"Yes, Melitta, I must say it or it will crush my heart. You know how dearly, how unspeakably, I love you. The wish to possess you is all-powerful in me. I have nourished it so long that it fills my whole being, and all my life is concentrated in it. Without you I am nothing. With you I defy a world in arms. I know very well that we ought to do right for the sake of the right, and that he who asks for reward has already his reward. But I am not a saint. I am a man, with all the weaknesses and passions of a man, which rise over him and threaten to drown him like a raging sea, if the dear, the beloved hand is not stretched out to save him. Melitta, say that you will be mine, and my deeds shall not fall below my words." Oldenburg had remained standing at the same place, in the same position. As in his carriage, so in the tone of his voice there was rather a tone of command than of prayer. That man would not have knelt down before a dozen rifles, nor have suffered his eyes to be bandaged. Melitta felt this; but his pride did not offend her this time as it had often done before. She answered in an almost humble tone: "Do not let us act rashly, Adalbert! You know how dear you are to me, and that must for the present content you. See, Adalbert, this letter comes just in time to remind us of our duty. You must recover your child. I should not enjoy a single hour of my life if I were to fear that your love for myself had extinguished in your heart its most sacred sentiment. And, Adalbert, think also of this; I am willing to believe it: You do not love any longer the woman who once inflamed the passion of the inexperienced youth; but she is the mother of your child! What will you say to your Czika, if she asks you why another person than the poor woman whom she calls mother is the wife of her father?" "Where did you meet Oswald Stein the last time since you saw him in Fichtenau?" Oldenburg said these few words slowly and with withering scorn. Melitta turned scarlet. A spark of the evil passion of offended pride which raged in Oldenburg's heart set her own on fire, and kindled the spirit of opposition which had already been so often fatal to both. "Who tells you that I saw him at all in Fichtenau? "I only thought so. Perhaps you kept this encounter from me as you did the others." "And if I had seen him in Fichtenau?" "That would be what I had expected." "And if I had seen him since quite frequently?" "That would only prove to me that my coming here is as improper for myself as it must be inconvenient to you."