"You know," she proceeded, "what my life was; with a heart full of love, with a spirit that craved and strove for higher things, I was in early life fettered to the husband with whom you are acquainted. He himself encouraged a crowd of young men around me. Count Rivero came near me, I found in him the richest genius,--the satisfying of all my wishes, I believed I loved him," she added, casting down her eyes, "at least he brought light and interest to my life. Is that a crime?"
Without waiting for an answer she went on passionately:--
"Then I learned to know you, I discovered my mistake, my heart told me that before only my mind had been satisfied. I now felt how this new feeling had taken deep root in my inmost life. Let me be silent about that time," she said with quivering lips, "recollections that I cannot stifle would unnerve me. I struggled long and severely," she continued in a calm voice, as if subduing her emotion by a mighty effort; "ought I to have spoken to you of the past? I did not dare, my love made me cowardly; I feared to lose you. I feared to see a cloud upon the brow I loved. I was silent; I was silent because I feared. Rivero was away. I ought to have broken with him. Oh!" she cried in a voice of pain, whilst her whole form trembled, "you know the humiliating position in which I was placed; the man whose name I bear, my husband, was under heavy obligations to him; under the circumstances I could not venture suddenly and quickly to cease our correspondence. I awaited his return. I knew him to be noble and generous. I wished to tell him all, to explain,--then there was that unhappy meeting, the intercourse which I wished quietly and prudently to drop, was torn asunder--oh! what I have suffered!"
Herr von Stielow was moved, and looked at her with compassion.
"If I have erred," she proceeded, "I am still not so guilty as I seem, my heart has never sinned against the truth of my love. I swear to you, since the day I said, 'I love you'"--she pronounced the words with a strange melting charm--"every throb of my heart, every feeling of my soul has been yours; my first conversation with the count was an explanation with regard to you."
She stepped nearer to him, she lifted her folded hands and gazed up at him with a look of inexpressible love, and said:
"I have not betrayed my love. I have not forgotten it. I cannot forget it. I have come because I must make this explanation, because I cannot bear"--and here her voice seemed choked with tears--"that you should despise me, that you should quite forget me," she added lower still, "I cannot believe, that all, all has vanished from your heart. I cannot part from you without telling you that if ever your heart should feel lonely you have a friend who never, never can deny her first love."
She looked unspeakably lovely as she stood there before him, so humble, so gentle, her lips slightly parted, her eyes, though suffused with tears, still glowing with a tender fire, her figure languidly bent forward.
The young man looked at her with great compassion, the sound of her voice, the magnetic brightness of her eyes, had aroused within him memories of the past. But the mild gentle expression vanished from his face, his eyes flashed and a scornful smile appeared on his lips.
"Let us leave the past," he said coldly and politely. "I have not reproached you, and I will not reproach you, I wish you----"