"Else!"
She started up with a stifled shriek.
"Else!"
And then she cried aloud—a cry of wild joy, which echoed strangely through the noiseless stillness—and she lay on his breast, clung to him, as one drowning.
"Reinhold! My Reinhold!"
She wept, she laughed, she cried again and again, "My Reinhold!"
Speechless for joy and astonishment at the precious miracle, he drew her to him upon the rock on which she had sat; she pressed her head upon his breast.
"I so longed for you!"
"Else, dear Else!"
"I had to come, I could not do otherwise; I was drawn hither by spirit hands. And now I have you, you! O never leave me again! Take me with you down to your house yonder. There is my home! With you! With you! Do not thrust me out again into the dreary, loveless, false world there behind me! Only with you is joy, rest, peace, truth, fidelity! O your dear, true heart, how it beats; I feel it! It loves me as I do you! It has yearned for me as my poor shattered heart has for you, for you!"