Then--neither could have said how the change of scene had been brought about--Erna was lying in her bed, and Agatha, in her nightgown, was sitting on the edge of the bedstead, and all they had discussed during these last days in many a fragmentary talk was once more, and now connectedly, discussed between them. But if clever Agatha had flattered herself that she would thus induce the fair penitent to see that her little soul was not, after all, as black as she thought in her excitement, that hope was not destined to be fulfilled; the very contrary happened. With every word she uttered Erna seemed to talk herself more and more into a passion, in the existence of which Agatha would not, and yet all but had to, believe, when her friend now recapitulated all her relations to Bertram, beginning with that first meeting in the woods, and continuing her account, to this very evening, and when Erna tried to prove from a hundred minute details, which she strung together with marvellous logic, that there was on her part no whim, no caprice, no aberration of an extravagant fancy, no satisfaction of injured pride, no despair, no, nought but true and genuine love that knew no bounds, and knew only the one doubt whether she herself was worthy of the man she loved. But not unworthy because she had once before thought herself in love. That was a necessary error for the sake of getting her to understand herself; to convince her that love was not an intoxication, but a deep and clear sentiment attracting and absorbing all other feeling and thought, even as a mighty stream absorbs the springs and brooks around; and now in her love, like banks in the waves of a stream, were mirrored her whole existence, her past and her present, mirrored and beautified, made far more glorious than reality. Erna's words flowed on, not unlike the object of the image in which she saw her life and love; and her voice, although pitched so low, had such a curiously intense ring, and her great eyes, which were opened wide, shone so strangely in the flickering light of the tall candles upon the dressing-table, that poor Agatha was almost beside herself with terror. Was Erna still aware of what she was saying? Was she raving? And, horrible to think of, could she be going mad? "Erna! Erna!" she cried aloud, seizing and pressing both her hands. "Awake, awake! I have just been counting it up--when you are eight-and-thirty, like your mother now, he will be seventy--only he will never reach that age." Erna gave a contemptuous smile. "I thought so!" she said. "As if time had anything to do with love! As if one year during which I can serve him, love him, did not outweigh a century! O Agatha, how meanly you think of love! And if he dies to-morrow, I'll die with him! There, that is the way I count, and I think it is simple and plain enough."