"You ask for my hand, Heinrich. I have read the words with tears of grateful surprise. You bear a beautiful and noble testimony, both to yourself and me; and in spirit I fall upon my knees before you, and implore your pardon for the reproaches and upbraidings hurled at your dear head on that terrible evening of our parting. Your letter reveals all the wealth of your deep heart, and shows me that you undervalued yourself when you wished to commit a deed so unworthy of you. Forgive me that I too then believed you worse than you are. I thank God for the merciful kindness with which he restored my only treasure, esteem for you; for nothing humiliates a woman more deeply than to feel affection for a man she must despise. I frankly confess, Heinrich, that I could not cease to love you, even for a moment, that I was torn by the most torturing struggle between heart and my consciousness of right. Now, since I have, received your letter and know you deserve my love, I am once more at peace with myself. I write this that you may not think me prompted by anger or bitterness when I refuse your hand. My eyes grow dim at the sight of these cruel words, the fingers that guide the pen are paralyzed; I must pause a moment and collect my thoughts. "I cannot become your wife after what has passed between us,--I dare not. You have wounded my womanly honor too deeply, shown with too little consideration what a great sacrifice you would make if you raised me to the position of your wife, for me to be able to reconcile my conscience or my pride to its acceptance. I cannot belong to a man who found me in a station so far below him that he thought he could degrade me to the lowest ignominy; although a nobler emotion or an unconquerable affection afterwards leads him to atone for the wrong. I should always fear that, according to the opinions you have often declared, you would consider your marriage with me a mesalliance. Besides, you have described my position as the plebeian wife of Count Ottmar too clearly and distinctly for me not to shrink from the picture with dread and horror; while even if I could myself suffer the humiliations the pride of your aristocratic circle would prepare, I could not bear that you, as my husband, should be compelled to share them with me; for even if your love at first helped you to endure them, they would only too soon stifle it. There would be a perpetual conflict between your heart and the prejudices the world in which you live has stamped upon you. This must banish peace from your breast, and sooner or later make you as miserable as before. Love would yield, and prejudice conquer, for society would neglect no opportunity of bringing new and painful proofs of the justice of its views before your eyes, and then what would be left me in return for all the humiliations I had suffered? Your scorn! Oh, I was foolish ever to permit myself to be so blinded as to believe that happiness for yourself or me could ever be