d be a happy one if I could henceforth ever hear your voice,
and if your spirit could accompany mine along the paths of my future
life."

Sabine became very pale, and retreated. "Say no more, Herr von Fink,"
said she, imploringly, raising her hand unconsciously, as if to avert
what she foresaw.

"Nay, let me speak," rapidly continued he. "I should consider it the
greatest happiness if I could take with me the conviction of not being
indifferent to you. I have not the audacity to ask you to follow me at
once into an uncertain life, but give me a hope that in a year I may
return and ask you to become my wife."

"Do not return," said Sabine, motionless as a statue, and in a voice
scarcely audible; "I implore you to say no more."

Her hands convulsively grasped the back of the chair next to her, and,
supporting herself by it, she stood with bloodless cheeks, looking at
her suitor through her tears with eyes so full of grief and tenderness
that the wild-hearted man before her was thoroughly overcome, and lost
all self-confidence--nay, forgot his own cause in his distress at her
emotion, and his anxiety to soothe it.

"I grieve that I should thus have shocked you," said he; "forgive me,
Sabine."

"Go! go!" implored Sabine, still standing as before.

"Let me not part from you without some comfort; give me an answer; the
most painful were better than this silence."

"Then hear me," said Sabine, with unnatural calmness, while her breast
heaved and her hands trembled; "I loved you from the first day of your
arrival; like a childish girl, I listened with rapture to the tone of
your voice, and was fascinated by all your lips uttered; but I have
conquered the feeling. I have conquered it," she repeated. "I dare not
be yours, for I should be miserable."

"But why--why?" inquired Fink, in genuine despair.

"Do not ask me," said Sabine, scarce audibly.

"I must hear my sentence from your own lips," cried Fink.

"You have played with your own life and with the life of others; you
would always be unsparing in carrying out your plans; you would
undertake what was great and noble--that I believe--but you would not
shrink from the sacrifice of individuals. I can not bear such a spirit.
You would be kind to me--that, too, I believe; you would make as many
allowances for me as you could, but you would always have to make them:
that would become burdensome to you, and I should be alone--alone in a
foreign land. I am weak, spoile