"What do you owe her?" cried the young man furiously indignant. "You should curse her, rather, for doing you so ill a turn, as I do at this moment. What does she know of me? Has she ever heard a word from my lips? If that despotic and casuistic recluse could have known what my heart and soul are like, she would have advised you differently. Even as a childs' confidence and love alone could influence me. Whatever my faults might be, I never was false to kindness and trust.--And, so far as you are concerned--you who are prudence and reason in person--blest in your love, I should have cared only for your approbation. If I could have overcome the last of your scruples, I should indeed have been proud and happy!--I would have brought the sun and stars down from the sky for you, and have laughed temptation to scorn!--But as it is--instead of being raised I am lowered, a laughing-stock even in my own eyes. One with you, I could have led the way on wings to the realms of light where Perfection holds sway!--But as it is? What a task lies before me!--To heat your frigid love to flaming point by good deeds, as though they were olive-logs. A pretty task for a man--to put himself to the proof before the woman he loves! It is a hideous and insulting torture which I will not submit to, against which my whole inner man revolts, and which you will and must forego--if indeed it is true that you love me!" "I love you, oh! I love you," she cried, beside herself, and seizing his hands. "Perhaps you are right. I--my God what shall I do? Only do not ask me yet, to speak the final yes or no. I cannot control myself to the feeblest thought. You see, you see, how I am suffering!" "Yes, I see it," he replied, looking compassionately at her pale face and drawn brow. "And if it must be so, I say: till this evening then. Try to rest now, and take care of yourself.--But then. . . ." "Then, during the voyage, the flight, repeat to the abbess all you have just said to me. She is a noble woman, and she, too, will learn to understand and to love you, I am sure. She will retract the word I know. . . ." "What word?" "My word, given to her, that I would not be yours. . . ." "Till I had gone through the Esoteric tests?" exclaimed Orion with an angry shrug. "Now go,--go and lie down. This hour, which should have been the sweetest of our lives, a stranger has embittered and darkened. You are not sure of yourself--nor I of myself. Anything more that we could say now and here would lead to no good issue for either you or me. Go and rest; sleep off your pain, and I--I will try to forget.--If you could but see the turmoil in my soul!--But farewell till our next, more friendly--I hardly dare trust myself to say our happier meeting." He hastily turned away, but she called after him in sad lament: "Orion do not forget--Orion, you know that I love you."