"No,—I remember every syllable of them with the greatest distinctness," she replied quickly.
"And do you think it possible that such words can end with, 'I hope the coming year will prove a happy one,' or the like?"
The girl did not speak, but looked up at him with a crimson blush.
"Listen to me quietly for one moment, Elizabeth," he continued, but he himself was so far from quiet that his voice sounded faint and faltering, as though half stifled by the throbbing of his heart, "a man who might have been regarded as fortune's favourite, so richly did she endow him in his cradle with rank and wealth, mistrusted these advantages when he arrived at years of discretion. He feared that they would stand in the way of what he considered the true happiness of his life. He had created for himself an ideal of her by whose side alone he could find real peace,—not that he required extraordinary physical beauty or intellectual power,—he sought a pure, true heart, that should be influenced by no consideration of worldly advantages, but should give herself to him for his own sake alone. He gradually arrived at the conviction that his ideal must remain an ideal, for in his search for its realization, he came to be thirty-seven years old. When hope has folded her wings, and night is falling around us, there is something overpowering in the sudden flushing of a morning light, at the eleventh hour. The mind is unhinged, the long, weary waiting has rendered it almost incapable of believing in great, unexpected happiness. At last, Elizabeth, he found the heart he had sought,—a heart accompanied by a clear, well-balanced intellect that was infinitely superior to all narrow, sordid considerations,—but this heart throbbed in a youthful form adorned with every imaginable grace. Was it to be wondered at that the man of riper years, possessing, as he knew, no personal advantages, regarded with mistrust another who could lay in the balance youth and a fine person? Was it to be wondered at that he allowed himself to be carried away one moment, inspired by the boldest hopes, by some word, some act on the young girl's part, only to be cast down utterly the next, when he saw that other in her society? Was it not natural that he should fear that youth only could attract youth? Never did heart of man long more wildly than his for the accomplishment of his desire,—never was there a man more possessed, in moments of despair, by a cowardly doubt as to its fulfilment. And when they told him that his little idolized darling belonged to that other, he emptied the bitter cup to the dregs, and said 'yes' because he imagined that she had already said it. Elizabeth, I stood on the threshold of the pavilion to-day in a state of utter despair. You do not know what it is, when a merchant heaps all his treasure, every jewel that he possesses, in a single ship, and sees it sink before his eyes. Shall I try to tell you what I felt when you so decidedly rejected the rank which you might have claimed, and so made an alliance with Hollfeld impossible? Shall I tell you that my sister's condition, and consideration for you yourself, alone prevented me from chastising that scoundrel upon the spot? He has already left Lindhof, and will never cross your path again. Will you forget the insult that you received in my house to-day?"
He had taken her hands in his, and held them pressed close to his breast. Without withdrawing them she assented to his question with trembling lips.
"And shall we not forget everything, my darling little Gold Elsie, that has occurred between the beginning and the conclusion of the birthday wish? My golden darling, the delight of my eyes, my own Elizabeth Ferber stands again before me, and will repeat after me what I say, will she not? The last sentence which was so cruelly interrupted—tell me what it was."
"Here is my hand as the pledge of an unutterable bliss," faltered Elizabeth.
"In life, in death, and for all eternity, I will be your own."
But she opened her lips in vain to repeat after him the words which he uttered so solemnly, with the most profound emotion. She burst into tears and threw her arms around the neck of her lover, who clasped her to his heart.
"This divine dream must not fade," he said with a sigh, as Elizabeth gently extricated herself from his embrace. "Leave me your hand at least, Elizabeth, I must learn to believe in my bliss. If you leave me now, I shall be crushed by doubt again to-night. You are thoroughly conscious that you are irrevocably mine? Do you know that you must leave father and mother, and the dear home upon the mountain, for my sake?"