humble herself to the utmost,--but better for him not to
know anything of what had transpired. It ought to be concealed from
him. She bowed her head, and Clodwig kissed her brow, saying:--

"Your brow is hot."

Each retired to rest.

Bella sent her maid away and undressed without her aid to-night.

After Clodwig and Bella had driven off, the Mother went to the
vine-embowered house with Eric. She led him by the hand like a little
child; she felt his hand tremble, but she said nothing; when they had
reached the steps, she said,--

"Eric, kiss me!"

Eric understood her meaning; she wanted to see if he could kiss her
with pure lips. He kissed her. Mother and son uttered no word.

Every pain was removed from Eric's whirling brain. And truth requires
it to be said, that the most painful thought was, that a feeling of
regret had come over Eric, a short time previously. The tempter
suggested that he had been too scrupulous, too conscientious. He had
thrust from him a beautiful woman, who was ready to clasp him with
loving arms. When he surprised himself in these thoughts, he was
profoundly wretched. All pride, all self-congratulation, and all
exalted feelings of purity, were extinguished; he was a sinner without
the sin. He had believed himself raised upon a lofty eminence; he had
even represented his love to Bella in stronger colors than the facts
warranted. Now there was a recoil, and the whole power of the rejected
and disdained love avenged itself upon his doubly sinful head.

For a long time he wandered about in the quiet night.

The soul has its feverish condition from wounds as well as the body,
and equally requires a soothing treatment.

Eric had amputated a part of his soul in order to save the rest, and he
suffered from the pain. But as the dew fell upon tree and grass, and
upon the face of Eric, so fell a dew upon his spirit.

The self-exaltation of virtue was now taken out of him, washed away by
his double repentance, and he was now again a child.

As he looked back to the vine-embowered house, he thought: I will, as a
man, preserve within me the child; and still further he thought: Thou
hast withdrawn thyself from temptation through the consciousness of
duty; be tender towards the rich and great, to whom everything is
offered, to whom so much is allowed; the consciousness of duty does not
restrain them so absolutely as it does him who is in the world, him who
must help and be helped by others, and wh