"You give me the power yourself, for you do not understand me. The more firmly you cling to me, the more surely my nobler being finds the strength to escape you. I am aware that I have two natures within me: one longs for you, but the other turns resolutely away, and at this moment solemnizes its greatest, most agonizing victory, since it compels me to resign you. Yes, its most _agonizing_ victory," he repeated, clasping the angry woman to his heart with passionate love. "You weep, but my very heart is bleeding, beautiful, lovely woman; no tongue can express what I suffer." For a moment they stood with their lips clinging together; at last with a violent effort he tore himself from her embrace and rushed out of the room without another word. "Henri!" she cried, faintly. In vain: Henri ran down the staircase, sprang into his carriage, and shouted to the coachman, "To Ottmarsfeld!" Ottmarsfeld, Heinrich von Ottmar's family estate, where he lived alone with his servants, was a two hours' drive from the capital. While within the limits of the city Heinrich looked incessantly back towards the tempting house, but when the carriage rolled through the gate he wrapped himself in his cloak and sank into a profound reverie. The keen night air blew sharply upon him, and he shrank back into one corner of the carriage with a shiver. The trees along the highway towered stiff and bare in the darkness. Now and then one of the horses shied at the sight of some strange shadow. A muttered oath and the crack of the whip followed, then all was silent again except the regular beat of the hoofs as the horses trotted forward. _Heinrich's_ heated fancy compared this cold, ghostly drive with the hour he had spent in the elegant perfumed boudoir, by the side of the fair, frivolous Parisienne. He closed his eyes to shut out the surrounding gloom, and conjured up the statues, flowers, and the moment when the graceful, weeping woman reclined before him on the silken causeuse.