'Otto!' she cried, shrinking from the touch; but at sight of me, all
softly as a light in the heavens, her face melted in a suffusion of
wavering smiles, and deep colour shot over them, heavenly to see. She
pressed her bosom while I spoke: a lover's speech, breathless.

'You love me?' she said.

'You have known it!'

'Yes, yes!'

'Forgiven me? Speak, princess.'

'Call me by my name.'

'My own soul! Ottilia!'

She disengaged her arms tenderly.

'I have known it by my knowledge of myself,' she said, breathing with her
lips dissevered. 'My weakness has come upon me. Yes, I love you. It is
spoken. It is too true. Is it a fate that brings us together when I
have just lost my little remaining strength--all power? You hear me!
I pretend to wisdom, and talk of fate!'

She tried to laugh in scorn of herself, and looked at me with almost a
bitter smile on her features, made beautiful by her soft eyes. I feared
from the helpless hanging of her underlip that she would swoon; a shudder
convulsed her; and at the same time I became aware of the blotting out of
sunlight, and a strange bowing and shore-like noising of the forest.