"No, dear Fräulein," he answered, "I only wished I had not spent my time over things so much more useless, before I took up that volume. And yet, who knows whether I should before have been capable of estimating the full value of the treasure entrusted to me."
She suddenly turned pale. "No," she murmured, "do not talk so, don't treat me like a silly child, to whom you must make pretty speeches, because you perceive my weakness and think you must spare or flatter me; it pains me--I've been used to different things from you."
"I know you're ill and need consideration," he replied in a trembling voice. "And yet, dear Leah, I've come to tell you something which will at any rate excite you, think what you please and answer as you may. Since I've read those pages, it has become evident to me that I've been groping about in the mist like a dreamer and not perceived a real happiness--the happiness of having found a soul, such as is revealed in those pages, never to lose it again!
"They've tried to part us, dear Leah," he continued with increasing agitation, while she lay with closed eyes and hands clasped upon her bosom, without any sign of life. "But it only served to unite our hearts more closely. We've both experienced how necessary we are to each other, how little qualified to cope with life alone. True, you'll doubt whether I've really missed you; nay I did not even realize it myself. I was enchained by a passion which like some diabolical enchantment, made me a stranger even to myself. I know not how much you know or suspect, dear friend. For the first time in my life I learned, a woman's power, and suffered keenly from it. It's over, Leah, the last trace of it has vanished. She's about to become another's wife, and I heard the news without the slightest heart-throb. Oh! Leah, those were terrible days! When I think that the result might have been different, that I might have been forever forced to bow to this power--a power which treated pride and freedom, all that was worthy and precious in life, as a toy, and rendered me almost unfeeling, even in the days of Balder's keenest sufferings--I shudder at myself and the danger I have escaped. But you ought to know, Leah, the weakness of the man who now comes to you and says: 'will you, can you, notwithstanding all that has happened, unite your life to mine? Can you give your soul to one who has already once lost his own, while both he and you, perhaps may never wholly overcome the smart of his servitude?'
"If you were to say no, Leah, I should understand why and be forced to bear the pain. I know that I was dear to you. You would have burned that book rather than have entrusted it to my care, if your heart had not resistlessly drawn you toward me. And yet, Leah, I should not think less of you if after the confession I have just made, your heart should draw back, your pride forbid you to be satisfied with that which I offer with this perfect candor. You've a right to expect and demand that the man to whom you give yourself will repay you for the treasure with such enthusiastic and passionate devotion, that even the thought that any other power could become dangerous to him, would never enter his mind. I, dearest Leah, am, as you see me, a fugitive, whose wounds are scarcely healed after a severe battle. I come to you because I know I can nowhere be safer, nowhere find a more inaccessible refuge than with you. What I feel for you--we've not yet come to Spinoza," he interrupted himself with a quiet smile, "so the phraseology of the schools is not familiar to you. He, the great philosopher, calls the feeling men have for that which he termed God--the absolute something which encompasses, does and wills everything--the exaltation of all emotions which follows when we become absorbed in the nature of this one and all, he calls 'intellectual love.' It's neither a jest nor a blasphemy, but the simple words of truth when I say that with such a love I love you, Leah! That blind, demoniacal passion, which is usually called love, has been washed out of my blood--I trust forever! What now lives in me is the happy consciousness that you're the best, purest, noblest creature that ever appeared on earth, the one being in whom my world is contained, and that the man whom you should love and to whom you consented to belong, would be the happiest of mortals!"
As he faltered the last words he knelt beside her couch, and taking her hands held them clasped in his, fixing his eyes upon her cool, slender fingers, unable to look her in the face. He remained for a long time absorbed in a blissful stupor; it was such a relief to have told her all, that he felt he scarcely feared her answer, although he was far from being sure of a favorable one.
She still remained silent. At last he grew anxious, looked at her, and instantly started up in alarm, for he could not doubt that she had fainted. He hastily seized a little bottle containing some powerful stimulant which he found on her table, and poured some on his handkerchief to rub her temples and restore the color to her pale lips. "Leah!" he exclaimed, "come to yourself again! Oh! do not punish me so fearfully for my thoughtlessness; oh, how could I, when I found you so ill--"
Her lips moved and she slowly opened her eyes. "Forgive me for alarming you, my beloved!" she murmured. "The happiness was too great--too sudden. But--I'm well again--I live--aye, I will live, now that I know, through you and for you--Edwin, is it possible!"
She raised her arm and timidly put it around his neck. He bent toward her face, now again glowing with blushes. "My wife!" he whispered. "You are mine! mine! mine! And so surely as I hope to be happy through you--" His lips, which met hers, stifled and sealed the vow of eternal love and constancy.