“Happiness!” echoed Adelaide, in a tone whose wretchedness was too deep for tears.
“Ah! You correct me. Still it is a happiness; there are some kinds of joy which one can not distinguish from griefs, my lady, until one comes to think that one might have been without them, and then one knows their real nature.”
She clasped her hands. I saw her bosom rise and fall with long, stormy breaths.
I trembled for both; for Adelaide, whose emotion and anguish were, I saw, mastering her; for von Francius, because if Adelaide failed he must find it almost impossible to repulse her.
“Herr von Francius,” said I, in a quick, low voice, making one step toward him, and laying my hand upon his arm, “leave us! If you do love us,” I added, in a whisper, “leave us! Adelaide, say good-bye to him—let him go!”
“You are right,” said von Francius to me, before Adelaide had time to speak; “you are quite right.”
A pause. He stepped up to Adelaide. I dared not interfere. Their eyes met, and his will not to yield produced the same in her, in the shape of a passive, voiceless acquiescence in his proceedings. He took her hands, saying:
“My lady, adieu! Heaven send you peace, or death, which brings it, or—whatever is best.”
Loosing her hands he turned to me, saying distinctly:
“As you are a woman, and her sister, do not forsake her now.”