watched you, when your moist eye was turned to heaven, as if to ask what crime you had been guilty of, that your tender feelings were committed to such ungentle keeping? How often have I perceived that your most reasonable wishes found resistance, where they ought to have been anticipated with rapture! It is no consolation to you then to know that there exists a being who understands you better—who, had fortune created him a heaven on earth, by bestowing you on him, would certainly not have extinguished your sublimest feelings with an ice-cold philosophy—a man, who, wherever he lives, lives but for thee; who feels ten-thousand-fold every pang that seizes thee, and who, since he has enjoyed thy intercourse, finds joy only in thy loved presence.”
“And if it were, Wartenstein, that I prized your goodness, I would surely not be cruel enough to accept a promise of constancy, which, under existing circumstances, could be so little conducive to your happiness.”
“Heaven has long since accepted my vow, with many others of renouncement. I desire only your approval, which, closely examined, is nothing more than the acknowledgment that you deem my love equally disinterested and unperishable. For I swear—”
Here the servant interrupted the scene, by announcing a visitor. In vain the Colonel hoped for her departure. Monosyllabical as the conversation was, the lady stayed even after he was gone, and till the Baron returned.
When the husband and wife were left alone, the former asked Clotilde what ailed her, and his visible sympathy affected her so much, that she gathered confidence, and acquainted him with the Colonel’s conduct, taking care, however, to suppress every circumstance that might offend him.
“And how do you mean to decide?” enquired the husband, at length, after changing colour several times.
“It is upon that point that I desire your advice, my dear.”
“There are but two ways. Total separation—either from your lover or your husband.”
“Oh, Eschenburg! how can you name the second?”
“Because you overlooked the first, and most palpable alternative.”
“But, my love, sighed Clotilde—poor Wartenstein.”
“Mention not that name again, unless you are resolved to prefer the man: I dont know how he first came into our house.”
“But I know,” said Clotilde, in the softest tone, taking her husband’s hand as she spoke.
“Am I to hear reproaches even now? At that time propriety was concerned. I have remarked how this man has exerted all his powers to gain a footing here, and at this moment I discern clearly all the thousand preparatory steps that have led to this dishonour. He who makes a promise of love requires a like return, and conceals his expectation no longer than until he is sure of his object. From this hour my house will be closed to him, and you will decide whether, under these circumstances, you will for the future consider it as yours.”
“Eschenburg!” exclaimed Clotilde, and would have folded him in her arms—but he stepped back saying,—“I now require a decision, and not a caress. Shall I announce to him, in writing, that he is henceforth the master here, or shall I give you the keys until our legal separation can be effected?” Clotilde opened the secretaire, and begged him only not to forget the invalid in writing to the Colonel.
“Be under no uneasiness—I shall not waste a word upon him.”
The Baron wrote—“At my wife’s request I hereby desire that you will never again pass the threshold of our house.” Clotilde turned pale as she perused the billet, and her husband said while closing it, “I must say, ‘at your request’—your own honour demands it. And yet one thing more!” continued he, “I desire that every letter which may find its way to you from his hand, shall be delivered over to me unopened; this I owe to my own honour.”
Clotilde consented, weeping, and entreated only that he should make no secret to her of the contents of such letters.
The Colonel wrote the following in answer—“The sentence of death which your Lady has pronounced upon me, I have just received.”
