away all save the adamantine within us, if there be
ought of that besides the breathing structure. The reason why she wept
with so delirious a persistency was, that her nature felt the necessity
for draining her of her self-pitifulness, knowing that it nourished the
love whereby she was tormented. They do not weep thus who have a heart
for the struggle. In the morning she was a dried channel of tears, no
longer self-pitiful; careless of herself, as she thought: in other words,
unable any further to contend.

Reality was too strong! This morning her sisters came to her room
imploring her to yield:--if she married Alvan, what could be their
prospects as the sisters-in law of such a man?--her betrothed sister
Lotte could not hope to espouse Count Walburg: Alvan's name was infamous
in society; their house would be a lazar-house, they would be condemned
to seclusion. A favourite brother followed, with sympathy that set her
tears running again, and arguments she could not answer: how could he
hold up his head in his regiment as the relative of the scandalous Jew
democrat? He would have to leave the service, or be duelling with his
brother officers every other day of his life, for rightly or wrongly
Alvan was abhorred, and his connection would be fatal to them all,
perhaps to her father's military and diplomatic career principally: the
head of their house would be ruined. She was compelled to weep again by
having no other reply. The tears were now mixed drops of pity for her
absent lover and her family; she was already disunited from him when she
shed them, feeling that she was dry rock to herself, heartless as many
bosoms drained of self-pity will become.

Incapable of that any further, she leaned still in that direction and had
a languid willingness to gain outward comfort. To be caressed a little by
her own kindred before she ceased to live was desireable after her heavy
scourging. She wished for the touches of affection, knowing them to be
selfish, but her love of life and hard view of its reality made them seem
a soft reminder of what life had been. Alvan had gone. Her natural
blankness of imagination read his absence as an entire relinquishment; it
knelled in a vacant chamber. He had gone; he had committed an
irretrievable error, he had given up a fight of his own vain provoking,
that was too severe for him: he was not the lover he fancied himself, or
not the lord of men she had fancied him. Her excessive misery would n