LOUISA (rises, and comes forward). I have fought a hard fight—you know it, father! but God gave me the strength! The fight is over! Father, our sex is called timid and weak; believe it no more! We tremble at a spider, but the black monster, corruption, we hug to our arms in sport! This for your edification, father. Your Louisa is merry.
MILLER. I had rather you wept. It would, please me better.
LOUISA. How I will outwit him, father! How I shall cheat the tyrant! Love is more crafty than malice, and bolder—he knew not that, the man of the unlucky star! Oh! they are cunning so long as they have but to do with the head; but when they have to grapple with the heart the villains are at fault. He thought to seal his treachery with an oath! Oaths, father, may bind the living, but death dissolves even the iron bonds of the sacrament! Ferdinand will learn to know his Louisa. Father, will you deliver this letter for me? Will you do me the kindness?
MILLER. To whom, my child?
LOUISA. Strange question! Infinitude and my heart together had not space enough for a single thought but of him. To whom else should I write?
MILLER (anxiously). Hear me, Louisa! I must read this letter!
LOUISA. As you please, father! but you will not understand it. The characters lie there like inanimate corpses, and live but for the eye of love.
MILLER (reading). "You are betrayed, Ferdinand! An unparalleled piece of villany has dissolved the union of our hearts; but a dreadful vow binds my tongue, and your father has spies stationed upon every side. But, if thou hast courage, my beloved, I know a place where oaths no longer bind, and where spies cannot enter." (MILLER stops short, and gazes upon her steadfastly.)
LOUISA. Why that earnest look, father? Read what follows.
MILLER. "But thou must be fearless enough to wander through a gloomy path with no other guides than God and thy Louisa. Thou must have no companion but love; leave behind all thy hopes, all thy tumultuous wishes—thou wilt need nothing on this journey but thy heart. Darest thou come; then set out as the bell tolls twelve from the Carmelite Tower. Dost thou fear; then erase from the vocabulary of thy sex's virtues the word courage, for a maiden will have put thee to shame." (MILLER lays down the letter and fixes his eyes upon the ground in deep sorrow. At length he turns to LOUISA, and says, in a low, broken voice) Daughter, where is that place?