scribable confusion into which the last hour had plunged
him, he said steadfastly to himself as soon as he was alone: "You're
lost, if you remain." He felt, with deep horror, how all that four
years of the deepest, purest happiness had done to stifle the memory of
his old struggles, was baffled in a single moment. He did not deceive
himself about the matter, it was not commiseration for his friend's
cheerless fate that burned so passionately in his soul. If he had found
her radiant in happiness, pride and love, he would have felt no
differently.

But to know she was unhappy and that in suffering this misery she had
become a true woman, loving and needing love, that she clung to him and
to his firm soul--as she thought it--as to a last stronghold, fanned
the flames within him, and broke his resolute will.

What he owed himself, himself and his pure, faithful, noble wife, rose
so clearly in his mind amid all the confusion, that without shame, and
in the firm conviction that nothing could avail against his final
victory over these dark powers, he repeated Leah's name. He spoke to
her as if she were walking beside him, as if he were telling her about
his condition. "No, child," said he, "fear nothing for either of us. We
shall never part, never, never! Only have patience with me; the
elements are let loose and playing foot-ball with my heart. But
such a heart, child, which you have taken in your keeping and drawn
to you--no, it will not be thus played with long. If it is painful,
dearest, this storm, this rending and tearing within--it will pass
away, I hope, without your perceiving it. It's not true that we are
helpless drops of water in the sea of passions. We can recollect
ourselves, cling fast to what is right and good, like a mussel to the
cliff from which no surge can tear it. To be sure, the cliff might
totter, but the happiness we have found together is imperishable and I
will cling to it. And yet--can it be the same as of old, if we are
forced to remember how unhappy this poor woman will always be?"--

He lost himself in a dull reverie over the thought of what might be, if
he had no duties, and need not consider any one except the woman who
had clutched his hand like a person sinking in a bottomless gulf. If he
had only found her so four years ago!

Leah's image grew dim, he saw at this moment only the form of his
first, lost love, as he had now found her again--a shudder ran through
his frame, as he still felt