearty. But I have received a letter from Doctor Birkenhain, who says that Baron Berkow's condition is such that they expect his end every day. It is not thought that he will recover his consciousness before he dies; but Doctor Birkenhain thought it his duty to let you know how matters stand. I presume at least that this is what the enclosure means. I brought it myself, so that you may dispose of me at once, if you should decide to go on. The carriage in which I came is still at the door; I cut across the garden."

The three had reached the garden-room by this time. Melitta had drawn her arm from Oswald's and gone up to the lamp to read the letter which Bemperlein had brought. Oswald saw her turn very pale, and her hand which held the letter tremble nervously. Bemperlein stood there, turning his eyes from Oswald to Melitta, and back again from Melitta to Oswald, like one who has been suddenly roused and cannot convince himself whether what he sees is reality or a dream.

Melitta had read the letter. "There, Oswald," she said, "read and tell me what I must do."

Oswald glanced at the letter, which summoned Melitta, as Bemperlein had presumed, to start immediately for Birkenhain if she wished to see her husband once more before his death.

"You must go, Melitta, beyond doubt," said Oswald, folding up the letter. "You would never forgive yourself if you neglected this duty."

Melitta threw herself passionately into his arms: "I meant from the beginning to go, but I wanted you to confirm my decision," she said. "I shall start to-night, instantly. Will you go with me, Mr. Bemperlein?"

"That is what I came for," said Bemperlein. "We have prepared the whole plan. If we start in an hour we shall reach the ferry by sunrise. On the other side we can take post-horses to B----, and thence go by railway. Thus we reach Birkenhain day after to-morrow, at the latest."

"You dear, good friend," said Melitta, taking both of Bemperlein's hands in her own and pressing them cordially.

"Pray, pray, madam," cried Mr. Bemperlein, "quite on the contrary--I mean--only my duty, nothing more."

"I will get ready at once," said Melitta, taking a candle. "You stay here, Oswald. If any one should see you here, you will have come with Bemperlein. But no one will see you."

Melitta had left the room. Soon the silent house awoke to the sound of hurried steps, of doors which were hastily opened and closed, and of low voices speaking anxiously one to another.

Of the two men, neither dared for a time to break the silence. Both felt the strange nature of the position in which they suddenly found themselves, especially Bemperlein, who had not yet been able to recover from his surprise. Melitta stood so unattainably high in his eyes that he found it absolutely impossible to comprehend how any mortal could attain so high; and yet he was so accustomed to look upon everything she did as undoubtedly right and good, that he dared not make an exception of this case.

"We meet quite strangely again, Mr. Bemperlein," Oswald said at last.

"Yes indeed, yes indeed!" replied Mr. Bemperlein. "My coming here was neither expected nor desired, I understand that perfectly. The poor lady! But what courage! What decision! I have always said she is not made of common clay. A real blessing that Doctor Birkenhain had the good idea not to write to her directly. Thus I can do something, little though it be, for her support."

"You happy man!" said Oswald "You can work for her and help her, while I can do nothing but wish her a pleasant journey, and then fold my hands idly in my lap."

"I really pity you with all my heart, really," said Mr. Bemperlein. "It is a hard task which you are expected to perform; but where there is much light there is also much shade. We will write diligently. You shall hear of every step we take. And then, I hope, our journey will not be long, and especially I trust we shall find Baron Berkow dead when we get there."

"You hope that? And yet you seem to think it important to go there?"

"Assuredly!" said Mr. Bemperlein. "There are certain sad duties which must be performed--not to please the world, which could, and might not, blame us if we left them unfulfilled, nor for the sake of others whom we could benefit by what we do, but because of the respect we owe to ourselves. But you know all that, of course, much better than I do. You have yourself advised this journey, although you lose most by it. It must be a terrible sensation to be thus suddenly torn from one's paradise! Strange, strange! The more I think of it, the more natural it seems to me. Yes, yes; that you should love this glorious woman is perfectly natural, is,--I might say, so logical that the contrary would be sheer nonsense. Everybody must love her, and the nobler the soul is that loves her the deeper the love. Your heart is a noble heart, your soul harmonizes with all that is beautiful, hence you cannot but love, love with all your heart and soul this best and most beautiful of all women. And on the other side: Is she not free? If not before men, certainly before the Judge who looks into the heart? Did she ever love her husband? Could she love him, sold as she was by her own father to a man who bought her with money, at a time when she was too young still, and too innocent even to suspect such villany? Oh! it makes my blood boil to think of it! I am so glad it has all come about in this way! I congratulate you most heartily. I am a plain, insignificant man, and would never have dared to lift up my eyes so high; but when I see another man boldly and bravely stand on that eminence my heart fills with admiration, which is perfectly free from envy, and once more I wish you joy and all blessings with my whole heart!"

Mr. Bemperlein seized both of Oswald's hands and pressed them warmly. His eyes filled with tears; he was deeply moved.

"And I thank you with all my heart," said Oswald, touched. "The good opinion of a man whom I esteem is worth a thousand times more to me than that of the whole stupid world. The world will condemn our love, but the world knows nothing of justice."

"No," said Mr. Bemperlein, "and yet it does judge us, and we have to submit to its sentence whether we choose or not. And this thought alone casts a deep shadow on the sunny pictures of such pure, disinterested love. But I will not make your head heavier at such a moment, when it is no doubt heavy enough. Fortune favors the brave and the strong. You are bold and strong; you are doubly so since you love, and faith is said to be able to move mountains. What faith can, love surely will not find impossible. But hush! there comes the baroness."

The door opened, and Melitta appeared in her travelling costume. Old Baumann stood by her.

"I am ready, dear Mr. Bemperlein," she said, and then throwing herself into Oswald's arms: "Farewell, darling, farewell!"