“I know. I have seen her: she is living yet, and bears but a slight resemblance now to this young face.” “Tell me of her; is she my father’s sister?” “No; but wouldst thou know indeed?” “Tell me.” “Listen then—thy father’s wife.” She sat stupefied; her bosom heaved convulsively. “Couldst thou marry Roderick, now?” She started to her feet. “Fiend! I understand you,” she shouted. Her eyes flashed, her form dilated, her outstretched arm quivered with the strength of her indignation; whilst her melodious voice raised in tones of inspiration, rang through the evening stillness with the poet’s terrible imprecation: “Sed mihi vel tellus optem prius ima dehiscat, Vel Pater Omnipotens adigat me fulmine ad umbras, Pallentes umbras Erebi, noctemque profundam”— she turned away, and sinking upon one knee, raised her clasped hands and streaming eyes— “Ante pudor quam te violem, aut-tua-jura re-solvam.” And she fell lifeless upon the ground. A step was heard. The count launched himself down the precipice. Roderick came, saw, and flew off on the wings of the wind, with a crushed heart and raving brain. Ella’s first act of returning consciousness was to recognize herself reclining in the arms of Count Frederick. The swaying to and fro, the heavy lurch, the crackling stones, the dashing tramp, soon brought home to her mind the terrible certainty that she had departed from Heidelberg forever. How far she was away, whither she was going she knew not: she only knew that she was lost beyond redemption. Her body and her mind were powerless, paralyzed in utter imbecility: she could not, would not will: but as the reality of the world and her existence in it stole on her awakening senses, every power of her soul rushed to the view of her prostration; her heart struggled in very anguish, her reason staggered from side to side in the mazes of a darksome labyrinth; night had gathered around, and heavy dews swept through the carriage windows; terrors, strange and indefinable, fell like a death chill on her sickened soul, and she clung with frenzied grasp to the form beside her. Words of love, of courage, of hope, breathed into her ears another life, and she abandoned her whole being to the power of its inspiration. Ere morning dawned they were far away, and the second nightfall beheld them in Cologne.