"Ah! I cannot leave you, dear Eva," replied her sister, "why do you sit here on the ground, on this cold, wet evening? Oh, come home, come home with me!"
"Do you go home, Leonore! this air is not proper for you! Go home to the happy, and be merry, with them," returned Eva.
"Do you not remember," tenderly pleaded Leonore, "how I once, many years ago, was sick both in body and mind? Do you know who it was then that left the gay in order to comfort me? I prayed her to leave me—but she went not from me—neither will I now go away from you."
"Ah, go! leave me alone!" repeated Eva, "I stand now alone in the world!"
"Eva, you distress me!" said her sister, "you know that there is no one in this world that I love like you: I mourned so much when you left us; the house without you seemed empty, but I consoled myself with the thought that Eva will soon come back again. You came, and I was so joyful, for I believed that we should be so happy together. But I have seen since then of how little consequence I am to you! still I love you as much as ever, and if you think that I have not sympathised in your sorrows, that I have not wept with you and for you, you do me certainly injustice! Ah, Eva, many a night when you have believed perhaps that I lay in sweet sleep, have I sat at your door, and listened how you wept, and have wept for you, and prayed for you, but I did not dare to come in to you because I imagined your heart to be closed to me!" And so saying, Leonore wept bitterly.
"You are right, Leonore," answered Eva, "much has become closed in me which once was opened. This feeling, this love for him—oh, it has swallowed up my whole soul! For some time I believed I should be able to conquer it—but now I believe so no longer——"
"Do you repent of your renunciation?" asked Leonore;—"it was so noble of you! Would you yet be united to him!"
"No! no! the time for that is gone by," said Eva. "I would rather die than that; but you see, Leonore, I loved him so—I have tasted love, and have felt how rapturous, how divine life might be!—Oh, Leonore, the bright sun-warm summer-day is not more unlike this misty evening hour, than the life which I lived for a season is unlike the future which now lies before me!"
"It seems so to you now, Eva—you think so now," answered her sister; "but let a little time pass over, and you will see that it will be quite otherwise; that the painful feelings will subside, and life will clear up itself before you. Think only how it has already afforded you pleasure to look up to heaven when the clouds separated themselves, and you said, 'see how bright it will be! how beautiful the heaven is!' and your blue eyes beamed with joy and peace, because it was so. Believe me, Eva, the good time will come again, in which you will thus look up to heaven, and feel thus joyful, and thus gay!"
"Never!" exclaimed Eva, weeping; "oh, never will that time return! Then I was innocent, and from that cause I saw heaven above me clear;—now so much that is bad, so much that is impure has stained my soul—stains it yet!—Oh, Leonore, if you only knew all that I have felt for some time you would never love me again! Would you believe it that Louise's innocent happiness has infused bitterness into my soul; that the gaiety which has again began to exist in the family has made me feel bitterness—bitterness towards my own family—my own beloved ones! Oh, I could detest myself! I have chastised myself with the severest words—I have prayed with bitter tears, and yet——"