Hamilton was perfectly thunderstruck, and for some moments quite incapable of uttering a syllable; as soon, however, as he could collect this thoughts, he began, in a constrained voice, and with a manner as agitated as her own, to explain that he was a younger son, totally dependent on his father, and that he could not, by any possible chance, think of marrying for at least then or twelve years. Crescenz looked at him for a moment reproachfully, and then, covering her face with her hands, burst into tears. Hamilton had never been so angry with himself as at that moment; his fault was, indeed, unpardonable, and he felt that Crescenz was right when she pushed him from her, and refused to listen to his excuses. The fact was, he had never thought she cared more for him than for any other person willing to pay her attention; and she had appeared so perfectly happy the day before—nay, that very day—that he had naturally imagined her now quite satisfied with her future prospects, and had expected her to understand what he had said more as a tribute to her youth and beauty than as a serious proposal, the more so, as he had not made the most distant allusion to marriage in all that he had said. He now walked sorrowfully after the weeping girl, whose secret he had learned by such unwarrantable thoughtlessness. It was in vain that he tried to exculpate himself, by thinking she was an arrant flirt, and would soon forget him; he began seriously to doubt her being one; everything in her manner that had led to that conclusion could now be interpreted otherwise; her receiving Major Stultz’s presents, and her apparent contentment, might have been affected to provoke his jealousy; her sister’s words in the cloisters confirmed this idea. He did not give her credit for sufficient intellect to feel annoyed at having “told her love,” but even that consolation was denied him; for on distantly hinting that it was unnecessary any person should ever be made acquainted with their late conversation, she wrung her hands, and exclaimed bitterly: “Oh, how could I be such a fool as to betray myself so?” They walked on long in silence; but Crescenz was too good and gentle to be inexorable, and before the end of their walk he had obtained pardon and a promise of secrecy—the latter without difficulty, as she innocently confessed she was equally afraid of her mother’s anger and her sister’s contempt. They reached the alp, both totally out of spirits. Crescenz’s melancholy face was a sort of reproach from which Hamilton would gladly have escaped; and he now heartily repented his having made an engagement with Madame Rosenberg. Until Crescenz’s marriage had taken place he saw no chance of peace of mind or enjoyment of any kind, and many were the vows he internally made to be more circumspect in future.