appearance, but reality; that you had become a man to whom I might confidently give myself. Yet the tears you have just shed told me more than all. With these tears a new and better man was born in you; they have atoned for every wrong, washed away every spot. Ah, if the bigoted priests who believe you a lost soul had witnessed that one moment, they would have understood that there is something holy outside their church!" "Cornelia," cried _Heinrich_, "dear, precious girl, say no more to me about the Jesuits! Although I bear no towards the unhappy Severinus, whom you have taught me to know as my brother, although I forgive the intrigues they plotted against me, I will never pardon them for having torn you from me and attempted to make you a proselyte, for having intrusted you for so long a time to that handsome, dangerous Severinus, whose perhaps unintentional conquests over women's hearts are well known to the order. I can only consider it as a miracle that you remained faithful to me." Cornelia smilingly shook the hair back from her brow. "The miracle is nothing more than that I have a faithful heart and a firm head." "Those are the highest gifts a woman can possess. And this jewel has fallen to my lot, mine of all others; this loyal, sorely wounded heart clung to me; this proud firm brow, no power has ever humiliated, bent to me. Oh, Cornelia, strong, gentle, forgiving woman, no man ever yet repented more deeply, or was more truly grateful, than I repent my crimes and thank you for your love! A thousand others in your place would either have been dragged down by me, or cast me off forever; but you would not permit yourself to be misled by all my faults and sins, you believed a noble germ within me. Instead of punishing, you reformed me, have been faithful to me; and now give yourself to me as trustfully and freely as in the first moment of our love. Oh, girl, there is no word for this bliss my thoughts are whelmed in a sea of emotions!" He paused and laid his head upon hers, as if he wished to rest from his overmastering emotion. "Heinrich," said Cornelia, with deep, loving, earnestness, "let the past rest; the Heinrich to whom I always belonged, and shall as long as I live, never wronged me; he suffered with me when that other came between and tore us from each other. That Count Ottmar, whose wife I never wished to become, has atoned for his fault; he is dead. Never conjure up his gloomy shade before me, even to arraign him, I beseech you." "Yes, my angel, you are right. Never was it so clear to me as to-day that I bore my worst enemy in myself, and in the last few hours I have buried him forever. One complete in himself, Cornelia, receives you in his arms; it shall be his one task to live for you and your happiness; he no longer seeks or hopes for anything but you and a quiet family happiness, unnoticed, but rich in blessing." Cornelia looked at him in astonishment. "Would you renounce politics and every manly profession?"