"Yes," cried Schiller, gruffly, "circumstances are always the scapegoats of the weak and faithless. I, however, admit the difficulties arising from the circumstances by which you were surrounded in this instance. You were making use of the poet's love to allure richer suitors into your toils, a game requiring some finesse. My rôle was neither a flattering nor a grateful one, but yet it was a rôle, and a dramatic poet cannot expect to have good ones only. But enough of this! Let us speak of the poem. When must it be ready?" "Schiller," she cried, almost frantic, tears streaming from her eyes, "Schiller, will you have no pity on me?" "Did you have pity on me?" asked he, with a sudden transition from his mocking to an angry tone of voice, and regarding Marie, who had folded her hands humbly, and was looking up at him entreatingly, with glances that grew darker and angrier as he spoke. "I ask you, did you have pity on me? Did it never occur to you, while engaged in your shrewd calculation, that you were preparing to give me a wound for which there is no cure? When two loving hearts are torn asunder by death or the hand of fate, the pain can be borne, and time may heal the wound; when the cruel laws of human society compel us to separate from those we love, a consolation still remains. The sacred, the undimmed remembrance of past hours of bliss, and the hope that time, the great equalizer, may remove all obstacles, still remains. But what consolation remains to him who has been cheated of his love, his enthusiasm, and his ideal?--to me, over whose heart the remembrance of this deception lies like a pall? From whence am I to derive faith, hope, and confidence, now that you, whom I loved, have deceived me? You have not only destroyed my happiness, but you have also offended the genius of poetry within me. Henceforth all will seem cold and insipid. The word 'enthusiasm' will ring in my ear like a mockery. I will even mistrust the vows of fidelity uttered by the lips of my dramatic creations; for, now that you have so shamefully deceived me, there is no longer any thing noble, pure, and beautiful." He hurled a last angry glance at her, and then turned away, walked to the window and looked out into the street. Marie von Arnim followed him and laid her cold, trembling hand on his arm. "Schiller, if I were really the woman you take me to be, would I have come to you at the risk of being observed by others--at the risk of its becoming known throughout the city that I had visited you? I have come, Schiller, because I was unwilling that the most beautiful music of my life should end in discord, because I was unwilling that you should remember me with anger, when I only deserve commiseration." "Commiseration!" repeated Schiller, shrugging his shoulders.