now I cannot believe in such
shamelessness, in such frightful treachery. It is only for a moment
that some one has overridden your will and obliterated your true self.
It is inconceivable that this can be your real, your abiding
determination. You cannot have thrown aside all shame, all love, all
fidelity, all truth. If you did, you would dishonour and disfigure
humanity. There can be no truth left in the world if you are false,
if you are capable of descending to this depth of abandonment, of
breaking such holy oaths, of crushing my heart. Then there is nothing
more under the sun in which a man can still believe.

Have you not filled me with a longing to possess you? Have you not
implored me to exhaust all proper measures, before carrying you away
from Wabern? Have you not by your own lips and by your letters, sworn
to me the most sacred oaths? Have you not declared to me, even in
your last letters, that you were nothing, nothing but my loving wife,
and that no power on earth should stay your resolution? And now,
after you have bound this true heart of mine to yourself so strongly,
this heart which when once it gives itself away gives itself for ever;
now, when the battle has scarcely begun, do you cast me off? Do you
betray me? Do you destroy me? If so, you succeed in doing what else
no fate can do; you will have crushed and shattered one of the hardest
of men, who could withstand unflinchingly all outward storms. No, I
can never survive such treachery. It will kill me inwardly and
outwardly. It is not possible that you are so dishonourable, so
shameless, so reckless of duty, so utterly unworthy and infamous. If
you were, you would deserve of me the most deadly hatred. You would
deserve the contempt of the world. Helen, it is not your own
resolution which you have communicated to Rustow. Some one has
fastened it upon you by a coercion of your better feelings. Listen to
me. If you abide by this resolution, you will lament it as long as
you live.

Helen, true to my words, "_Je me charge du reste_," I shall stay here,
and shall take all possible steps to break down your father's
opposition. I have already excellent means in my hand, which will
certainly not remain unused, and if they do not succeed, I shall still
possess thousands of other means, and I will grind all hindrances to
dust if yo