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?
LOUISA. Don't you know it, father? Do you really not know it? 'Tis strange! I have described it unmistakably! Ferdinand will not fail to find it.
MILLER. Pray speak plainer!
LOUISA. I can think of no pleasing name for it just now! You must not be alarmed, father, if the name I give it has a terrible sound. That place,——Oh! why has no lover invented a name for it! He would have chosen the softest, the sweetest—that place, my dear father—but you must not interrupt me—that place is—the grave!
MILLER (staggering to a seat). Oh, God!
LOUISA (hastens to him, and supports him). Nay, father, be not alarmed! These are but terrors which hover round an empty word! Take away the name and the grave will seem to be a bridal-bed over which Aurora spreads her golden canopy and spring strews her fairest flowers. None but a groaning sinner pictures death as a skeleton; to others he is a gentle, smiling boy, blooming as the god of love, but not so false—a silent, ministering spirit who guides the exhausted pilgrim through the desert of eternity, unlocks for him the fairy palace of everlasting joy, invites him in with friendly smiles, and vanishes forever!
MILLER. What meanest thou, my child? Surely, thou wilt not lay guilty hands on thine own life?
LOUISA. Speak not thus, father! To quit a community from which I am already rejected, to fly voluntarily to a place from which I cannot much longer be absent, is that a sin?
MILLER. Suicide is the most horrible of sins, my child. 'Tis the only one that can never he repented, since death arrives at the moment the crime is committed.
LOUISA (stands motionless with horror). That is dreadful! But my death will not be so sudden, father. I will spring into the river, and while the waters are closing over me, cry to the Almighty for mercy and forgiveness!