"Do you call that sin, my dear lady?" Hartmut dropped suddenly the more formal madame or baroness. "Men call it sin and punish it accordingly, without any premonition that such a punishment will lead to perfect happiness. To pass away in a flame of fire after one has enjoyed the highest earthly joys, and is yet surrounded by them in death. Ah! that is to die like a god—far better such a death than a long, stupid, humdrum existence. Eternal, undying love rises like a flaming brand to the heavens above, in defiance of mankind's sentence—do you not think such an ending is enviable?"
Adelheid's face was pale, but her voice was as steady and cool as ever, as she answered:
"No, nothing is enviable but death for a high and holy duty. One can forgive sin, but can never admire it."
Hartmut bit his lips and gave the slender, white robed figure who stood near him a threatening glance.
"Ah, what a hard sentence to meet my drama at the outset, for I have expended all my strength in transfiguring just such love and death. What if the world's judgment is like yours—I beg your pardon, madame."
He crossed to the divan upon which she had been sitting, where her fan and the camelia blossom yet lay.
"I thank you," said Adelheid, extending her hand for them, but he only handed her the fan.
"I beg your pardon—I wrote my 'Arivana' upon the veranda of a little Indian house where these lovely flowers were gleaming through the dark foliage on all sides, and to-day they greet me here again in the cold north. May I not keep this blossom?"
Adelheid made a little impatient motion.
"No; for what reason?"