The married pair modestly withdrew, and Cornelia and _Heinrich_, absorbed in delightful conversation, reached the house, and entered a pleasant little room on the ground floor. "See, Heinrich, here is the hiding-place where I waited for three weeks. From behind the curtains of that window I saw you pass, day after day, and watched your face with a throbbing heart. Will you forgive me for becoming a spy upon you? I wished, I was obliged, first to discover whether you were at last a man to whom I might dare to intrust my fate, whether you still loved me, and whether in my affection I should offer you a welcome gift. I was obliged to give you time to collect your thoughts after the blow that had fallen upon you, and to raise yourself by your own might. If you had shown yourself to my secretly watchful gaze otherwise than I hoped, otherwise than I might dare to love you, I should have gone away as I came, unobserved by you; perhaps with a broken heart, but silently and forever." "Yon would have gone as already many a happiness has fled from the threshold of him who did not deserve it," said _Heinrich_, clasping her closely in his arms. "Oh, God, my salvation and my ruin were both so near! Your eyes watched me like those of God, and if I had not stood the test you would have left me for the second time, and been irrevocably lost to me." "Ah, I did not doubt that you would stand the test! A man has rarely made greater sacrifices for a woman than you for me in the course of this last year; for I clearly perceived that you would never have acted as you have done if it had not been for my sake. But for your love for me you would in a few years have conquered your longing for a higher satisfaction, and remained till the end of your days in the cold splendor of your position at the court of N----. Love for me--I may be allowed to say so, since it is no merit of mine--was the impulse that led you to take the first steps in another path. It guided you hither, and I did not fear that it would desert you now, when it was apparently leading you into misery. But a noble woman asks more than love from the man of her choice: she demands character, firmness in misfortune as well as prosperity, the power which is to be her support and protection, the greatness to which she can cheerfully submit, admiringly look up. It is a necessity of our natures to honor what we love; in this humility lies our pride. If we cannot truly consider the man to whom we belong far superior to us, we feel humiliated in acknowledging him as our master. That is why I remained concealed so long; I wished to investigate your whole life and conduct here, to see what influence you exerted, whether you did good and made those around you happy, what pleasures and employments you choose, how you would bear the misfortune that had fallen upon you. And what I saw and heard convinced me that you had entered upon your new calling not only in