The PRESIDENT and WORM.
WORM. The music-master and his wife have been arrested without the least disturbance. Will your excellency read this letter?
PRESIDENT (having read it). Excellent! Excellent, my dear secretary! poison like this would convert health itself into jaundiced leprosy. The marshal, too, has taken the bait. Now then away with my proposals to the father, and then lose no time—with the daughter.
[Exeunt on different sides.
SCENE IV.—Room in MILLER'S House.
LOUISA and FERDINAND.
LOUISA. Cease, I implore you! I expect no more days of happiness. All my hopes are levelled with the dust.
FERDINAND. All mine are exalted to heaven! My father's passions are roused! He will direct his whole artillery against us! He will force me to become an unnatural son. I will not answer for my filial duty. Rage and despair will wring from me the dark secret that my father is an assassin! The son will deliver the parent into the hands of the executioner. This is a moment of extreme danger, and extreme danger alone could prompt my love to take so daring a leap! Hear me, Louisa! A thought, vast and immeasurable as my love, has arisen in my soul—Thou, Louisa, and I, and Love! Lies not a whole heaven within this circle? Or dost thou feel that there is still something wanting?
LOUISA. Oh! cease! No more! I tremble to think what you would say.