r the longer she discussed him--thought differently from God.
Besides, she believed so surely--and her voice here became wonderfully
gentle and soft, almost a whisper--that just this, as we two were so
fond of one another, would be a better cure for me than anything a
doctor could invent. At any rate, she felt within herself that she would
fall ill and give way to despair if I no longer cared for her, for had
we not cared for each other as long as we could remember, and it was
certainly too late to think of separating us.

One thing must now be settled--and at the thought her face assumed an
expression of determined will, which reminded me of her father--and that
was that, as soon as possible, she would confide everything about our
engagement to her father. It ought, both for my sake and hers, to be no
longer a secret. Her father was very fond of her, and, if need be, she
would tell him seriously that it would be of no use either for him, or
for anyone else--by this she meant her mother--to try any longer to get
a doctor to separate us by guile.

Anything like a brotherly and sisterly love between us, as she, with
scornful contempt in her look, expressed it, she would not hear of,
least of all now, and as if entirely to dispel this idea, she stood
upright before me, and asked me, as she looked with passionate eagerness
into my face, to say that we still were, and in spite of everything and
everybody always should remain, faithfully betrothed, even if I never
became so well that we could marry here on earth--and to give her my
kiss upon it.

I took her in my arms, and kissed her warmly and passionately once,
twice, three times, until she freed herself.

While she was speaking it had dawned upon me that she, with her strong,
healthy, loving nature, had fought the fight for us both and for a right
that could not, perhaps, be proved in words, but the sanctity of which,
I felt, was beyond all artificial proof.

Susanna now again belonged to me in another, truer, and more real way
than I had ever dreamt of or suspected, as I comprehended that
everything that could be called chivalrous sacrifice on my side only lay
lower than our love, was even simply an unworthy offence to it. In true
love the cross is borne by both the lovers, and the one who
"chivalrously" wishes to bear it alone, only cheats the other of part of
his best possession.

* * * * *

An hour after this interview with Susann