this is from pure love; and I,--why do I not from pure love thrust a knife into his false breast to avenge the law he derides?" "So that is it? Because I will not make you Countess Ottmar! That is what causes you such bitter grief? Oh, Cornelia, you are far more haughty than virtuous!" "Oh, my God, how have I deserved this?" cried Cornelia. "Heinrich, Heinrich, vengeance will come upon you! You will some day be compelled to answer before God for the heart you have crushed! You wish by your sophisms to drive me to sacrifice my virtue, merely to prove that I am noble and unselfish, that I love the man and not the count. Oh, it is a clever calculation, and may already have led many a gentle heart astray! But it recoils from my firm reason, for the supposition is false, Heinrich. If your love and esteem are only to be obtained by sin, you are so evil that you are not worth the trouble of winning. Believe that I am more haughty than virtuous; believe that my anger is only roused because I am not to become Countess Ottmar; I cannot convince you to the contrary, for God and his commands are higher than you, and God sees my heart and knows how it bleeds and quivers!" "Do not be so violent, Cornelia; you cannot leave me. You are mine; own that you are. You have inhaled the sweet poison from my lips, and your soul absorbed in full draughts the fiery language of my passion. You have foreseen all the joys of love; womanhood has unfolded its perfect flower. You cannot go back. Come, my dove, you are fluttering timidly, and yet feel that you are bound. Come, my angel, demand my vows; I will give them all to you as if before the altar. Does not Christ himself, to whom you pray, say, 'Where two are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them'?" "Hold, blasphemer, to whom nothing is sacred!" cried Cornelia, releasing herself from his arms in mortal terror; and with sudden resolution she rushed to the door, along the passage, down the staircase,--heard him following her, and hurried through the dark streets. She did not know herself what she wanted, or where she was going; "away, away from him" was her only thought. A door stood ajar, and a faint light streamed through the opening. It was the church of the Jesuits. She fled into it. The house of God was empty, only a priest was praying at the altar beneath the red glow of the ever-burning lamp. _Henri's_ steps echoed behind her. She rushed up to the dark figure, and sank senseless before him. "Heaven has apparently chosen me to be your good spirit, Count Ottmar, since I always stand in your way when you are in the act of doing things you might afterwards regret," said the Jesuit, bending over Cornelia.