"No--but--I must leave you, Herr Baron; I must not and will not listen any longer!" She would have turned and left the room, but Arno took her hand again and held it fast. "But you must listen," he said, gravely; "there must be truth between us. You will not yield to an over-sensitive delicacy of feeling that is unworthy of you, you will not leave me without letting me tell you that the light of your candid eyes has banished the mists that hung about me; your words have broken the spell that parted me from you. My heart is filled with sunshine; I know now that I love you with my whole soul, that I have loved you from the first moment that I saw you in the quarry. I have struggled with this love, I have even tried to hate you; have in my blind folly often shocked and offended you, because I would have it that the deception which so blasted my first youthful passion had killed all power to love in my heart. I know now how grossly I deceived myself. I am in your eyes a gloomy, irritable misanthrope; you can accord no liking to one who has so often wounded you by his severity; but it is my dearest hope that one day your love may be mine, and in this hope I shall leave you when duty calls me to the field. It will henceforth be the star of my life." Anna had listened in silence to this torrent of words; her hand still rested in his: she did not withdraw it until he had ended; then first she raised her eyes and looked him full in the face with an expression of profound sadness. She did not reply at once; she could not for a few moments sufficiently master her emotion to attain an external calm. When she spoke at last, it was with an evident tremor in her voice. "There must be truth between us," she said; "you require it, Herr Baron, and I owe perfect truth both to you and to myself. Your sudden and unlooked-for declaration has destroyed the hope in which I had found peace. I hoped to regard Castle Hohenwald as my home; I hoped to pass years here, sheltered from the sorrows which have poisoned my life; but your words drive me forth into the world again!" "Anna! I conjure you----" "No more, Herr Baron! I must not listen to you; must not permit hopes that can never be fulfilled. You say that the hope of one day winning my love will be the guiding star of your life; banish the idle thought, for never,--I swear it by Almighty God,--never may I return your love." "You love another, then?" Arno exclaimed. "No, Herr Baron." "Then I will not resign the hope you call idle. I implore you not to turn from me; I ask for so little, for no promise, only for permission to love you." "And this little I must not grant. I pray you leave me, Herr Baron; we must part forever. I must not again expose myself to a danger from which I thought myself safe with you; my duty as well as my honour forbids me to listen to you. Once more I entreat you to leave me!" "You rob me of all hope?" Arno asked, gently. "All!"