have overcome the last of your scruples, I should indeed have been proud
and happy!--I would have brought the sun and stars down from the sky for
you, and have laughed temptation to scorn!--But as it is--instead of
being raised I am lowered, a laughing-stock even in my own eyes. One
with you, I could have led the way on wings to the realms of light where
Perfection holds sway!--But as it is? What a task lies before me!--To
heat your frigid love to flaming point by good deeds, as though they were
olive-logs. A pretty task for a man--to put himself to the proof before
the woman he loves! It is a hideous and insulting torture which I will
not submit to, against which my whole inner man revolts, and which you
will and must forego--if indeed it is true that you love me!"

"I love you, oh! I love you," she cried, beside herself, and seizing his
hands. "Perhaps you are right. I--my God what shall I do? Only do not
ask me yet, to speak the final yes or no. I cannot control myself to the
feeblest thought. You see, you see, how I am suffering!"

"Yes, I see it," he replied, looking compassionately at her pale face and
drawn brow. "And if it must be so, I say: till this evening then. Try
to rest now, and take care of yourself.--But then. . . ."

"Then, during the voyage, the flight, repeat to the abbess all you have
just said to me. She is a noble woman, and she, too, will learn to
understand and to love you, I am sure. She will retract the word I know.
. . ."

"What word?"

"My word, given to her, that I would not be yours. . . ."