He stepped close to her, and his voice also fell to a low, but impassioned whisper.
"And do you ask? Need I tell you in words what you long since must have divined, or--is it I alone who will be wretched through your confession?"
Slowly Jane again turned her face to him; her voice sounded unnaturally calm, but her eyes were fixed upon his face with an unremitting, anxious inquiry, as if every fibre of his inner being must answer her.
"We need not make ourselves wretched on this account, we must not. Destiny has brought us together cruelly, perhaps, but if it denies us the highest happiness, it has not ordained our separation. Perhaps--" her glance sank deeper and deeper into his--"perhaps I can persuade my future husband to a long residence upon the Rhine. I know that a single word from my lips will make him approach you as a friend. You need not thrust back this hand! Walter. You will learn to control your emotions, you will learn to regard me as a friend as a--brother should--"
"Johanna!" interrupted he with a wild, passionate outcry. She was silent, but her eyes did not leave his face; it had now the same expression as upon that first meeting in N., as if the next moment would bring with it a decision for life or death.
"And you say this to me!" he broke out in uncontrollable anguish. "Must I hear it from your lips? Would you deride the enthusiast, the dreamer, in me, or do you yourself dream of a tie of ideal friendship, where love becomes sacrilege? Do not deceive yourself! Between spirits such a tie may be possible, but not between hearts; there it could spring only from coldness or from crime. Once in the solitude of my study, shut out from all the world, I too indulged in just such sickly fancies; then came this love to you, impelling me out into active life, into earnest, glowing reality. And this life and this reality now demand their right; I must either possess you or lose you eternally! No third person can come between us."
It was the deep, ardent tone of passion, a passion that thrilled his whole being, that palpitated through every word he uttered, and before this onrushing tide of emotion, fell the last prop to which Jane had clung. But all at once, she stood erect and without support. Right through the certainty of her infinite misfortune, broke a feeling that was mightier even than despair. His words only echoes the sentiment of her own soul; she was beloved even as she herself loved.
She heaved a sigh, "You are right, Walter!" she said. "In our case love becomes sacrilege; I see it now! Between us two there can henceforth be but one command--separation!"
He shuddered at the words. "And can you speak this so calmly! and do you think I shall yield to it without having sought the utmost? Johanna, no sacred oath binds you; a promise can be dissolved, a word can be taken back--are your vows irrevocable?"
"They are!"