uided by the warning
voice. Of one thing you may be fully assured: my heart will never be
another's, come what may--it is yours with my whole soul!--But I will not
be your bride till I can say to you with glad confidence, as well as with
passionate love: 'You have conquered--take me, I am yours!' Then you
shall feel and confess that Paula's love is not less vehement, less
ardent. . . . O God! Orion, learn to know and understand me. You must--for
my sake and your own, you must!--My head, merciful Heaven, my head!"

She bowed her face and clasped her hands to her burning brow; Orion, pale
and shivering, laid his hand on her shoulder, and said in a harsh, forced
voice that had lost all its music: "The Esoterics impose severe trials on
their disciples before they admit them into the mysteries. And we are in
Egypt--but the difference is a wide one when the rule is applied to love.
How ever, all this is not from yourself. What you call prudence is the
voice of that nun!"

"It is the voice of reason," replied Paula softly. "The yearning of my
heart had overpowered it, and I owe to my friend. . . ."

"What do you owe her?" cried the young man furiously indignant. "You
should curse her, rather, for doing you so ill a turn, as I do at this
moment. What does she know of me? Has she ever heard a word from my lips?
If that despotic and casuistic recluse could have known what my heart and
soul are like, she would have advised you differently. Even as a childs'
confidence and love alone could influence me. Whatever my faults might
be, I never was false to kindness and trust.--And, so far as you are
concerned--you who are prudence and reason in person--blest in your love,
I should have cared only for your approbation. If I could 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