"There is another alternative, Schiller, and a terrible one. The abyss is crossed, and they are joined; and then afterward his illusion vanishes--he is undeceived. The ideal has been transformed into a very ordinary woman, whom he scorns, because her love was dearer and holier to her than her virtue. She feels his scorn, and the abyss over which he had borne her becomes the grave in which she voluntarily precipitates herself, in order to escape from him she had loved. Oh, Schiller, if the eye which has heretofore regarded me lovingly should ever cast upon me a glance of contempt! It would crush me, and I should die! Yet, in dying, my lips would denounce him who had known how to love, but had not kept faith; and would arraign him as a traitor and murderer before the judgment-seat of God! Oh, Schiller, I warn you once more not to enkindle a fire in my breast which can never be extinguished or repressed when once in flames, but will blaze upward grandly and proudly, setting aside all thought of the world and its rules and prejudices. We are now walking on the verge of the abyss; you on the one side, I on the other. But our voices reach each other; we can see each other's faces, and our glances can meet in loving friendship. You are free to go where you will; and if your path in life should lead you aside from the road on which I am journeying, I will look after you and weep, but I will make you no reproaches! Think of this, Schiller, and be contented that Charlotte should call you by the name of friend! Do not demand that she should give you another name, which you would now bless, but hereafter curse! Flee now, while it is yet time; and we shall still have the happy remembrance of the beautiful days of our friendship. Let us await the future in quiet resignation, and sustain ourselves with recollections of the past!" "You are in a strange humor to-day, Charlotte," said Schiller, sadly. "Your eyes are so threatening, that I would almost be afraid of you, if I did not know that my Titaness is still a gentle, loving woman in spite of her fiery enthusiasm. No, Charlotte, you accuse yourself unjustly. No, you would never curse the man you had loved; in death you would bless him for the love he had once given you. You would not denounce, but pity and excuse him whom stern necessity compelled to separate from you--from what is dearest to him on earth. You would know that his path was bleak and lonely, and that, like the faces in Dante's 'Inferno,' he could only look back at the past with a tearful glance while wandering into the dreary future. This you would do, Charlotte. I know you better than you know yourself. The woman never curses the man she has truly loved; she pardons and still loves him when the stream of life surges in between, and forces him to leave her."