FERDINAND (interrupting her). He shall accompany us. Therefore no more objections, my beloved. I will go and convert my valuables into gold, and raise money on my father's credit! It is lawful to plunder a robber, and are not his treasures the price for which he has sold his country? This night, when the clock strikes one, a carriage will stop at your door--throw yourself into it, and we fly! LOUISA. Pursued by your father's curse! a curse, unthinking one, which is never pronounced in vain even by murderers--which the avenging angel hears when uttered by a malefactor in his last agony--which, like a fury, will fearfully pursue the fugitives from shore to shore! No, my beloved! If naught but a crime can preserve you to me, I still have courage to resign you! FERDINAND (mutters gloomily). Indeed! LOUISA. Resign you? Oh! horrible beyond all measure is the thought. Horrible enough to pierce the immortal spirit and pale the glowing cheeks of joy! Ferdinand! To resign you! Yet how can one resign what one never possessed? Your heart is the property of your station. My claim was sacrilege, and, shuddering, I withdraw it! FERDINAND (with convulsed features, and biting his underlip). You withdraw it! LOUISA. Nay! look upon me, dearest Ferdinand. Gnash not your teeth so bitterly! Come, let my example rouse your slumbering courage. Let me be the heroine of this moment. Let me restore to a father his lost son. I will renounce a union which would sever the bonds by which society is held together, and overthrow the landmarks of social order. I am the criminal. My bosom has nourished proud and foolish wishes, and my present misery is a just punishment. Oh! leave me then the sweet, the consoling idea that mine is the sacrifice. Canst thou deny me this last satisfaction? (FERDINAND, stupefied with agitation and anger, seizes a violin and strikes a few notes upon it; and then tears away the strings, dashes the instrument upon the ground, and, stamping it to pieces, bursts into a loud laugh.) Walter! God in Heaven! What mean you? Be not thus unmanned! This hour requires fortitude; it is the hour of separation! You have a heart, dear Walter; I know that heart--warm as life is your love--boundless and immeasurable--bestow it on one more noble, more worthy--she need not envy the most fortunate of her sex! (Striving to repress her tears.) You shall see me no more! Leave the vain disappointed girl to bewail her sorrow in sad and lonely seclusion; where her tears will flow unheeded. Dead and gone are all my hopes of happiness in this world; yet still shall I inhale ever and anon the perfumes of the faded wreath! (Giving him her trembling hand, while her face is turned away.) Baron Walter, farewell! FERDINAND (recovering from the stupor in which he was plunged). Louisa, I fly! Do you indeed refuse to follow me? LOUISA (who has retreated to the further end of the apartment, conceals her countenance with her hands). My duty bids me stay, and suffer.