"And for whom else should I care?" answered Valerie. "Certainly not for myself, I have told you all without losing your love; I want to carry your love with me to the grave, and so end my life joyfully, as a wild, fever-haunted night ends with a gentle morning dream. It might all be over then; for the day so passionately hoped for through the long, terrible years--the day when your father would say to me, 'Valerie, I have forgiven you,' will never come now." "What if it were to-day?" said Elsa, taking her aunt's hand in hers. "Forgive me for what I have done without consulting you! As I sat by you last night, and the storm raged more and more furiously, I felt that I had over-calculated my strength, that I should have to leave you to-day to hasten to Reinhold, and that I ought not to leave you without sending for my father. I telegraphed to him early this morning; he will come, I am sure. But he cannot be here before the evening, and that is why, my dear aunt, I have let you accompany me. Everything fits in so well with this arrangement: that dreadful man has not come as we expected, and when we go home this evening, even if you go home alone, you will not have to meet him by yourself; you will have one by you who can and will protect you better than I could do. You are not angry with me, aunt?" Valerie smiled through the tears which ran down her pale cheeks. "I cannot be angry with my good angel! May you have been my good angel in this case also!--but I dare not hope it! Your father knows and respects justice alone; the gracious, redeeming power of mercy he does not know. I cannot but suppose that he despises it, and despises those who plead for mercy. My imploring letters, which I was forced amidst a thousand terrors to hide from spying eyes, as I hid the answers also, have never moved him. Cold and repelling was the look with which he met me after so long a lapse of time, which generally softens the sternest; cold and repelling the few words which he deigned to address to me, merely to tell me what was the first step I must take if there were to be peace between him and me. He did not see what you, my darling, perceived at the first glance, that I could not take this step as matters now stood--that without the help of some compassionate heart I never could take it. Oh, Elsa, Elsa! I will not blame your father, especially before you; but, Elsa, many things would have happened differently and more happily for me--for us all--for your father himself--if he had ever really understood that profound saying, that the proud will not enter the kingdom of heaven." "But my father has been so kind to me," said Elsa, "although my attachment has so completely destroyed all his hopes for my future. And it was he, too, who made the first advance to Reinhold's proud uncle, so that it was not his fault certainly that Ottomar's affairs turned out so badly."