For a while both were silent; then Aunt Thekla looked up timidly at her niece and said, "Do not misunderstand me if I continue to plead for Otto. I sympathize with you; I can understand how his folly has offended you."
"Offended, do you call it?" Johanna interrupted her. "He has insulted me, and poisoned my life and my soul!"
"So it seems to you now," said her aunt. "But you will learn to regard it differently; you will feel otherwise and judge otherwise. Believe me, my child, Otto is worthy of your forgiveness, and he loves you so——"
Johanna sprang to her feet. "Aunt, I cannot listen to you!" she cried, pressing her hands to her throbbing temples. "You forget that a few hours ago I saw with my own eyes that Otto—that Magelone——And you talk of forgiveness, of love! Oh, everything is hateful in my sight!—life—myself——"
She sank into a chair, and, with a groan, covered her eyes with her hand.
Aunt Thekla shed tears, and, after a long pause, went on: "If you would let me talk to you, I know I could do you good. I do not want to torment you; I only want to repeat Otto's message to you. 'Tell Johanna'—these are his very words; but to appreciate them you should have seen the entreaty in his eyes and heard the tone of his voice—'tell Johanna that I love her more than ever; that I have loved her from the moment when I first knew her——'"
"Oh, aunt!" Johanna broke in upon her words, "can you tell me that? Can you suppose that can console me? If he had told me that Magelone's charms were irresistible for him, and had extinguished his love for me, I could have understood him, and without reproaching him I should have submitted as to the inevitable. But since he has deceived Magelone and lied to her as he has to me, where shall I look for truth? What can I believe? Where find a stay?"
The old lady had no fitting reply to this. "I wish you could see matters in another light," she said, after a long pause for reflection; "and I hope you will do so in time. But now what is to be done if you refuse Otto's entreaty for forgiveness? Of course my brother must learn nothing of this——"
Johanna looked at her in amazement. "Learn nothing?" she repeated. "You do not suppose that I can marry Otto? Magelone has taken my place."
"Child, I told you that Otto does not love Magelone," Aunt Thekla replied. "And she does not love him,—not enough at least to endure for his sake her grandfather's anger." And, clasping Johanna's hands in her own, the old lady added, with tearful, imploring eyes, "Think what you are doing. The happiness or misery of the whole family is in your hands. If you cannot forgive, Johann Leopold will lose his betrothed, Otto's and Magelone's lives will be ruined, whether they marry or not, and my brother, who has made the happiness and honour of his house his sole care, will see it in his old age brought to disgrace——"