Now, for the first time, he really understood everything.
The sorrow in his voice broke down the energy with which Fanny had hitherto restrained her tears, and they began to flow in streams down her beautiful face as she sank into an armchair.
Taking tenderly one of her pretty hands, Rudolf asked compassionately, "Why do you weep?"
But he knew well enough now why she wept.
"Why did you come here," inquired the lady in a voice trembling with emotion—she could control herself no longer—"when, day after day, I
have been praying God that I might never see you again? When I avoided every place where I might chance to meet you, why did you seek me out here? I am lost, for God has abandoned me. In all my life, no man's image has been in my heart save yours alone. Yet I had buried that away too, far out of sight. Why, why did you make it come to life again? Have you not observed that I fled every spot where you appeared? Did not your very arms prevent me from seeking death when we met together again! Ah, how much I suffered then because of you? Oh, why did you come hither to see me in my misery, in my despair?"
And she covered her face with her hands, and wept.
Rudolf was vexed to the soul at what he had done.
Presently Fanny withdrew the handkerchief from the Prayer-book, dried her streaming eyes, and resumed, in a stronger voice—
"And now what does it profit you to know that I am a senseless creature struggling with despair when I think of you? Can you be the happier for it? I shall be all the unhappier, for now I must deny myself even the very thought of you."