"Would it not be better you made an end to your miserable life?" he murmured, "than to drag the burden of life still farther, to your own harm and to nobody's joy? Will you vegetate on and on till every illusion has been killed, and you have thrown everything overboard that was once dear and sacred to you? Will you wait till your patience is fully exhausted, like poor, great-hearted Berger? That, then, is the true portrait of the woman before whom you knelt as before a saint! That is the man whose hand you thought it an honor to press! You never were anything but a foot-ball for her high and noble caprices; and he condescended to make glorious baronial fun of you. But it cannot, cannot be! Why not? Is not their whole life an unbroken intrigue? Here the wife betrays the husband, and there the husband the wife? The father sells his daughter for money, and the mother disposes of her own flesh and blood. The friend cheats the friend. One coquette proclaims aloud the secrets of another coquette, and you think they would treat you better--you, the plebeian, who have to work for your daily bread?--And yet! and yet! It is horrible! The wife whom you adored like a goddess, perhaps even now in the arms of another, deceiving him, deceiving you, only to be deceived by him in her turn! And you, good-natured fool, you struggle like a madman against your passion for the sweet, the glorious creature, the only pure one among these witches; for she is pure and good, or there is nothing pure left in this world. No, no! And if all around you is cheat and deceit, if all betray you, look up to this high star; it is your star, for only what is unattainably high is worthy of your love! Let the lizards and the toads quarrel about the will-o'-the-wisp as they dance over the morass." A slight noise near him made him start up. A tall, slender figure in a white dress was standing before him. Through a little opening in the foliage above, a ray of the moon fell upon the slim form. It was Emily. "Hush!" she said, as Oswald rose with a suppressed cry of astonishment "Keep where you are! I saw you leave the salon; I followed you, because I wish to speak to you. I must do so. I shall not detain you long. I only ask one word--one single word--that is to decide my whole life. Do you love me? Yes or no?" The young girl had seized Oswald's hand and held it with nervous violence. "Yes or no?" she repeated, in a tone of voice which betrayed but too clearly the intensity and madness of her passion. But there was no echo to that voice in Oswald's heart; it remained closed, like the house of a man who has been robbed the night before. "You mistake no doubt the person," he said, with cutting sarcasm. "My name is Oswald Stein; Baron Cloten is, as far as I know, somewhere in the house," and he tried to loosen his hand from that of the girl. "Have I deserved that?" she said, in a voice almost stifled by tears, and let her arms sink in utter despair.