SCENE I.--Twilight; a room in MILLER'S house. LOUISA sits silent and motionless in a dark corner of the room, her head reclining upon her hand. After a long pause, MILLER enters with a lantern, the light of which he casts anxiously round the chamber, without observing LOUISA, he then puts his hat on the table, and sets down the lantern. LOUISA, MILLER. MILLER. She is not here either. No, she is not here! I have wandered through every street; I have sought her with every acquaintance; I have inquired at every door! No one has seen my child! (A silence of some moments.) Patience, poor unhappy father! Patience till morning; then perhaps the corpse of your only one may come floating to shore. Oh, God in heaven! What though my heart has hung too idolatrously upon this daughter, yet surely the punishment is severe! Heavenly Father! Surely it is severe! I will not murmur, Heavenly Father; but the punishment is indeed severe! (Throws himself sorrowfully into a chair.) LOUISA (without moving from her seat). Thou dost well, wretched old man! Learn betimes to lose. MILLER (starts up eagerly). Ah! art thou there, my child? Art thou there? But wherefore thus alone, and without a light? LOUISA. Yet am I not alone. When all things around me are dark and gloomy then have I the companionship which most I love. MILLER. God defend thee, my child! The worm of conscience alone wakes and watches with the owl; none shun the light but criminals and evil spirits. LOUISA. And eternity, father, which speaks to the soul in solitude! MILLER. Louisa, my child! What words are these? LOUISA (rises, and comes forward). I have fought a hard fight--you know it, father! but God gave me the strength! The fight is over! Father, our sex is called timid and weak; believe it no more! We tremble at a spider, but the black monster, corruption, we hug to our arms in sport! This for your edification, father. Your Louisa is merry. MILLER. I had rather you wept. It would, please me better. LOUISA. How I will outwit him, father! How I shall cheat the tyrant! Love is more crafty than malice, and bolder--he knew not that, the man of the unlucky star! Oh! they are cunning so long as they have but to do with the head; but when they have to grapple with the heart the villains are at fault. He thought to seal his treachery with an oath! Oaths, father, may bind the living, but death dissolves even the iron bonds of the sacrament! Ferdinand will learn to know his Louisa. Father, will you deliver this letter for me? Will you do me the kindness? MILLER. To whom, my child? LOUISA. Strange question! Infinitude and my heart together had not space enough for a single thought but of him. To whom else should I write? MILLER (anxiously). Hear me, Louisa! I must read this letter! LOUISA. As you please, father! but you will not understand it. The characters lie there like inanimate corpses, and live but for the eye of love.