u
your beautiful life and your still more beautiful death, even if it is
as near as you believe; perhaps it may be farther off than you think; a
man can endure much, and doctors are bad prophets. If my eyes grew
moist, it was for myself, because I'm such a poor fool, that I must
remain in debt to you and your brother for the offer of all the good
and beautiful things you would fain give me but which I must
nevertheless decline. Dear Balder, if you knew--but why should you
know? If I'm unhappy, isn't it my only consolation to at least appear
no worse than I am, explain why, with the best intentions, I cannot
make those I love as happy as they deserve to be?

"I have repented a thousand times," she continued, pushing her hair
back from her temples, and at the same time surreptitiously brushing
the tears from her eyes, "that I did not yesterday tell your brother
all my story. I have been reflecting ever since how I could repair my
error, whether I should write my tale or beg him to come to me again.
But it makes no difference; I may as well tell you as him that I now
know that I shall have no happiness in life, never, never, either
through myself or others. You shall know why, although the secret
concerns subjects which are rarely mentioned between two young people.
Dear friend, I can give you no better proof of the high esteem in which
I hold you, than in telling you this sorrowful secret, which I only
learned myself a few days ago."

She here cast a hasty glance at the door, through which the count had
left the room. "I owe this knowledge to him," she continued in a lower
tone. "As his relatives tried to persuade him out of his mad intention
of marrying me, by harping upon my humble origin, he made inquiries
concerning me in my native city; he wished at least to ascertain
whether anything derogatory could be said about my family. The little
that was known about my parents did not satisfy him; so he applied to
the young prince, who of late has again resided in his ancestral castle
and is about to wed his cousin. Madly in love as he is, the count did
not conceal why he desired to information, and the young prince, now
perhaps the only person who really knows anything about the matter,
thought it his duty, by way of warning, to tell him the family secret
that his mother, on her death bed, had confided to him. Oh! dear
Balder, such horrible things happen in this world! Oh! that a poor
mortal should be obliged to live and s