e garden.

CLARA.

Did you? Oh, the other too!

[_Gloomily, as if she were alone._]

He stepped up in front of me--he or I!--Oh, my heart, my accursed heart!
In order to prove to him, prove to myself, that it was not so, or to
stifle it if it were so, I did what now [_Breaks out into tears_]--God
in Heaven! I would have pity on myself, were I Thou, and Thou I!

SECRETARY.

Clara, be my wife! I came to look once more into your eyes in the old
way. Had you not understood the look I should have gone away again
without speaking. Everything that I am and have I now offer to you. It
is little, but it may grow to be more. I should have been here long ago,
but your mother was sick, and then she died.

[Illustration: Alfred Rethel DEATH PLAYING THE FINALE]

CLARA (_laughs crazily_).

SECRETARY.

Take courage, girl! The fellow has your word--that worries you. And, to
be sure, it is a damnable thing! How could you--

CLARA.

Oh, ask me everything that conspires to drive a poor girl crazy! Scorn
and derision from all sides when you went to the University, and did not
let me hear from you.--"She still thinks of him!" "She thinks that
child's play was meant seriously!" "Does she receive any letters from
him?"--And then, too, my mother: "Stay with people of your class!"
"Pride never succeeds!" "Leonard is a very nice fellow; everybody is
surprised that you look at him over your shoulder so!" And added to all
the rest, my own heart: "If he has forgotten you, show him that you
too--" Oh, God!

SECRETARY.

I am to blame. I realize it. Well, what is difficult is not necessarily
impossible. I will get him to release you. Perhaps--

CLARA.

Release me? There!

[_Throws LEONARD'S letter to him._]

SECRETARY (_reads_).

As cashier, I--your brother--thief--very sorry--but out of consideration
for my office, I cannot help it--[_To CLARA._] He wrote you that on the
very day your mother died? For he adds his condolence on her sudden
death!

CLARA.

I suppose so!

SECRETARY.

The Devil take him! Great God, the cats, snakes and other monsters
which, so to speak, slipped through Thy fingers at Creation, so
delighted Beelzebub that he imitated Thy patterns--but he finished them
off better than Thou didst; he put them in a human skin, and now they
stand in rank and file with the rest of Thy humanity, and one does not
recognize them until they begin to scratch and sting!

[_To CLARA._]

But it is well, indeed it is