"Thank you for that little word of consolation," she said, speaking low, as if in a dream. "It is the first that I have heard for years. For whom had I to go to in my distress, fright, and remorse? Even the damned in hell have companions. I had none. And now you want to know how I could, in the midst of my misery, have the heart to plunge into a whirl of frivolous gaieties, and encourage strange men? I answer you that I sought to deaden my trouble by distractions. The panacea seemed so handy, and to offer such a convenient mask. I daren't lie to you. You see, Leo, that when the last spark of my love for you had burnt away--extinguished by fear and remorse--my last, my sole restraint was gone--I despaired of there being any good in me, and a voice cried daily and hourly in my ears, 'Now you may slide downhill. You can't escape your fate.' And so when people talked of love to me, I forced myself to smile, though a shudder ran through my limbs. By night, I cried; by day, I laughed. The only thing worth living for was to gratify my whims. So I was goaded more and more into despising myself. Often when I noticed Ulrich's eyes resting on me sorrowfully, I longed to throw myself at his feet, and implore him to save me. But immediately the ghost of my guilt--_our_ guilt, Leo--stood behind me like a gigantic monster, and hissed in my ear, 'If you sacrifice yourself, you must not betray your associate.' Thus I have dragged on, weighed down by the burden--the awful burden of silence. It is a wonder that my body has been faithful to my marriage vows, so that I do not stand before you, to-day, an abandoned woman--so easily might I have been hurled over the precipice through despair in myself." She was silent, and pressed her forehead against the edge of the pedestal, while her upstretched hands held on to the youth's foot, as if she had been the guardian angel instead of the evil genius of the friendship to whose symbol she clung. The sun began to break through the mist. Its rays lay like a shimmering golden shell on the sacrificial stone which rose from the glittering dew like a gigantic pearl. Brilliant-hued butterflies flashed by the pillars, and now and again the song of a late-summer bird sounded softly from the bushes. The brook, which sprang out of the earth only a few paces from the temple, made a low clicking noise, then hurried away babbling into the valley, a scornfully laughing witness of this melancholy conversation. Leo's eyes continued fastened on his former mistress. He was completely bewildered as to how to act towards her. There could be no further question of rebuke and blame, when help and counsel were needed and might save her. Yet what could he, what dared he do for her, without heaping guilt on guilt and introducing fresh deceit into the house of his unsuspecting friend? "Lizzie," he said in a gentler voice, "you summoned me here. What do you want?" "How can you ask, Leo?" "I ask because I don't know."