Now she was close behind him, and said in a low, bashful voice:
"Captain, I—"
He turned quickly, and gazed at her with eyes radiant with joy and intense love.
Eliza uttered a cry; she raised her hands involuntarily, made a step forward, and lay in his arms before knowing it; she felt his burning kisses on her lips, in her heart, and thought and knew nothing but— "It is he! It is he! I see him again! He still loves me!"
"See, dearest Eliza," whispered Ulrich, drawing her close to his heart, "I had to act thus in order to elicit your heavenly secret from you. I knew it was you who wished to see me; I wanted to take you by surprise, and I succeeded. Your surprise betrayed what the timid and chaste lips of my Eliza would not confess to me. Yes, you love me! Oh, deny it no longer, for your heart betrayed you when you recognized me, and when joy illuminated your face like a bright ray of sunshine. Now you are mine, Eliza, and nothing on earth must or shall separate us any longer. No, do not try to disengage yourself from my arms, my beautiful, sweet, affianced bride! I shall not leave you; even though the whole world should come to take you from me, I should not leave you—no, not for the whole world and all its treasures!"
"The whole world will not come," said Eliza, disengaging herself gently from his arms; "the world does not concern itself in the affairs of a poor peasant-girl like me. But I myself intend to leave you, sir; you must let me go, that we may converse in a sensible manner, as it behooves two decent young persons. Take your arms away, Captain von Hohenberg; it is not right in you to embrace me here while we are all alone. You would certainly be ashamed of it if any one should see you folding the peasant-girl to your heart."
"No, Eliza, I would not; I should fold you only the more tenderly to my heart, and exclaim proudly in the face of the whole world: 'Eliza Wallner, the peasant-girl, is my affianced bride; I love and adore her as the most faithful, noble, and generous heart; she is to become my wife, and I will love and cherish her all my life!'"
"And if you said so, the world would laugh at you; but your parents and my dear Elza would weep for you. Now, my Elza shall never weep on my account, and never shall your aristocratic parents be obliged to blush for the daughter-in-law whom you bring into their house. As a daughter-in-law I can never be welcome to them; hence, they could never be welcome to me as parents-in-law."
"Oh, Eliza, your beauty, your angelic purity and goodness would surmount their resistance, for no heart is able to withstand you; and when my parents are once acquainted with you, when they have submitted to stern necessity, they will soon love you, and fold you as a daughter to their hearts."
"But first they would have to submit to stern necessity, and I should have to be forced upon them, that they might afterward learn to love me. Much obliged to you, sir; I am only a peasant-girl, but I have my pride too, and will never allow myself to be forced upon a family, but will only take a husband whose parents would come to meet me affectionately, and give me, their blessing on the threshold of my new home. And now let us drop the subject, and tell me what has happened to you during our separation."
"You see, Eliza, what has happened to me," said Ulrich, mournfully. "After your divine magnanimity had set me free, I succeeded in passing through the insurgent country to the Bavarian lines and re- entered the service. We fought and suffered a great deal, and at length, on the 14th of August, I was made prisoner by the Tyrolese at the battle of Mount Isel and taken to Innspruck. However, they do not know my real name here, for I did not want the news of my captivity to reach my parents; I preferred that they should lament me as killed in battle, rather than as a prisoner in the hands of the insurgents. But fate decreed that it should be otherwise; I am no longer to be allowed to keep my mournful incognito; I am to repair to Munich to negotiate there an exchange of the prisoners for the hostages whom our troops carried off."